Cruel Love (Privilege 6)

“No, that’s okay,” Ariana replied. After the excitement of her recon mission, she relished the idea of sitting quietly and organizing her thoughts. “I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”

“Cool. We’ll save you a seat,” Tahira said.

The girls walked off together to the junior/senior lounge, which was through a set of heavy double doors at the far end of the dining hall. Ariana sat down, placing her last-minute order with the waiter. She saw several people eye her curiously as they left, including Palmer and his little pack of followers, but she ignored them. Couldn’t a girl be late for dinner anymore without becoming the subject of gossip?

Once her meal arrived, Ariana ate it slowly, meticulously reviewing the route she’d taken to Meloni’s house over and over again so that she wouldn’t forget a thing. She was definitely going to have to go back there again soon, at a time when he wasn’t home, to survey the perimeter, see if there were any good points of entry, and make absolutely sure he didn’t have a girlfriend—gag—or someone who might show up unexpectedly. Once she’d decided on this course of action, she pulled up her schedule on her phone. This was something she was going to need to accomplish quickly, before another “mandatory” meeting was set up for her. As she eyed her class schedule, she realized that she was going to have to skip class no matter what. The middle of the workday was the only time she could ensure Meloni wouldn’t be around. But she’d already missed so much thanks to Reed, and finals were coming up…. Ariana let out a frustrated sigh. She really was juggling a lot these days.

Finally, she decided to just skip out on Spanish the next day and get it over with. She was carrying an A average in that course as it was. Missing one more class couldn’t do much harm. Satisfied, Ariana slipped her phone back into her bag, finished her meal, and thanked the waiter. Then she gathered her coat, scarf, hat, and bag up in her arms and headed across the room to join her friends at the Hill.

She had just walked through the door when Headmaster Jansen stepped up next to her. It was as if the woman had been lying in wait.

“Miss Covington?”

Ariana closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself, then turned with a big smile.

“Hi, Headmaster. How are you?” she asked.

“I’m fine, thank you. I’m more interested in how you’re doing.” She reached out and grasped Ariana’s forearm quickly, her expression the picture of concern. “I heard you missed a few days of classes and skipped your mandatory meeting with your grief counselor this morning.”

“Yes, I was planning to reschedule that.”

“Were you?” the headmaster said sternly.

Ariana felt her skin redden. How dare this woman doubt her? What had she ever done to earn that?

“Of course,” she replied. “It was just a rough week for me. I did lose my best friend in the most horrific way possible.”

“All the more reason to see the counselor,” the headmaster said.

A few senior girls hovered behind Ariana, angling to get through the door. She clucked her tongue and stepped away from the entrance, letting them through. She knew there was a way to spin this. She just had to think of it. Now. She tucked her new and insanely expensive angora scarf into her bag, and just like that, it hit her.

Money. It all came back to money. And Ariana, thanks to the recent death of Briana Leigh’s grandmother, had tons of it at her disposal.

“Headmaster, to be honest … I was hoping to hire my own counselor, if that would be at all possible,” Ariana said. “I’d be more than willing to have him or her sign some sort of document confirming I’d completed a session.”

The headmaster’s perfectly groomed brows creased. She crossed her slim arms over her stylishly cut suit. “Why?”

Ariana bit her lip. “It’s just … I’ve heard some not-so-pleasant things about this Doctor Meloni,” she lied, bile burning the back of her throat as she uttered the name. “My friends who have seen him … they don’t get anything out of their sessions. And one of them mentioned feeling condescended to. Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like the role of a grief counselor to me.”

“That’s odd. I’ve had only positive feedback from the students on Dr. Meloni,” the headmaster said.

Ariana gritted her teeth. “Well, maybe they just haven’t wanted to upset you.”

The headmaster’s eyes narrowed. “I see. The problem is, Miss Covington, that Doctor Meloni is very interested in meeting you.”

The entire room tilted so suddenly before Ariana’s eyes, she was forced to reach out and grab the back of the nearest sofa. She brought her fingertips to her forehead for a moment and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. What? Why?”

“He said he knows something of your family history,” the headmaster replied. “To be quite honest, from the way he spoke about you, I got the impression the two of you already knew each other.”

“What?” Ariana’s eyes popped open, but her vision had already prickled over. She could barely make out the headmaster’s face.

“Have you ever been a patient of his before?” the headmaster asked.

“No! No, of course not,” Ariana replied, shaking her head, trying to clear her eyes, her mind. Had Dr. Meloni seen her that night on campus with Maria and Tahira? Did he know she was here? Was he just licking his chops, waiting for her to walk into his office like some kind of injured lamb?

But no. It wasn’t possible. He’d looked up for half a second that night and it had been pitch-black out. All he would have seen were Ariana’s black hat, her auburn hair, her dark sunglasses. He never would have recognized her under those conditions.

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