Page 50 of Loved

"But why would those girls lie? Why would they say you did that?"

"I don't know."Probably because the detectives were pushy and promised them an A in the class like they’d promised you your scholarship back.

"And in the exact same way? How would they have known that if it wasn't something that you just do to tons of students?"

"Is that really what you think?" This conversation wasn’t going well. And I had the vague thought that I probably shouldn’t be drinking.

"I don't want to think that. But..."

"But you do?"

She didn’t respond. She just stared at me.

Breathe.But it was a lot easier to lash out than breathe slowly. Especially when she was accusing me of this stupid shit when I’d made my feelings for her perfectly clear. "You think I gave my prettiest female students bad grades in hopes that they'd come to my office hours? So that I could get them alone and then what? Bargain with them toimprove their grades? I didn't bargain with you, Penny.Youkissed me.Youasked me to punish you. I can get any girl I want. I don't need to make deals with immature college students to suck me off. I'm not desperate."Yeah, I really shouldn’t be drinking.

"Then why are you dating me?" she asked.

"Because I love you."

"You can have any girl you want, James. Maybe you should go try to find someone a little more mature. You know, someone who isn't a college student."

For fuck’s sake."That's not what I meant." My hands were gripping the countertop so hard that my knuckles were turning white. I liked her anger better when it had been directed at the detectives.

"It's what you said, James."

I took a deep breath and ran my hand through my hair. "I don't understand why you believe them over me. I just need you to believe me. I need to know that you trust me." Why did our fights always seem to come back to the issue of trust? Why did she always purposely push my buttons? If she wanted angry makeup sex, we could have stopped this conversation five minutes ago and just jumped to the good part.

"I do trust you,” she said.

"Okay."

She glanced down at my shot glass and then back at me. "Should you really be drinking that?"

I raised my eyebrow. "Should you?"

"No, probably not." She gave me a small smile.

Yeah, me either.I leaned against the counter and looked down at her. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear. The tabloid you read that interviewed my ex-wife, these detectives...they have other motives. I don't want to fightwith you every time something like this happens. And it happens more than I'd like. It comes with the territory."

"The rich, successful, eligible bachelor territory?"

"Minus the eligible bachelor." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm taken."

She smiled at me. "I'm sorry. The detectives just made it seem like they were so sure that you had done it."

"I mean, if you were told you had to make up a story about your male professor doing inappropriate things, wouldn't you just automatically go to sexual favors in exchange for good grades? It's not even clever."

"Right. So they're lying. But why?"

"Maybe they hated me? I could be rather distracted in class. Sometimes I was so focused on you that I'm pretty sure I was an awful professor." Half my classes in Comm deviated from my lesson plans because I’d get so focused on the beautiful redhead in the back row making sex eyes at me.

"I don't think anyone hated you. Especially in Comm. At least all the girls loved you. Oh." She looked up at me. "Maybe they're just jealous you didn't choose them. Maybe they think you'll notice them now?"

"By dragging my name through the mud? Smart."

"Well, I don't know. I'm not them." She closed the distance between us and put her hands on either side of my face. "I'm sorry I doubted you."

I slid my hands to the small of her back and pulled her even closer. "If a bunch of pricks in suits told me that you had been doing stuff behind my back, I think my reaction would have been a lot worse than yours."

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