Guilty Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 1) (2 page)

My mouth did an impression of a gold fish while my brain screamed with the shame of it all.

Officer Hotness picked up a pair of granny knickers wrapped around a framed photo of Ben. "Anything we can do to help, miss?"

I whimpered, "Just let me die."

His perfect teeth smiled cruelly. "Not before I write out your citation. I'll need your license, registration and your campus address and phone number."

Plastic Princess tapped him on his shoulder and he turned away from me. I took the opportunity to collapse like a fairy tale damsel in distress and was promptly ignored by Officer Hotness as he stared at Plastic Princess. While they made eyes of lust at each other I frantically squelched around on my hands and knees following the river of panties and hoping they'd forget about me.

Plastic Princess snatched the photo of Ben from Officer Hotness and glared at it. I swear her eyebrows back flipped in mock surprise. The corners of her permanent pout curled up and she howled.

"He's so wasted on you. Did you cut him out of a Mail Order catalog? Or did he leave you when he discovered your hot knickers?"

I felt my skin melt off my bones. Was it that obvious Ben left me when I refused to give up my virginity in the back seat of my Rust Bucket? A girl's got to have standards, right? Even if standards left her with nothing but her own fingers to satisfy her needs, night after endlessly long and lonely night.

"OMG."

Plastic Princess seemed to spontaneously clone herself. She was instantly surrounded by a look-a-like convention, shielding her with mini umbrellas.

"Girls, she's a virgin. We should raffle her. Hell I'd bid ten bucks for that ass."

"And a frustrated virgin, Charity." One of the Plastic Princess clones held up my battered and dripping wet vanity case with an assortment of mini-vibrators.

Charity took the case.

"OMG! Virtue, it's tiny," Plastic Princess Charity screamed. "She must have a hole tighter than a squirrel's ass."

The clones of Princess Charity howled with laughter as I scurried around on my hands and knees salvaging my underwear.

"That's it loser. Crawl away."

But there was only so low I was prepared to crawl. My hands curled into fists. I stood, wiped my dripping hair from my face and stepped into Charity's face. I grabbed at Chastities long blond locks with one hand as I grabbed the vanity case of vibrators.

A thick bundle of hair extensions came away in my hand. Charity and I both stared at it in mutual silence and shock. Like it was something escaped from a petting zoo.

Then she screamed. "Officer, she assaulted me. Arrest her."

Officer Hotness sauntered over from his car holding a citation book.

He shot her a look. "Charity, I got this. Go home."

She glared at him and then saved her best for last.

"Smile, loser," Plastic Princess Charity said with a wicked smile.

I looked up at the lens of her smart-ass phone. "You are now viral."

In a second my shame was digitally immortalized on every social network her Plastic Highness was affiliated to.

Officer Hotness stood between Charity and me. I reached into the glove compartment of Rust Bucket and offered him my credentials.

He took the license and registration and studied them.

He glanced down at me. "Robyn White?"

I nodded.

"Robyn, do I need to arrest you for being too hot to handle?"

Every whip smart comeback line I'd ever practiced in the mirror, simply ran for cover and vanished. I knew deep down, as much as I wanted him, there was no way I was going to let him exploit the situation of my vulnerability. If I couldn't be in control at that moment, then what hope would there be in any future relationship?

We'd both know he'd always have the power. So instead of wasting words I knew I had one chance to leave him with an indelible impression of what he couldn't have. I fought to gain control of my shivering.

Timing was everything.

I ran my fingers through my hair and slicked it back in slutty center-fold style. I glanced away, prepared my bedroom eyes, pouted, turned my head to face him and summoned the spirits of history's most seductive women. I felt their power resonate up through me as I promptly... sneezed.

And sneezed...

And sneezed again. Great erupting volcanoes of snot to match the drool on my chin, no doubt. By the time I fought down the sneezing fit, he had tossed my credentials on my car seat and walked back to his car.

I watched his perfect backside slide into his car.

Over his shoulder he shouted. "I'll be in touch, Ms. White."

I shivered and made gold fish impressions under the water jet.

Then at last my one true shining Knight in armor finally arrived. At least in a manner of speaking. A tall blond hunk in jeans and t-shirt let the hydrant waterfall douse his athletic chest and bulging biceps like a wet t-shirt contest contender as he shoved Charity aside and retrieved the photo of Ben.

"You squawk like a witches' coven on a Saturday night of brewing frogs legs and puppy dog tails," he said and handed me Ben’s picture. The second most perfect smile of the day aimed directly at me.

"Lucky guy."

I should have realized he was only mocking me like the rest, but I flushed hot with the shock of my desire for him. I hated that he seemed to indulge in the reaction he'd forced me to experience. I packed up my exploded suitcase to the soundtrack of the coven's mocking laughter.

"I'm Brad."

Finally, someone had acknowledged me in anything resembling humanity.

Could two simple words ooze more perfection when joined at the hip? I tried not to drool as those same two words oozed from his perfect butterfly wing lips on a voice of melted chocolate lazily drifting through me. If I died and went to heaven at that precise moment, I'd insist on an angel chorus of, "I'm Brad."

His second best smile and ice blue eyes forced me to look away, but he seemed to have other plans. The torture of the day was far from over.

"Robyn," I mumbled into my sneakers. "Robyn. Er... White. Rob to my friends."

He grabbed the three heaviest of my four cases. "Lead the way, Rob."

"I'm not sure where."

"First day?"

"That obvious?"

Again the smile, but with a slightly crooked curl of empathy.

I'd follow to the end of the world. Tripping over my tongue along the way. Just so long as he poured that melted chocolate river that was his voice over my cookie crumble heart.

He thumbed the screen of his cell phone and entered my name in an app.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm a volunteer mentor for Fresher Week. This app allows me to guide any lost student."

"You do this for any student?"

"You're my twentieth."

"This week?"

"This morning."

I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice. "I see."

According to the campus map app, my new home was the six floor red brick behind a courtyard.

"Room seventeen."

I trailed after Brad, feeling a little less special, but nonetheless grateful.

Awaiting us on the ground floor lobby at the bottom of the staircase was a torrent of water cascading around my sneakers. Brad turned to me. "Did you start this one too?"

I scowled and shook my head as guiltily as possible. "No, but I guess I'll get the citation anyway."

He laughed. "Once is bad luck. Twice is the universe conspiring against you. Nobody knows you enough to hate you, yet. So relax."

As we waded up the staircase Brad said, "I wouldn't want to be the loser who gets billed for this one."

Brad hauled the cases up onto his shoulders and skipped two steps at a time. After four floors he was still going strong, while my heart was fit to burst. I dragged my one battered case up through the river cascading down at me. Trying to keep up with Brad, just so I could steal a succession of glimpses at a perfectly formed ass through jeans that seemed to be spray painted onto his tight and presumably sculptured cheeks.

Pushing through an angry crowd of my new neighbors, I found Brad on the fifth floor, sat idly on my cases outside the door to the room which was clearly the source of the flood. The door was number seventeen.

Avoiding my gaze, he whispered, "I guess the universe does have it in for you, after all."

He opened the door to number seventeen and hurled my cases inside. They splashed with more dignity than I could muster and received a sarcastic round of applause from my new neighbors. A light flickered on and off from inside my new home like a B-movie horror flick. The cases floated about on the carpet looking as aimless and confused as I was feeling.

Here was my one chance to salvage something from the day. I wiped my wet hair out of my eyes and turned to him with all the flirtatious gratitude a horny and lonely girl could muster.

He stood there, oozing magnetic attraction with the silent dignity of an almost scolding expression. My knees began to shake and my stomach back flipped on the wings of a wondrously teasing flock of butterflies. I fluttered my eyes imperceptibly with a view to catching the meager flickering light and showing off my eyes at their seductive best.

That's the moment he crushed me.

"No girlfriend of mine could ever get caught up in such a pathetic situation."

With that, he turned without a glimmer of sardonic wit on his stony face and vanished into the crowd. Reeling from the shock I staggered backwards into a tiny two room apartment. I slammed the door on the noisy crowd shouting at me and demanding an explanation for the flood I had apparently biblically brought down on them.

Who was I kidding? First Officer Hotness and then Brad? Like tantalizing ghosts, teasing my imagination with sensual promises of love, they had vanished. Deep down I knew both were illusions.

I acknowledged the secret truth hiding inside of me. Even if at that moment both Officer Hotness and Brad broke down my door and begged me on a date, I could never be with either of them. The truth was, I had a secret.

A deadly secret that forced me to set aside all prospects of love. No matter how much the loneliness hurt. Robyn White was not my real name.

For their sakes and mine, those two delicious men could never know who I really was.

CHAPTER THREE

I sat on my four cases. A tiny island in the center of an Olympic size pool of self-pity, fighting pathetic tears when a knock at the door promised the end of my mortification.

I cautiously opened the door expecting the janitor, but no. A dazzling and beautifully exotic young woman pointed a camera lens at me and snapped away.

Time to put on the boxing gloves.

"Look, it's my first day. I don't know why everything is going wrong. I just want to be left alone. Is that so hard for you people to understand?"

"Mai Ling."

"Excuse me?"

She looked me up and down like she was inspecting me for smuggling narcotics on my person into the island nation of Loser-ville. She pushed into my apartment like she owned the building and pointed at my suitcases.

"New girl, got an inflatable lifeboat inside one of those?"

"Sure, want to take turns blowing it up?"

She turned to me and laughed. "You'll do. What's your name?"

"Robyn White."

"Major?"

"Journalism."

"You?"

"Fashion."

"Look, I appreciate the welcome, but I've got more pressing matters to attend to."

"Professor?"

"Huh? Professor Davina Cole."

"Watch out for her."

I swear she checked out my ass.

"Unless of course she's your type, Robyn. Not that I'm suggesting you didn't earn your place on merit."

"What do you mean?"

"Takes a lot to get on Queen Skype's good side. I guess you know that already. Just don't get on her wrong side or dream city quest turns into the scrapheap challenge."

My head began to ache. I pointed to the door. "Satisfied?"

"It takes a lot to satisfy me." She licked her lips. "Yes, you'll do."

She took a few pictures of the flood and then grabbed my hand. She dragged me up to the top floor and in through an open door into the biggest and most luxurious apartment I have ever seen.

"Who lives here?"

"You do,"
Mai Ling said.

It was about then that I realized I must have hit my head and was at that moment dreaming as I floated face-down in the flood.

Mai smiled patiently then added. "If you want to, of course, no pressure. I mean, it would be nice to have a room-mate. Mine bailed and it's too big for one."

Too big for one? It was too big for a small army. It didn't just dwarf your average long haul flight aircraft-hanger, it could give the Taj Mahal a run for its money in the size and opulence game.

Walls lined with expensively produced framed photos of fantastically toned young men and women in erotic and passionate embraces seemed to disappear out of sight down the long winding corridor with a dozen rooms leading off it. Everywhere the fragrance of lilies of every variety in simple, elegant white vases in rows alongside the pristine white walls.

Mai smiled. "My own work."

There were no wall heaters, but the place seemed the perfect temperature. Cozy, but not stifling. I could curl up on the floor, knowing it was cleaner than the inside of my last refrigerator.

Standing in the center of the marble floor living room that seemed to stretch in both directions with high floor to ceiling windows for a mile or two, and for the duration of a blissful five seconds I dared to imagine life there. Waking to the view of the vast lake and the tiny island in its center.

Mai explained Kimberley Island marked the boundary between the land leased by the college and that used by the owner of all the land around here as far as the eye could see. I knew I needed to venture onto that island someday soon. Mai advised me that Kimberley Island was apparently considered out of bounds and the owner's privacy was fiercely protected.

His land as far as I could see was about three miles in every direction. It was a blissful, peaceful scene that I felt could soothe the nightmare journey I was about to embark on.