A Dangerous and Cruel Love (Dark Mafia Romance Duet 2)

As she headed to the conference room, she pulled out her phone to send a text message to Priscilla.

Are you in uni? Your bodyguards are hanging out here.

Fawn waited restlessly for the prince’s reply, but none came even by the time she made it to the conference room. The prince hadn’t wanted her to attend this without him, but she had insisted, knowing that it presented her with the perfect opportunity to have some closure with—-

Oh.

She halted by the doorway, unable to pull her gaze away from Grant, who was deep in discussion with the student council president in front of the room. It was her first time to see him like he had come to class without having taken a bath. His hair had a messy, greasy look to them, and his eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Even his clothes looked like they were the same ones that he had gone to bed with, its collar half-turned, and the front marred with a rather large stain.

What was wrong with him? Taking one of the seats at the far end of the table, she tried catching his eye, but either he was too intent on his talk with the president or he was deliberately avoiding looking at her.

“Good morning, guys,” a voice cooed from the doorway, and Fawn stiffened. It was Lou, and even though she no longer felt the same way for Grant, she realized that it didn’t make her hurt any less at seeing the girl her boyfriend had cheated on her with.

Lou was dressed in a white skin-tight dress that looked prim and proper up front but exposed her back completely with crisscrossing strings. All eyes were on Lou as she sashayed towards Grant, leaning to kiss him on the cheek—-

Fawn’s eyes widened when Lou suddenly pulled back, her nose wrinkling in revulsion. “Oh my God, Grant, you stink!”

The entire room fell silent.

Fawn waited tensely for Grant to blow up or at least defend himself, but he only looked at Lou, mumbling in a dull voice that everyone could hear, “I’m sorry.”

The student council president was shaking his head. “Seriously, what’s wrong? You’ve been out of it since you came here. Do you have a hangover or something?”

Grant shook his head.

“Then what is it?” Frustration underlined the president’s tone. “This is your brainchild, Grant, and yet not a single word you’ve told me made sense. Get yourself straightened out or I’m getting someone else to take over.”

As the president stalked towards the head of the table to take his seat, Fawn’s anxious gaze swung to Grant, who looked even paler now and almost like—-

Was it just her, Fawn wondered uneasily, or did Grant actually look like he wanted to cry?

Lou hissed something to Grant’s ear, too low for anyone else to hear, but with her face a mirror of fury, it was pretty easy to guess that she didn’t care about comforting Grant.

The door to the conference room opened again as Lou continued to reprimand him in front of everyone, and Fawn, thankful for the distraction, turned to see who the newcomers were.

She almost fell off her seat when she saw all twelve of the prince’s bodyguards filing in, presenting themselves as part of Derek Christopoulos’ staff and sent for the sole purpose of observing the minutes of the meeting.

What was going on?

The meeting commenced, and it became a question that Fawn appeared fated to ask practically every minute.

Lou was tasked with the opening remarks, and the beautiful vice president performed her task with envious ease. She made all the right jokes, albeit a little bit too risqué for Fawn’s taste, and once in a while her taunting gaze would seem to seek Fawn, as if mocking her for not doing anything about Grant’s unfaithfulness.

Fawn had never had her confidence so undermined, and only the knowledge that the prince’s bodyguards were there behind her, ready to come to her aid at the first sign of trouble, gave her the strength to stay.

A round of applause erupted from the small crowd, punctuating the end of Lou’s speech.

Grant replaced her behind the podium—-

And he turned out to be a complete disaster.

It was like watching a train wreck unfold, she thought sickly, and she was a helpless bystander without any power to stop what was inevitable.

For as long as she could remember, Grant had always thrived in the limelight, someone who never had trouble charming and impressing all kinds of audience.

But that Grant was not the Grant she was watching now.

“So…”

Fawn managed to stop herself from cringing. It was the first word that Grant had spoken, and so far he had repeated it three times in the past thirty seconds.

“The project we’re here to discuss today is…” Grant broke off.

“Anything wrong?” the president asked impatiently.

The projector had the first slide of his presentation on display, and Grant turned to look at it with a vaguely bewildered look, almost like the entire text was written in Latin.