Billion Dollar Bastard: An Alpha Male Step Brother Billionaire Romance Read Free Page B

out to the green, the jewel in the century of campus. Fresh-faced, ruddy-faced students lounged all over, the picture of languid, easy-going collegiate life. Some studied on blankets, while others flung Frisbees between them, laughing and squealing.
     
    I saw groups of sorority girls picnicking, shooting eyes as the fraternity boys who were in the process of grilling and playing football, acting like complete cavemen: look, fire! Look, acts of strength and big, big muscles!
     
    Oh, I knew what those girls were going through. I had been there before.
     
    It’s easy to fall in love with a quick, carefree smile and a set of cut abs. I knew that all too well. In fact, Tyrone seemed to know it because I had an email from him, as I discovered when I clicked into my inbox in desperation, trying to stave off complete death from boredom.
     
    I delighted it immediately. It felt good.
     
    I should be paying attention, I decided. This was my career. It was my career that was important, not Tyrone. Not the boys and girls outside, and their primitive mating rituals. The work I was doing in here was the reason I WAS here. Even if it was boring.
     
    “Next order of business,” Anthony Kennedy, the chair of the department, and my mentor began, his voice beset by obvious sleepiness and fatigue as the Scottish woman from the 14 th century sat down. His handsome, lean older face had developed a conspicuous set of particularly deep and noticeable wrinkles in the last few months, coinciding with his appointment as Department Chair and the lawsuit against Gary Towson—the ancient troublemaker who started this mess.
     
    Of course, no one could prove that he had groped a female undergraduate back in 1995, but she was finally suing and the senior faculty almost universally had his back, had voted to divert department funds to fight the suit. He was, after all, one of the most illustrious professors we had, and (almost) universally loved by all his students.
     
    And so, the department was in serious financial straits. It was this that Anthony found himself dealing with, facing down the row of stern pale, grizzled faces that demanded success from him, demanded a solution to the problem they had created.
     
    “We’re hoping that we can reach out to private sources for additional funds to make it through the rest of the year,” he said carefully. Judging from the sweat on his brow, he was nervous. I had never known him to be nervous and the fact that he was—that scared me.
     
    “So, what? We’re supposed to be fundraising now?” someone said. This set off a chorus of grumbles and murmurs from around the room. I watched helplessly as Anthony sighed and called for calm.
     
    “Don’t think of it as fundraising. Think of it as alumni engagement. Think of it as… As lobbying. I don’t know. Think of it as whatever you want, but it’s what we have to do if we want to continue to exist as an independent department within this university.”
     
    “Maybe we don’t?” someone else said. “I hear the Modern Languages department gets free Italian catered every Friday!”
     
    “That might be true,” Anthony said seriously, glaring down his interlocutor. “But they also have room for only ten professors.”
     
    The math was easy to do. We had twenty-one professors. Eleven would have to go, at least.
     
    I was doomed to be among that eleven. I just knew it.
     
    The meeting moved on, going through discussions of course syllabi, scheduling dissertation defenses, and taking suggestions for where to hold the faculty Christmas party—as if we didn’t have more important things to spend money on. Professor Towson smugly suggested the most expensive restaurant in town, a Michelin-starred establishment that could, over the course of a single meal, easily bankrupt the department.
     
    But what did he care? His job was destined to be safe, and the lawsuit was destined to die away in court, at the cost of my job.
     
    As the meeting