Even if she was drunk, at least Eliza had the good sense not to turn her phone off. After she’d hung up on Nash, he knew calling her back wouldn’t do any good. She hadn’t been this upset with him before, but he deserved every ounce of rage that little beautiful creature had to give him. He’d been an ass. A jealous, possessive, clingy ass who’d lost his shit on a perfect woman because he couldn’t control his own jealousy in the heat of the moment. Even as he took his first step away from her at the arcade, Nash had known he was making a mistake, but he kept on walking anyway—because that was the kind of asshole Nash Reeves was whenever he ventured anywhere close to a legitimate relationship.

 

Now she’d gone off with people she probably didn’t know very well to get really, really drunk, and it was all his fault. They should have been in bed together, her ass red from a paddling and her body relaxed from whatever number of orgasms he saw fit to let her enjoy. They shouldn’t have been out, Eliza at the Sandy Beach Nightclub on Tenth Street, a club famous for its behind-closed-doors coke deals, featured recently in the papers because a college girl was roofied and assaulted in one of the bathrooms. Nash shouldn’t have been gunning it down the taxi-ridden late night streets of downtown Blackwoods, worried out of his mind that he’d all but pushed her into some skeevy asshole’s arms while she drowned her sorrows in liquor.

 

She wasn’t the type to drink or party. He knew that. But apparently these new “friends” in her study group brought out a wilder side of Eliza, one that didn’t suit her, and all he wanted to do was make sure she was okay. He’d never be able to forgive himself if something happened to her tonight, even if it was that she drunkenly tripped over her own two feet and skinned her hands on the sidewalk. Nash wasn’t having any of it.

 

Creepy assholes installed tracking apps on their girlfriends’ phones—and tonight, Nash felt like one of those creepy assholes wholeheartedly. He’d installed it when her father wandered onto his perp radar, if only to track her movements when she said she was out with him. It wasn’t to track her movements, per se, but her father’s. Until now, he hadn’t even used it, but tonight it came in handy when she refused to tell him where she was. Once he found her, he planned to delete the app off his phone, not liking the way it made him feel when he used it.

 

Like a chump. Like a creep. Like a stalker. He didn’t want to be any of those things. Eliza deserved to live her fucking life however she wanted, but Sandy Beach was bad news for pretty girls, and her safety, somehow, had become his top priority that night.

 

If she had been anyone else, he would have let it go. Kept on watching TV. Had another beer or two. In fact, if she had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have fought with her about fucking James Holstein, manipulative professor extraordinaire, but he had. Nash had thrown a hissy fit like some pre-teen boy who discovered the girl he liked had a crush on someone else, and it made him sick.

 

Pathetic.

 

The only way he could make up for the shit he pulled tonight was to make sure Eliza was okay. If she didn’t want to leave with him, fine, but he was going to make damn sure no one caused her any trouble while she was out.

 

After parking his bike up the street and paying at the front door to get in, Nash pushed through the thick crowd of drunken idiots, eyes peeled for a familiar head of blonde hair. The whole place stunk of sweat and booze, the floor wet and sticky, and he couldn’t imagine Eliza wanting to be here sober. But true to his phone apps tracker, she was indeed there, sitting at the corner of a bar with her head in her arms, slumped over. When he eventually did spot her, more out of luck than anything, a jumpy panic lurched through him, shooting his heart into his throat as he shoved people out of the way to get to her. Preppy college kids called him an asshole or told him to fuck off as he made his way through, and normally Nash would have turned and addressed the situation, but he had tunnel vision for Eliza and Eliza alone.

 

Around him, no one else mattered.

 

“You here for her?” the bartender shouted as Nash approached her slumped form. When he nodded, the bartender gave a sigh and pointed for the exit. “Good. Otherwise they’d have to kick her out. Too drunk.”

 

“Yeah, thanks,” he growled, situating himself between Eliza and her barstool and the herd of teetering drunk girls trying to get the bartenders attention. Under his breath, he muttered, “Maybe if you’d stopped serving her, she wouldn’t have passed out.”

 

But then again, it probably wasn’t the bartender’s problem. She was a petite thing, no doubt a lightweight when it came to alcohol, and it shouldn’t have surprised him to find her like this.

 

It definitely made him hate himself just a little more, of course. Images of him and her back at her apartment flashed through his mind as he wrapped an arm around her slim waist and used the other hand to get her head up. Her eyes had been closed—maybe she’d fallen asleep—but once they were open, those vibrant greens radiated nothing but anger.

 

“No,” she grunted, pushing at his chest. “No. I’m having fun…”

 

Even though he would have been happy to hang back and just watch out for her from the sidelines, he couldn’t do that anymore—not with the way her speech slurred.

 

“I know you are,” he offered kindly, hoisting her up and pulling her away from the bar area. He couldn’t carry her out, but she needed support to stay on her own two feet. How much more had she had to drink since the end of their phone call and now? He hadn’t taken that long to get here.

 

“Leggo’m, Nash.”

 

“Your friends are moving the party somewhere else,” Nash told her, speaking softly in her ear as he wove her through the crowd. This time, people shifted out of the way somewhat, maybe realizing he wasn’t just another drunk dick with a devil-may-care attitude moving through the crowd. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”

 

“I’m…tired.”

 

“I know.” He was tired, too. Tired of feeling the way he did for her. Tired of caring. Tired of trying to pull away. It wasn’t fair to her. “Let’s go to bed.”

 

He had plans to pump her full of water once they were back at her place, then he’d spend the night watching to make sure she didn’t barf in her sleep. Fantastic.

 

Once they were outside, however, just as Nash was wishing he’d brought the car instead of the bike, all his good intentioned plans shot straight to hell. Halfway down the sidewalk, away from the huge line of people waiting to get into the club, a sleek black town car pulled up to the curb, and out of it strolled none other than Dean Darryl Truman.

 

Nash was so shocked that he actually staggered to a stop, his brow furrowed and mouth dropped open. Eliza straightened up at the sight of him too, leaning less on Nash now and tugging at her clothes.

 

“Daddy?”

 

“Don’t you take that tone with me,” he snapped. Although Nash had seen the dean before, he was still a strange little man in a number of ways. Wiry grey hair sat slicked down around his head, and while Eliza had his vibrant green eyes, the rest of her delicate beauty she seemed to have inherited from her mother. Darryl was all angles, sharp and crooked—menacing, in a certain light.

 

“What’re you doing—?”

 

“Get your hands off her,” the man barked as he brushed Nash aside and took Eliza away, a seemingly tight grip on her forearm. “Who are you, anyway?”

 

“I’m—”

 

“It doesn’t matter.” The dean cut him off with a roll of his eyes, then pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Whoever you are, you’re a poor influence on my daughter. I don’t want to see you around her again.”

 

“Daddy—”

 

“Looking like he’s straight out of one of those awful gangs,” Darryl spat, speaking over Eliza and looking Nash up and down as if he was nothing more than the dirt on the bottom of the dean’s very pricey leather shoes. “If I see you again, I’ll call the authorities.”

 

“Daddy, stop, he didn’t do anything,” Eliza cried, more clarity to her voice at last, though she was still a wobbly mess on her feet, like a baby deer on ice, as her dad dragged her to the awaiting car. Clearly the driver preferred not to dirty his hands.

 

“Enough from you.” He yanked open the door and pushed Eliza toward it. It broke Nash’s heart to see her trip over her own feet. “You know it was Claire who called me? Because her assistant saw you in your current state! My assistant’s assistant had to contact me! Look at the state of you!”

 

She had scrambled into the car during his rant, no doubt mortified, even as intoxicated as she was, at the scene he was making. Nash’s jaw clenched as he watched the whole thing play out, hands balled into fists.

 

“She’s just drunk,” Nash interjected in her defense. Drinking wasn’t a crime, after all. Everyone did it. Sometimes people went overboard—especially if someone they cared about pushed them. If anything, he ought to be angry with Nash. And he was, judging by the icy look the dean shot his way. He cleared his throat and quickly added a sir in there, if only to stroke the guy’s ego so that he wouldn’t take it out on Eliza as soon as the car door shut.

 

The older, slimmer man drew a breath as if to say something else, but then pressed his already thin lips together into an even thinner line. It was obvious, loud and clear, what he thought of Nash.

 

Blackwoods filth. Uneducated cretin.

 

Nash raised his chin as a challenge, but then exhaled deeply as the dean climbed into the car and slammed the door shut. The last thing he saw was the man’s enraged profile through the partially tinted windows as the car pulled away.

 

But before that, the last thing he heard was Eliza crying.

 

And that hurt worst of all.