Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(56)

Funny, that was exactly how he felt. Like he’d woken up from the best damn dream of his life and had no way of falling back to sleep to finish it. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Ben ground his molars together. “You sent my letter to Dean Mahoney. About Hon—Ms. Perribow.” He pointed to the notebook lying on the counter, way too close to the coffeemaker. “You’re the only one who had access to it. I want to know why.”

“I thought you wanted me to.” Peter threw up his hands, cursing when he splashed coffee on his jacket sleeve. “I saw the letter and thought maybe you hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to do it yourself. So I sent it in. I did you a favor.”

Ben had rounded a lunch table and advanced on Peter before he realized his feet were moving. His blood roared in his ears. No way. No way had he lost Honey over some stupid misunderstanding. Fate couldn’t be that cruel. But no. He’d written the letter either way, hadn’t he? He was just as much to blame here as Peter. It didn’t lessen the driving need to fix this for her, though. “You didn’t do me a favor, Peter,” Ben grated, barely holding on to the urge to punch the other man. “You did me the opposite of a favor, multiplied by one f*cking thousand. Okay? In the process, your taking the matter into your own hands might have cost a brilliant student her education. What the hell is wrong with you?”

It finally seemed to dawn on Peter that his actions might have had dire consequences. “So, you’re not grateful I sent in the letter?” Or maybe not.

“No. I’m not grateful.” Ben scrubbed his hands down his face, briefly upsetting his glasses. His chest hurt. Everything hurt. Nothing felt right, and he just wanted to be back, lying in that baseball field, dammit. He swallowed the massive knot in his throat. “I have a meeting with the dean in fifteen minutes. You’re coming with me.”

ONCE, DURING HIS parents’ messy divorce, Ben had acted out in school. A fellow third-grader had made a comment during recess about his father—his father who’d spent the week being crucified by the media—and Ben had slugged him. He could feel the crunch of nose cartilage under his fist. Could still remember how damn good it had felt to release frustration. Inflict pain on someone or something besides himself or his mother. Even sitting in the principal’s office afterward had been worth it. His bruised knuckles had felt like a badge of honor.

This? This was nothing like that. Ben and Peter sat across from Dean Mahoney in silence as he read the letter—the f*cking letter Ben wanted to burn and stomp on—what appeared to be several times, while not-so-inconspicuously checking out his refelctive head in his computer screen. Time stretched, and Peter began to crack his knuckles, sending Ben a little closer to the edge. How close could he get before he went over?

Finally, the dean set down the letter and leaned back in his chair. “Professor Dawson, you’re telling me this letter was turned in by mistake, and I understand that.” He nodded at Peter. “Signing a colleague’s name is not a wise practice, either, whether or not you believe you’re helping the situation.” His sharp gaze swung back toward Ben. “But you clearly wrote it, Professor Dawson. Did you not? These accusations are yours.”

“I did write it.” An image of Honey’s stricken face forced him to pause. “But it was a mistake. Ms. Perribow has done nothing wrong.” Nothing about our time together was wrong. None of it. Except the fact that it’s over. “If Peter thinks the student pursued me inappropriately, he was wrong, too.” Ben might have paid lip service to pushing Honey away, but he’d encouraged her in ways that counted. This belonged to both of them.

“Is that possible, Peter?”

Ben ground his teeth together when Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

Dean Mahoney sighed, picked up the letter again. “I like you, Professor Dawson. Your end-of-semester evaluations were the highest in the department. You have the fewest number of drops. I think you take the job seriously, as you should, and we need the new blood around here.” He shook his head, nearly blinding Ben as the fluorescent light glinted off its shiny surface. “But I can’t ignore this. Especially in the wake of Ms. Perribow missing classes over the last week. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. It speaks of a young girl trying to get your attention, as the letter you wrote implies. I appreciate you not wanting to cost a student her education, but I can’t ignore evidence when it’s right in my hand. That would be remiss.”

“I’m resigning.” The words fell from his lips so easily. He’d only planned to transfer to NYU because of Honey, but now that it had come to this, he realized he would have done it anyway to protect her. To make things right, he would do anything. “If this is how Columbia treats their students, putting them on trial when they haven’t even had a chance to defend themselves, this isn’t the right place for me. Especially when they’re lucky to have the student in question within their walls.” He leveled the dean with a look. “Consider this my notice. I’ll be leaving at the end of the semester.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dean Mahoney said. “You’re not being penalized here.”

I should be. It should be me. Could he say what came next? It could backfire. It might not even work, but without the dean’s agreement to reinstate Honey as a student and restore her financial aid, a noose was tightening around his neck. “I am serious.” Ben leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll miss a lot of things about this university. The traditions, the people. The library.” And here Ben was, subtly insinuating that he had material with which to blackmail the dean of a major university. No going back from here. “Have you noticed how . . . polished . . . the floors are in the library, Dean Mahoney? I swear someone must stay after hours and shine them every single night.” He dropped his gaze to the dean’s gold wedding ring. “Miss Woodmere, perhaps?”