Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 19

Divya sits at the foot of Alex’s bed, painting my toenails a deep purple. Maybe matching your nails to your bruises is a trend I’ll start.

“I’m so sorry I believed you killed your roommate.”

“No, I get it. The alternative was believing I got into bed with the son of Cain Green.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t imagine you doing that, but…”

But I’m in his bed now. I understand her confusion, because I don’t really know what I’m doing here, either. I sleep well here. Alex put an extra lock on the door for me. I have a toothbrush here. And he has a bath in his bathroom.

“It’s complicated with him, I…I don’t know.”

Her eyebrows wiggle. “But how is it?”

“We haven’t.” I feel my cheeks flame. “I’ve never been with anyone.”

“Neither have I,” says Divya on a sigh. “My father will never forgive me for being asexual.”

“Maybe he’ll come around.” I fiddle with the bandage on my hand, oddly nervous. “I’ve put normal things on pause for a long time. I haven’t worried about boys or panicked over my appearance or gone clothes shopping in forever.”

“You do kind of need a new wardrobe. Or maybe just one item of clothing that isn’t brown.”

My bruised fingers pick at lint on the blanket. “You sound like Alex.”

“Maybe he’s not that bad. His life is kind of thrust into the spotlight against his will. He doesn’t seem like his father. And he can draw, and he plays rugby. And he’s in great shape, and he has a big dick.”

I choke on my own inhale. “You’ve seen it?” I don’t know why I’m praying she says no. I have no right to be this possessive over someone I keep saying I don’t want.

“There was this whole thing last year. He went running in Central Park in gray shorts. Google ‘Alex Corbeau-Green Viral Gray Shorts.’”

“Uhh…no, thank you.”

“Your loss.”

“Is he paying you an hourly wage to say this?”

She laughs, sending a smudge of purple over my toe. “Yeah. How’d you think I paid for my new car? He’s got a lot on his plate, and he seems like he treats his family well, is all I’m saying.”

I breathe out a long sigh and drop my head against his giant pillows. “I know, but it won’t work with him. I’ll either have to swallow the fact his father let that helicopter go down and get over it, or I’ll have to make his family the subject of a huge media storm. He wouldn’t forgive me for that.”

“He might.”

“And I’ve not been honest with him; I’ve not told him about my parents, or that I only came here to ruin his home life.”

“I’m not sure he has much of a home life left to be ruined.”

“He does. He has his sisters.”

“Maybe it’s just not meant to be. You’ll replace someone else.” She hides her smile. “Anyone but Shawn Miller.”

I rub my palms down my reddening cheeks as she switches over to my other foot. “I have bad taste. I’ll need to strike the balance between the poster boy for investment banking and the spawn of Satan.”

Even if the spawn of Satan has a voice that gives me goose bumps and eyes that could burn me to ashes.

Between Divya, Vincenzo, and Colette, no one has left my side since I woke up the day after Alex found me on the bank of the tarn. Even Belladonna has been by to check on me. I keep pinching myself to check if this is real. In some twisted, strange way, it feels like having a family.

Three days, a mild chest infection, and two broken fingers later, I don’t feel much stronger than I did when I lay in the shallows of the water.

All I can remember is him.

The warmth of him. The desperation in his voice as he begged me to wake up, and the desperation I felt when I couldn’t open my eyes for him. The feel of his lips against mine. Not erotic, but primal. One body breathing life into another.

And then the way he ran the hairbrush through my hair in the bathtub. The way it filled an aching hole in my chest, a desperate need to be cherished.

And the way he spoke about his mother. I’ve cried about it since. It made my compassion for her swell, but it has made my hatred for his father burn so much hotter.

Nothing scorches like the self-loathing, though. The crushing guilt that under the soft moonlight, lying between his sheets, Alex opened up to me in a way that no one ever has, and that I fed him a string of half-truths in return.

I don’t know what he sees in me, but I can’t accept his love.

I feel so deeply. I always have. Every emotion that runs through me goes through an amplifier on the way in. The tiny inconveniences feel like mountains, the annoyances become insurmountable wrath. I cry at charity adverts, laugh at dogs in the park. I can’t watch someone feel blue and not let it stain me too.

My mind is a chaotic blend of too many colors, too bright, too busy, too loud. The color red threads its way around all the others.

Mike’s dying confession is on an MP3 file on my laptop. It only took three hours of angry crying over the instruction manual to manage it. It sits at the base of four years of evidence, of deleted articles and whispers of corruption at Green Aviation. Rumors of decay that start at the very top and drip their way through boardrooms and into the shop floor below. Four years of sleepless nights, and Laura’s tape is the bow that ties it all together.

I wish I had that folder from the red box, but more than that, I wish I knew what to do.

Alex left during that first night, after his sister rang him to say no one had come to her ballet. He’s been radio silent since. Perhaps he’s honoring my request for space. I’m grateful, but I wish it didn’t ache.

I watch him shave slivers of himself off each time that phone rings. It’s a miracle there’s anything left.

The mattress dips as Divya sits back on her heels. “All done!”

I wiggle my toes and smile. They’re pretty. “Thank you.”

“Hey.” She grasps my hand. “We’re going to catch him. And when we do, Colette will jam a stiletto in his eye.”

“I hope so.” I squeeze her hand tighter. I’m so grateful for them all. So grateful to have friendships, contacts in my phone, borrowed clothes in my drawers. “Thank you for staying with me, I mean it. And I’m really sorry about…everything. I’ve been a mess. My career dreams are abandoned, I’m scared to go swimming, and I’m not even sure what to do with my report on Cain.”

“There is no shame in changing your priorities. You can forget the report for now, see where things go with Alex, or replace someone else entirely.” She stands, armed with a marker and sticky notes, and returns to the evidence wall we started earlier. Every possible stalker is mapped out, complete with drawings that made us laugh so hard we nearly died. If Carmichael saw my attempt at drawing him, he’d expel me.

Under Carmichael’s likeness, keeping Ophelia trapped here is scribbled out. I got a signed letter from the chancellor, waiving all tuition fees should I choose to quit. It’s a relief, but it also triggers an alarm bell somewhere in the back of my mind. If he is my stalker, would he be so willing to let me go?

Every time I think I’m sure, I start to doubt myself. Part of me wants to ask Alex for help, and the other half would rather drown. Again.

I can’t stop thinking about him.

What are his visits back home like?

Divya attempts to draw Shawn Miller, the distance between his eyes approximately the length of a football field. “What is that?” I screech, pointing to what looks like a dick hanging off his top lip. My bruised ribs ache with every sob of laughter.

She folds over, snorting so violently that both her hands land on the floor. I think we’re both past the point of sanity. “His nose! I’m a medic, okay? I can’t draw or write.”

A door sounds at the end of the hallway. Footsteps approach, heavy and slow. Shit. Isn’t he in New York?

Alex’s broad frame fills the doorway, eyes scanning the wall of nightmare-inducing caricatures. If I look tired, he looks exhausted. His black shirt is undone at the top, tucked into black slacks, and a belt at his tapered waist. His hair is longer, messier than when I first met him, damp from the rain outside. His sculpted lips are parted, slightly breathless. He drops his heavy bag at his feet, both hands grabbing the frame above the door.

He’s a masterpiece. A culmination of the universe’s finest work.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Uh…brainstorm,” I blurt out, like someone who has never interacted with another human before.

“I was just leaving,” says Divya, sticking a dick-nosed Shawn Miller on my forehead.

Alex looks like he’s too spent to ask questions, stepping inside and tossing his car keys onto the desk.

I lock the door behind Divya, gathering my books from the bed. “Sorry, I’ll go back to my room. I just…I thought you were still in the States.”

He pulls the yellow sticky note from my forehead and peers down at it. “Shawn Miller.”

“What?”

“It really captures how much of a wanker he is.”

I bite my lip to contain my smile. I heard a rumor that Alex beat the shit out of Miller in the Nightshade gym. He sticks it back on the wall and cracks the arch-shaped window beside his desk. The cherry of the cigarette tucked between his lips smolders as he lights it. His eyes glow yellow above the flame. “Why haven’t your parents visited?”

My hands pause where they pack up my things to leave. “What?”

“You were five minutes from death, and they’ve not come to see you.”

“It’s complicated. They’re…not around to visit me.”

He smokes in silence, free hand in his pocket as he stares out the window. I’m not sure if he’s waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t. Telling Alex about the reason I came here feels like my final resignation; confirmation I’ve given up.

As always with him, I wonder what runs through his mind. He keeps his emotions so buried; I’d kill to know just one of them. I get the impression the inside of his mind is not a good place to be.

The strong cords of his forearms flex as he stubs the cigarette out on an ashtray. The air is thick with words neither of us want to say and actions we both know we shouldn’t take. I press my thighs together and force myself to look away.

He paces over to where I sit at the edge of the bed, each of his legs landing either side of mine. I shudder, wondering how he can make me feel so naked without ever touching my clothes. I hold my breath and shake my head. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t kiss me.”

He cocks an eyebrow, walking his hands over the bed until I’m lying on my back and he’s hovering over me. “No? And why not?”

He smells of smoke and bourbon and something that’s just so Alex. The solid curve of his chest brushes mine on his next inhale. Bloody hell. What is a girl meant to do? His scent clings to the sheets, his heat caresses my skin. I need out before I do something stupid. “It’d probably be a letdown, anyway. Too much anticipation.”

A soft pair of lips brush my cheek. “Oh, but I think the anticipation would make it even sweeter.” They trace the lobe of my ear. “Even more satiating.” They replace the sensitive skin of my neck. His voice is a husky grumble. “Did you miss me?”

Yes.

I ignore the question, but I only feel his wicked grin widen against my throat. “Did you miss me, Ophelia?”

I shuffle my body against his, regretting it instantly. We both let in a sharp exhale as the hard muscles of his thigh brush the soft inside of my own.

I’m being suffocated by my own treacherous desire.

He pulls away, verdant eyes gazing down at me with a tender expression that scares me and nurtures me all at once. “One down. Seven letters. First letter O. I’ve had a long day, and I want her for dinner.”

Holy fuck.

He says the last sentence so hungrily that it makes me drag my knees up to try to put distance between us.

It doesn’t work.

The two people stuck inside me can’t decide what they want anymore. Make sweet, gentle love! screams one. Let him break your bed! shouts the other.

Traitors.

I let my lashes drift shut and pretend the hand that carefully skirts around the bruises on my neck belongs to anyone but him. “Two across. Eight letters. First letter A. The quality of being unpleasantly proud.”

“You think I’m arrogant?”

I think he’s one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. “Yeah.”

“Tell me you missed me.”

I look back up at him, at the hunger in his gaze. “I’d rather choke you.”

His eyes smolder, lips part. “You could’ve told me that was an option.”

I run my fingers down his back over the crisp fabric of his shirt, feeling the ridges and dips beneath. It’s a new world to me. He’s a new world to me. I breathe out a curse and let my limbs flop down to the bed, coming to my senses.

“You got selective hearing, sugar?”

I laugh at the nickname, stroking my chin as if deep in thought. “Yeah, and…oh man. It looks like you’ve not been selected. Good luck next time, though.”

“You’re a fucking nightmare, Winters.” He lowers from his hands to his forearms, his body flush against mine. I grasp the bedsheets tighter, breaths coming shorter.

God, I want this.

“What’s stopping you?” he asks, eyes suddenly sincere. His fingers interlace at the top of my head, his elbows by my ears, caging me in. I’m hyperaware of the weight of him, the heat of him on top of me.

I’ve never felt like this before. It’s not just desire. It’s more.

“It’s complicated.”

He drops his head down to my neck in a way that’s so endearing, so un-Alex, that an embarrassing whimper escapes me. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll replace it and I’ll fix it for you.”

“Can you fix the fact that I don’t like you?”

He doesn’t call me out on my lie, instead tapping my phone screen beside us to see the time. 4:32 p.m. “Like me until five. Then we can go back to before.”

I want to believe that there’s some alternate universe where he and I could be together. Where it wouldn’t matter that his father killed my parents and that I made it public. Where his sisters could forgive me, and I could look at him and not see his father, or helicopters, or endless NDAs.

I wrap my hands around his arms to push him away, but they linger there, momentarily mesmerized by the feel of another life beneath my fingers. For so long they’ve known inanimate things. It’s been an age since they’ve felt the buzz of a pulse, the soft way that skin dips under pressure, the way that a current of warmth seems to flow through the points of contact between us, thawing my insides.

To feed the starving loneliness inside me, I selfishly let myself touch him. I undo another button of his shirt and run my fingers over his chest, feeling the heart that beats for everyone except himself. He lifts his head, tracking every small movement of my fingers like he can hardly believe they’re real.

I press his forehead against mine and close my eyes. I want to lose myself in him. Just once. One last time. I almost give in. But no—it’s kinder this way, for him and for me.

“No,” I whisper. “I just can’t.”

He rolls off me immediately and shuts his eyes as if in pain. “Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

A ragged growl fills the air between us. “I hate that fucking word.”

“It’s the only word for it.”

“I don’t see how it’s complicated.” He scrubs his face in his hands. “Do you want me or do you hate me? You can’t do both. You can’t have both. It’s not possible. In a world full of complicated, Ophelia, my feelings for you are extremely simple.”

“Things aren’t black and white. Not for me.”

He looks defeated, like somehow it’s his fault that I’m not happy here. I long to wrap my arms around him and tell him that he’s doing fine and that he’s doing enough. But it’s not my place.

He’ll replace someone right for him. Someone who can love him without complication. Someone capable of emotions that aren’t tainted by anger. Someone else will know the feeling of his body against theirs. The thought makes me feel unwell. And then the fact that the thought makes me unwell makes me feel even sicker.

I have to get out of here before I’m in too deep. “We can be friends?” I offer, to assuage my guilt. I cringe as soon as I say it. It sounds dumb, and neither of us wants to be friends.

“Friends who fuck each other’s brains out?” he offers, like it’s a business negotiation.

“Friends who say hi in the hallway.”

His smile lightens the mood, tone unserious. “Friends who fuck in the hallway?”

I decline his compromise, but it does make me laugh. He looks around the room as if searching for a distraction. “Can I borrow your laptop?”

“What for?”

“I want to track the emails you’ve had. See if I can replace anything out.”

I take my laptop from my bag and log in, closing the open document before he gets a chance to see. Guilt pangs in my stomach.

He takes the laptop and plugs it into his own on the desk, opening the bottom drawer. He tugs out a few more cables.

My eyes land on the brown folder at the bottom of the drawer.

The folder from the red box.

The folder I’ve been looking for.

“What’s that?”

He shuts the drawer and locks it. “Just a folder.”

My voice is strained, but he doesn’t notice. “You strike me as an electronic sort of guy.”

He snorts, logging into his laptop. Some sort of code appears on the screen. “I am. It’s just work stuff for my father.”

Work stuff. Is that what the crash was? Work stuff? Did Alex know it was going to happen?

He hits Enter on his keyboard. “Give it a couple of minutes.”

“You’re not stealing all my files, are you?” I ask, half joking.

Maybe a little less than half.

He steps into the small kitchenette and pours hot water into a cafetière and a mug, chucking a teabag in the mug for me. He sets it on the desk in front of my fidgeting hands. I whisper an inaudible thank-you. This all feels too familiar, too homely. “Yeah, I’m really desperate to read your Lord of the Rings fanfiction.”

“Shut up. You don’t even know who Gandalf is.” And that was one time when I was eleven, and technically Thranduil is in The Hobbit.

Why is that folder in his drawer?

He puffs his chest, fiddling with the spaghetti of wires in front of us. How do people just know how to do these things? “Yes, I do. It’s the kingdom with the men.”

“That’s Gondor. I swear you do this stuff to annoy me.”

He leans over my shoulder and types something on my laptop. His voice is low and gruff in my ear. “I thought that was the hot guy?”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “That’s Aragorn.”

“What? Isn’t that the spider in Harry Potter?”

I shake my head and give up. He stifles a yawn, sitting back down at the desk that now looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. “Let’s take a look at the IP address and device info.”

“You can see an IP address from an email?”

“Surprised you even know what one is.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

“Ophelia, you don’t even know what a page break is. You just hit Enter fifteen times. I spent the whole coursework deleting them all. If a caveman were here, he’d say you were even shitter at technology than him.”

“If a caveman were here, he’d probably say oog or ugg.”

His laugh stokes a fire in my chest. The skin beneath my tights sizzles where it brushes against his thigh. I nibble my thumbnail, trying to ignore the way he’s gazing down at me.

Why has he got the folder?

He turns his focus back to his screen. “They were sent here at Sorrowsong, from a laptop and not a phone.”

“How’d you know?”

“I’ll teach you.” His large hand wraps around the leg of my chair, pulling me closer to his side. The move leaves me weak at the knees. “From this top line here. Does the name mean anything to you? Alan Sine?”

I shake my head. I could tell him the truth, but then he’d know my mother’s name. He’d probably be able to figure out she worked here. He’d probably be able to figure out she died here, too.

I’m an awful person.

Whatever this stalker has planned for me, I deserve it.

I cannot have Alex and not tell him my past. I can’t be with him and tear his family into two like I always dreamed I would. The two can’t exist together.

If I want him, I have to come clean.