Or it could have had something to do with the fact that I was about to go snooping in my uncle's office for that file titled “Gemma Richardson” that he not so subtly shoved into the top drawer of his desk yesterday.
If my uncle were smart, he’d guard that file with his life. Because one way or another, I was getting back into his office, and I was reading all there was to know about Gemma and her secretive life, along with her extremely suspicious uncle. She called him Daddy. What the fuck was up with that?
A growl sat deep in my throat as a strangely possessive feeling came over me, causing my shoulders to tense and my jaw to clench. I wasn’t sure why I felt so agitated over Gemma and her life that she obviously wanted to keep private. I hardly knew her, although it didn’t feel that way when we were alone. I was eager to touch her and be close to her, but I had no right to feel protective. Maybe it was because her uncle reminded me so much of my father. I wanted to destroy all the Carlisle Underwoods in the world—not just my own flesh and blood. That was another reason why I despised Bain so much and the way he looked at her. She was a toy to him. A toy he wanted to break just because I’d touched it first.
Stepping down off the last step, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I reached in my black pants and read the latest blog post from Mary’s Murmurs. After Gemma seemed so put off by the whole blog post and being featured on it, I’d set up alerts for new posts. Her uncle would likely never learn of Mary’s Murmurs, but after last week’s scandal, I’d made a decision to become informed of all things in this school—even the insignificant gossip that filled the halls.
The top headline was bolded, like always, and my name was the first to be seen.
* * *
BAD-BOY REBEL, ISAIAH UNDERWOOD, TO BE SNAGGED BY OUR NEWEST STUDENT, GEMMA RICHARDSON.
* * *
Rumor has it that Gemma is tutoring Isaiah in the late evenings, but is that all that’s going on? Is Gemma Richardson the beauty to our beast? Beautiful, quiet, shy, and seemingly naive to all the bad in the world. Is she Isaiah’s ticket to a clean slate? Can she help him with his grades…and more? Or is he her ticket to life on the wild side? Only time will tell.
* * *
I chuckled under my breath, putting my phone back in my pocket. They had one thing right: Gemma was beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. Her eyes, her skin, the curve of her cheek, the soft flesh of her waist as my arm snagged around her last night. Gemma was the full package, guarded or not. Was she my type? No. But that didn’t seem to deter me from thinking about her twenty-four-seven, now did it?
When I reached my uncle’s office, I placed my ear to the door and listened. Oftentimes, my uncle would fall asleep at his desk and wake the next day, looking disheveled and confused until he was able to get his hands on some of the coffee in the dining hall, so I needed to be certain he wasn't trapped behind his desk from the night before.
Silence filled the other side, but the uncertainty was still there as I turned the knob slowly, noting that it was unlocked. I pulled the door open, glancing inside with hesitation.
My uncle was in his office. But he wasn’t asleep. Instead, he was staring directly at me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, raising a wary eyebrow in my direction. He was standing beside his desk, holding a paper in his hand with a cup of coffee in the other. Fuck, he’s already up and has had his coffee.
I only paused for a second. “Oh, hello, Uncle.” There was a light and airy notch to my tone, completely bypassing the fact that I had just walked into the room, looking suspect as fuck.
His eyebrow didn’t lower as he continued to stare at me.
I walked in a little farther, my tie still loose around my neck. A fire was burning in his wood-burning fireplace on the other side of the room, the flames licking with intensity as I shut the door behind me.
“Trying to break into my office?” My uncle’s eyebrow finally fell, but the wary expression only worsened.
I shrugged. “No. Just wanted to catch up. How ya been?”
“Isaiah, what do you want?” He took a sip of his coffee before sighing.
I sat down in the seat at the foot of his desk, the one that I was sure Gemma had sat in the night before. “I came to check out that file you stashed away last night.”
My uncle’s eyes flicked up over the brim of his coffee mug. The cup hid his mouth, but I heard the words plain as day. “I knew you’d be back.”
I leaned back in the leather chair, propping my feet up onto his desk. “You did, did you?”
Placing the mug down, he walked over to the fireplace and put his back to me. His hands were clasped behind him, and a dense silence filled the room. The popping of embers was the only sound to break the quiet every few seconds.
I was the first to speak as I lowered my feet to the ground and walked to stand beside him. “What do you know about her?”
His chest inhaled and stayed like that for so long I turned my head and focused on the fire. Whatever it was that he knew, he was struggling with it. That part was clear. What was also clear was that I was eager to know everything. If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t have come back here early this morning to see what the file had said. It would have left my head the second my uncle had shoved the file into his desk.
Gemma was quite literally digging herself underneath my skin, and she didn’t even know it. I had no reason to want to know more about her, but I did. I desperately did, and I couldn’t blame that on wanting to protect her from Bain. This had nothing to do with him at the moment.
Finally, my uncle exhaled, the fire fanning underneath his heavy breath. “I do not trust her uncle. The things he has told me don’t match up to her file. She’d apparently been homeschooled until two months ago, then sent to a nearby prep school, and then he abruptly ripped her away from it and called me to send her here.”
“And what did he say when he called you?” I waited a beat. “Why did he call you?”