Page 21 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

D ean Amara Jansen regarded me from behind her stately mahogany desk like I was a stain she’d just noticed on her ten-thousand-dollar Persian rug.

She was a thin woman, her dark-blonde hair a similar shade as her daughter’s, only she kept hers in a severe bob that barely cleared her chin.

She wore a pristine cream pantsuit, and her blood-red lipstick matched her nails.

“You know, Miss Miller,” she began, dragging her scrutinizing gaze from my messy ponytail down to my boots and back up again.

“I am proud of this Academy’s commitment to providing scholarships to a few worthy students who have the drive to make something of themselves in this City.

While there are, of course, challenges for a certain…

type of student attending Holywell, those here on scholarship are grateful to be here and understand what a life-changing opportunity this is. ”

She paused to dramatically shuffle some papers around on her desk, and because I still had a tiny, minuscule kernel of self-preservation left in me, I refrained from rolling my eyes.

“However.” Her sharp gray eyes snapped back to my face.

“It appears that you have decided to thumb your nose at the gift you’ve been given.

I’ve certainly heard rumblings of your behavior since the first day of the semester, but punching another student in the face is completely out of line and against our code of conduct.

” She mustered what I suspected she thought was a look of pity.

“I have no choice now but to expel you from Holywell. You will pack up your dorm room and be gone from campus by tonight.”

I released the breath I’d been holding. I rolled my head around my shoulders and cracked my neck a few times, then I looked the dean right in her haughty, Botoxed face as I pulled my phone from the pocket of my backpack where it sat next to my chair.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this, Dean Jansen,” I said conversationally, scrolling through my encrypted chat with Max.

“It is, indeed,” she huffed, irritated by my nonchalance. “And it appears your Holywell education meant even less to you than I’d thought.”

“Oh, no,” I replied, tapping on the link Max had sent me a few days ago. “My Holywell education means everything to me. I meant that it’s unfortunate that our beloved Academy’s code of conduct would see your daughter expelled too.”

I held up my phone, and the video that had been recorded by the laptop in the office at The Revelry—before I’d smashed its camera—began to play.

Harper’s nasally voice sounded from my phone’s speaker.

“… just a little livestream that we’ll make sure the Heirs have a link to, not that we don’t all know you’re slutty trash….” The video clearly showed me bleeding from the head while handcuffed to the radiator as Harper trotted in and out of the camera’s view.

I let the video roll on and watched with great satisfaction as the dean’s face began to flush with outrage.

“We’re not kidding, you dumb bitch! We’re going to make sure this key goes to someone with very flexible morals.”

“Enough!” the dean barked, pounding a bony fist on the top of her desk.

I pasted on a confused expression. “Did Harper not let Mom in on what really happened at the Academy’s fall party?”

The video continued to play as Donavan walked in and spewed his nasty shit. The feed cut out, and I pocketed my phone before giving the dean a look that said, “Your move, bitch.”

“You will hand that video over to me at once.”

Sure, lady .

“I will be happy to email a copy to your school address,” I replied.

“I will also be emailing a copy to a lucky friend of mine from Southside who is currently interning at City News One. I know that you high-level families have your ways of making these things go away, but it’ll be pretty rough once the video is out there, you know? ”

“Shut up , you little?—”

“I mean, even if there were no legal consequences for, you know, assault, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment, etc., because, let's be honest, I’m sure that’s an easy one to just flash some cash at to make disappear.

And even if Harper wasn’t expelled from Holywell because, well, you’re the dean, so that’s silly…

. But if this got out, it could still be a little troubling for the Jansen reputation.

That would be an annoying blemish on her case to be the perfect candidate for the future Mrs. Spencer, don’t you think? ”

Dean Jansen glared at me, murder in her eyes and her fist clenched around her Montblanc pen.

“Or, you know,” I went on. “I could continue to keep this to myself. I don’t love how my hair looks all matted with blood like that, anyway.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “You’ve made your point. In lieu of expulsion, you will receive a written conduct warning in your file.” She spun in her chair, grabbing her phone from next to her computer before she began furiously jabbing at it with her thumbs. “Show yourself out.”

“Appreciate it, thank you,” I said brightly, standing and throwing my backpack over my shoulder. “Let Harper know I said no hard feelings.” I was sure it was her that the dean was currently rage-texting, probably to bitch her out for being dumb enough to put her crimes on video.

I’d had enough bullshit for one lifetime already, so I exited the dean’s office, ready to hole up in my room for the rest of the day.

Except as soon as I entered the hallway, I collided with a tall, broad chest outfitted in the finest bespoke Tom Ford money could buy.

“Going somewhere?” Bennett asked, catching me in his firm grip before I could bounce off him and into the wall.

Why was Bennett Spencer always touching me?

“Unhand me, Spencer.” See? I was going to nip this in the bud right away for once.

Except that I yet again underestimated how quick he was, and before I knew it, he’d manhandled me into a quiet corner of the deserted hallway a few feet away from the dean’s door.

He released my arms but stood close, blocking my exit with his big body. I craned my neck to glare up at him, the tall bastard, and I watched as he carefully studied me with those mossy green eyes.

“You don’t look like someone who just got expelled,” he mused, his gaze roving over my face, kicking my pulse up a few notches. “Or have you been lying about how much you actually wanted to be here?”

“Why are you in my personal space again, Bennett?” I fired back. “Or have you been lying about how much you actually hate me?”

Undeterred, he stepped even closer, placing his hands on the wall on either side of my head, caging me in.

And I continued to stand there and let him because I liked it .

“Answer my question,” he demanded, his voice a low, sensual husk.

“You didn’t ask me a question,” I replied, or purred, really, because I’d lost my mind.

He smirked, reminding me so much of Zach, before leaning in to nuzzle at my neck, and the eruption of butterflies in my stomach nearly knocked me off my feet.

He breathed me in, his rough cheek grazing my sensitive skin, and then he whispered in my ear, “Do you need help packing up your dorm room? Or are you a Southside cliche whose meager possessions only fit into one bag?”

“Two bags, actually,” I replied, caving to the urge to touch him now by running my fingers through his perfectly styled brown hair while he—holy shit—sank his teeth into the shell of my ear. I bit back a moan, fisting his hair with a rough tug.

“I see,” he said, releasing my ear and dragging his lips down the side of my neck. “Then it sounds like you should be gone in a few hours, then.”

I was tempted to let this charade go on—I really was. Because other than my dancing with Zach at The Revelry, I’d never been so turned on in my life, and I was pretty sure Bennett would be down to fuck me right here in this hallway if he thought he’d never have to see me again.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I murmured, releasing my grip on his hair and copping a quick feel of his muscular bicep through his suit jacket. “If I was just another casualty of Holywell’s elite, washed out because I was so undeserving of the generosity of the Four Families?”

He finally removed himself from the crook of my neck, leaning back to look into my face again, suspicion now clouding his heated gaze.

It was my turn to smirk. “You should probably warn your future fiancé that recording her crimes is a dumb move, no matter how untouchable she thinks she is.”

He stepped away from me in a flash, putting some much-needed distance between us, the meaning of my words instantly clear to him.

“You have the video,” he said, back to being cold and distant.

“I have the video,” I confirmed.

“You threatened the dean.”

“I absolutely threatened the dean.”

He huffed out a frustrated sigh, running his hand through his hair, which was still a little messy from my fingers—I liked that. “Have you lost your mind? You cannot come into Holywell Academy, put your middle finger up at its traditions, punch Lisa Aviano in the face?—”

“I will remind you that she broke a bowl over my head first and gave me a concussion ?—”

“—and threaten the dean with nothing behind you but your bad attitude.”

I scoffed. “I clearly have more tricks up my sleeve than you’re giving me credit for. And you forgot that I also take no shit from the Heirs .”

“That too,” he growled. “We do not have the time nor the desire to continue to deal with you.”

“I have never asked you three assholes to deal with me ,” I hissed.

“In fact, you all need to leave me the fuck alone. I didn’t ask Zach to run my friend off and dry hump me on the dance floor in front of the whole school.

I didn’t ask Noah to keep me after class and then stick his hand in the back pocket of my jeans?—”

“What—”

“And I certainly didn’t ask you to ambush me in this hallway and put your mouth on me!” I was nearly shouting by then, thankful that most of the staff who officed on this hall had gone for the day.

Bennett crossed his arms, glaring down at me, and he didn’t speak for a long, tortuous minute while I returned his stare, refusing to cower or wilt under it.

He may have had regrets about what had happened here between us now that he knew I wasn’t being expelled, but I didn’t, and I sure as shit wouldn’t be made to feel like it was somehow my fault.

“Fine,” he said coolly. “Enjoy the rest of your semester.”

He turned on his heel and stalked off. I finally released the last of the tension I was holding in, sagging back against the wall as I watched him go.

Then I smiled. I’d won this round, and I had faith that I only had a few more days to wait before I won another one.