Miss Prim's Greek Island Fling

‘With an excellent reputation to uphold. I was told in no uncertain terms that one more strike and I was out.’

She waited. ‘So...? Rupert helped you clean up your act?’

‘Audra, Audra, Audra.’ His lips twisted into a mockery of a smile. ‘You should know better than that.’

Her stomach started to churn, though she wasn’t sure why. ‘You kept pushing against the boundaries and testing the limits.’

He nodded.

‘And were you caught?’

‘Contraband was found in my possession.’

‘What kind of contraband?’

‘The type that should’ve had me automatically expelled.’

She opened her mouth and then closed it. It might be better not to know. ‘But you weren’t expelled.’ Or had he been and somehow it’d all been kept a secret?

‘No.’

The word dropped from him, heavy and dull, and all of the fine hairs on her arms lifted. ‘How...?’

‘Remember the Fallonfield Prize?’

She snorted. ‘How could I not? Rupert was supposed to have been the third generation of Russel men to win that prize. I swear to God it was the gravest disappointment of both my father’s and grandfather’s lives when he didn’t.’

Nobody had been able to understand it, because Rupert had been top of his class, and that, combined with his extra-curricular community service activities and demonstrated leadership skills...

Her throat suddenly felt dry. ‘He was on track to win it.’

Finn nodded.

Audra couldn’t look away. The Fallonfield Prize was a prestigious award that opened doors. It practically guaranteed the winner a place at their university of choice, and it included a year-long mentorship with a business leader and feted humanitarian. As a result of winning the prize, her grandfather had gone to Chile for a year. Her father had gone to South Africa, which was where he’d met Audra’s mother, who’d been doing aid work there. The Russel family’s legacy of social justice and responsibility continued to this very day. Rupert had planned to go to Nicaragua.

‘What happened?’ she whispered, even though she could see the answer clear and plain for herself.

‘Rupert took the blame. He said the stuff belonged to him, and that he’d stowed it among my things for safekeeping—so his parents wouldn’t see it when they’d come for a recent visit.’

She moistened her lips. ‘He had to know it’d cost him the scholarship.’

Finn nodded. He’d turned pale in the telling of the story and her heart burned for him. He’d lost his father when he was far too young, and then he’d watched his mother die. Who could blame him for being angry?

But... ‘I’m amazed you—’ She snapped her mouth closed. Shut up!

His lips twisted. ‘You’re amazed I let him take the rap?’

She swallowed and didn’t say a word.

‘I wasn’t going to. When I’d found out what he’d done I started for the head’s office to set him straight.’

‘What happened?’

‘Your brother punched me.’

‘Rupert...’ Her jaw dropped. Rupert had punched Finn?

‘We had a set-to like I’ve never had before or since.’

She wanted to close her eyes.

‘We were both bloody and bruised by the end of it, and when I was finally in a state to listen he grabbed me by the throat and told me I couldn’t disappoint my uncle or your parents by getting myself kicked out of school—that I owed it to everyone and that I’d be a hundred different kinds of a weasel if I let you all down. He told me I wasn’t leaving him there to cope with the fallout on his own. He told me I wasn’t abandoning him to a life of stolid respectability. And...’

‘And?’ she whispered.

‘And I started to cry like a goddamn baby.’

Her heart thumped and her chest ached.

‘I’d felt so alone until that moment, and Rupert hugged me and called me his brother.’

Audra tried to check the tears that burned her eyes.

‘He gave me a second chance. And make no mistake, if he hadn’t won me that second chance I’d probably be dead now.’

Even through the haze of her tears, the ferocity of his gaze pierced her.

‘He made me feel a part of something—a family, a community—where what I did mattered. And that made me turn my life around, made me realise that what I did had an impact on the people around me, that it mattered to somebody...that what I did with my life mattered.’

‘Of course it matters.’ He just hadn’t been able to see that then.

‘So I let him take the rap for me, knowing what it would cost him.’