Page 83 of The Forbidden Note

“What is inappropriate about this?”

“I would say there’s no reason for his hand to be on your back…” Harris baits me. He zooms in on where Zane’s hand is possessively pressing into my shirt. “Does this look appropriate to you, Miss Jamieson?”

“Zane Cross,” I lick my lips, “was being a gentleman.”

I almost choke on the word. ‘Zane Cross’ and ‘gentleman’ don’t belong in the same sentence.

“I believe you, Miss Jamieson. I do, but you can see how easily these things can be misconstrued.”

“I’m not following.”

“Rumors are… such a dangerous thing.” Harris pockets the phone and smiles, a dark show of teeth that sends alarm bells ringing in my head. “We’re a high profile school. We teach high profile students. Sons and daughters of congressmen, millionaires, celebrities. The public eye is constantly turning toward us, looking for their next story. Hungry for someone to fall off their pedestal.”

He forces a laugh. “I don’t want to see anyone knocked to the ground. Especially from our staff. You see, in these cases, students aren’t the ones who have to pay. It’s the teachers who lose everything. Pretty, young teachers like you fall the hardest.” He lifts a pen and lets it clatter on the table. “So easily shattered.”

For a moment, there’s silence.

I stare at the pen, watching it roll back and forth.

Finally, I ask, “Have you ever stacked dominos, Principal Harris?” I lean forward. “When one domino falls, the others go crashing down too. And the last to crash? That one falls harder than the rest.”

His lips twitch into a scowl.

I stare him down. “I don’t mind falling first, but I guarantee you that when one falls, there’s no stopping the rest.”

He laughs again. I can’t stand the braying, obnoxious sound of it.

“Why do I feel like that’s a threat, Miss Jamieson?” The smile is still on his face, but his voice is hard. He flexes a wrinkled fist around the rim of the desk.

“I’m just making an observation.”

Harris thumbs a finger over his nose and returns behind his desk as if he needs to sit in his fancy chair to feel powerful.

I get up. “Are we done here?”

It’s not a question as much as it is an announcement thatI’mdone.

My feet carry me to the door.

“You’ve been asking about what happened six years ago,” he says abruptly.

Inside, shock careens through me, but I arrange my face into a blank stare before turning around. I expected my investigation to get back to Harris. It would have been naive of me to think I could question Redwood Prep personnel without alerting the principal.

Harris frowns, his voice a cold whisper. “Let it rest.”

“And if I don’t?”

He waves the cell phone around. “I’ll have no choice but to investigate this matterfully.” A slow, victorious smile crosses his face. “And expose the results of that investigation to the school board and to the law.”

His tricks are the same.

It’s funny how he hasn’t changed.

“Go ahead,” I coo, and Harris looks at me like I’m crazy. He opens his mouth to spit another veiled threat when I lift a hand. “Let’s see if the board has a problem with me spending time with my step-brother.”

“Step-brother?”

The door suddenly bursts open.