Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(30)

Yes. It had. He could still remember the day he saw his father’s picture on the news. Although this time it hadn’t accompanied news of a trade or some highlight from last night’s football game. It had been him being brought up on statutory rape charges. The parents of the girl had pressed charges. Right after the news had broken, his father had assured him in his cocky, offhanded way that their family would be fine. That the girl had lied about her age and it would all come out in the wash. Then endorsement deals had started to fall through. Cars had started disappearing from their driveway. The Patriots had elected not to offer his father a new contract. Ben had been young, but as an adult he could look back and know what it had all meant.

His mother had seen the writing on the wall early and hired a lawyer, making sure she got her share of the money before it all went away. She’d been married one other time since then, to another wealthy man Ben had only met on a handful of occasions before they’d divorced. Her funds were seemingly unlimited, her social calendar full, but Ben knew she was lonely.

His father had thrown away everything in a moment of weakness. Hurt his wife. Lost everything he’d ever worked for. Years later, the girl admitted in the press that she had in fact lied about her age, going so far as to show her father a fake ID that had conveniently disappeared before charges had been filed. Nothing excused his father’s actions. Nothing. Not even the girl’s deception.

DECEPTION. DECEPTION. JUST like Honey pretending she didn’t know him that night in the closet. Openly seducing him even though she knew what it could cost him.

Ben had no idea how long he sat there, taking the bottle his mother passed him and drinking deeply. Eventually, she closed her eyes and passed out on the couch, her eye makeup smeared by her tears. He threw a blanket over her and grabbed his satchel off the bookcase, taking it to the kitchen, where light from an outside streetlamp shined in through the window. Peter’s advice from earlier filtered in through his whiskey-drunk state, making more and more sense as it lapped around his head.

Head it off at the pass. Be up front and write a formal letter to Dean Mahoney, letting him know a student has shown interest in you. That way, if blondie ever claims you harassed her, you’ve already been honest. It will count in your favor.

Could he do something like that? Did he have a f*cking choice? He’d vowed to himself as a child and again as a man that he would never end up like his father. That he would never let his judgment be clouded by a woman. But he’d done it. Barely one year into his career as a professor, and he’d already broken his word. How could he respect himself if he left himself wide open for the same result? No. No, he had to avoid the same fate at all costs. He’d be damned before he ended up like his father, living in a halfway house somewhere in California. No contact with his family. Not a dime to his name because he’d let it be taken away. That wouldn’t be Ben.

Ben pulled the notebook out of his bag that was usually reserved for lesson plans. He flipped it open with one hand while nabbing a pen with the other. And he started to write.




Dean Mahoney,

I’m writing to you about a matter of great importance.

Ben dropped his head forward. He sounded like a Victorian novel. Just keep going. Change it later.

One of my students, Ms. Honey Perribow, has taken an apparent romantic interest in me. Normally, I find it relatively easy to ignore these inconvenient situations until they run their due course, but she has actively pursued me. Aggressively, in some cases. To the point where I no longer feel she is capable of processing my polite and repeated rejections. I have no interest in any of my students, especially the student in question, beyond teaching them and giving appropriate grades.

He dropped the pen to remove his glasses. His head was suddenly pounding, as if he’d fast-forwarded to the hangover portion of this drinking process. Writing this letter felt infinitely wrong. They were lies. When had he become a liar on top of being a rule breaker? His stomach burned, the whiskey turning to lava and spreading to his limbs. Almost done. He picked up the pen again.

I no longer feel capable of handling this situation on my own. The longer it goes on, I worry that Ms. Perribow may grow even more insistent that there is a romantic connection between us when that is simply not the case. While I’m not requesting you take any active steps against the student, I would ask that you put it on record as a preemptive explanation on my behalf. Thank you.

Prof. Ben Dawson

After taking one final pull from the whiskey bottle, Ben shoved the notebook back into his bag and walked unevenly to his bed, Honey’s tinkling laugh echoing in his skull.





Chapter 11



IT WAS FRIDAY night. Honey should have been out raising hell. Letting the slightly older Roxy and Abby buy her drinks in a bar that didn’t card at the door. She should have put on something sexy, like a . . . a sequined romper and paired it with lipstick several shades too dark for her complexion. That’s what she should have been doing. Instead, she was sitting on the roof, staring out over the Manhattan skyline, dumping Pixy Stix into her mouth. A bona fide party animal.

Two days had passed since her classroom conga with Ben, and she’d heard nothing from him. On a personal level, at least. She hadn’t known what to expect from him in class this morning, but it had fallen firmly on the less desirable end of the spectrum, to put it mildly. He hadn’t looked at her once. Not once. She’d sat in the middle row, same as last time, careful to put some distance between herself and Todd, but her Monster Energy drink chugging classmate had lumbered over and plopped down beside her anyway. She thought she’d seen Ben flinch at that point, but when his gaze didn’t find her once for the remainder of the hour, she decided she must have imagined it.