CHAPTER 003
1933 Words
~Roseline's POV~
I'd made a mistake.
A terrible, catastrophic mistake I knew I wasn't getting out of easily.
Why?
Because the man standing in my doorway, my sister's ex, my childhood best friend, the man I'd f****d two nights ago and who had looked me dead in the eye and called me a stranger, was staring at me like I'd just handed him a grenade with the pin already pulled.
God, why did he have to be so handsome?
He looked exactly like I remembered, maybe even better under the fluorescent office lighting, which frankly was unfair and unnecessary.
Same wavy black hair. Same sharp jaw. Same broad shoulders filling out his varsity jacket like it had been designed specifically for him and nobody else.
My stomach churned.
How did I miss seeing his name on the file?
Okay. In my defense, the file I'd been handed two days ago listed my first client as J. Lockwood. Just an initial. Just a surname. College policy, apparently, for client confidentiality during pre-session paperwork.
J. Lockwood.
I'd grown up knowing him as Jerry. Not Jeremy Lockwood. He was Jerry to me and that was enough.
That name and J. Lockwood on a clinical document had no business belonging to the same person as far as my brain was concerned.
So yes. I missed it.
Was that dumb? Absolutely.
Was I going to admit that out loud? Not a chance in hell.
His eyes dropped to the nameplate on my desk.
ROSELINE CAMPBELL. STUDENT COUNSELLOR.
He read it twice. Then looked back at my face like he was waiting for the punchline.
There wasn't one.
"Is this a joke?" His eyes were almost popping out of his head. "Do you have cameras somewhere? Are you deriving some kind of sick pleasure from this? Because thanks to you I lost my girlfriend again." He exhaled sharply. "Happy now?"
No. I was not happy. I was the furthest thing from happy that a human being could physically be.
I was shaking too much on the inside to be anything resembling okay, my heart slamming against my ribs as I was caught between the urge to laugh or throw up or dive headfirst through the window behind me.
But I couldn't do any of that.
Instead I forced my best smile and folded my hands on the desk like a woman whose life was absolutely not on fire.
"Good morning to you too, Mr. Lockwood," I said. "My name is Roseline Campbell." I gestured at the chair across from me. "Your counsellor. Please sit down, Jeremy."
He didn't sit. He stepped fully inside and let the door fall shut behind him. And the confusion on his face lingered.
"Why did you lie to me?" He pressed on. "Why did you let me… why did you let that happen when you knew you weren't Evelyn?"
My jaw tightened.
I'd had enough of this. I really, genuinely had enough.
Hello? Haven't you gotten the memo? I used you to have one reckless night and your girlfriend was collateral damage. Also you called me a stranger two days ago so maybe lower the moral outrage slightly.
I didn't say that either.
"Do you actually want the truth?" I asked.
"Yes!"
"I used you." I smiled pleasantly and rolled my eyes, which annoyed him immediately. "I knew you were my childhood best friend and sister's ex and I did it anyway. It was one night. It meant nothing. I'm not sorry."
The look on his face was genuinely priceless. His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jumping under his skin.
"You knew I thought you were her."
"Mr. Lockwood—"
"You're evil."
What was there to say? He wasn't wrong.
He stared at me for a long moment. Then asked a question I'd long expected.
"Why did you change your name?" he asked. "To Roseline."
Oh, absolutely not. We are not doing that today.
"Please sit down, Mr. Lockwood."
He looked at the chair like it had personally offended him. Then, reluctantly, he sat.
Arms crossed. Jaw tight. Eyes fixed on my face like he was daring me to look away first.
I didn't. I looked down at his file instead.
Jeremy Lockwood. Twenty-six. Hockey captain. Lycan Prince.
My heart did a stupid, traitorous backflip.
Oh.
Oh, of course he was the hockey team's captain.
That explained the walk. The pride. The general energy of a man who had never once been told no and had absolutely no idea what to do with that situation.
And I had slept with him.
And now I was supposed to counsel him.
The universe had a sick, twisted sense of humor and I was starting to hate it.
The awkwardness sitting between us was almost bitter. It was like a third person had pulled up a chair, crossed their legs and was thoroughly enjoying the show.
Every time I glanced up from his file, his eyes were already on me, sharp and unsettled and loaded with discomfort and venom. He couldn't stop thinking about something he desperately wanted to stop thinking about.
I knew because I had the exact same problem.
His gaze dropped briefly to my cleavage, then snapped back up. I pretended not to notice. He pretended he hadn't done it.
You are a professional, Roseline. Act like one. Forget he f****d you and do your damn job.
"So." He leaned back, arms still crossed and chin raised. His body language told me he had decided to be difficult and was extremely comfortable with that decision. "You're the one they're forcing me to talk to. After everything."
His words sat between us like a lit match.
"Do you have a problem with that?"
"How old are you?"
I looked up. "Excuse me?"
"You look twenty." His gaze moved over me without one single apology. "I'm supposed to pour my heart out to someone who looks twenty, who I've f****d by the way?" He scoffed. "We don't even need to do this. Just sign off on my attendance slip and I'll be on my way."
I put my pen down.
"I'm twenty-three," I said icily. "And I'm not asking for your heart, Mr. Lockwood. What would I even do with that when I already had your d**k? It's really small, by the way. I've had better." I gave him my sweetest smile and tapped his file. "What I am asking is that you cooperate. Otherwise I'll file a formal report with the school authority."
I let that sink in.
"I understand your captaincy is on the line. It would be such a shame to lose it over something as simple as refusing to sit in a chair for an hour." I paused. "Oh and the next time you choose to walk in here late, that report goes straight into your file. Try me and see."
Anger flashed behind those ocean blue eyes.
Good. He looked away first and I quietly celebrated.
"The report says you fought Micheal Cornwell," I said. "When two players tried to break it up, you put them both in the medical wing." I looked up. "Also, this is not your first fight."
"People exaggerate."
"The dent in the corridor wall doesn't."
His face hardened. "I'm fine."
"People who are fine don't hit walls, Mr. Lockwood."
Silence.
I let it linger. Most people couldn't stand silence, they rushed to fill it with whatever was actually true.
Jeremy Lockwood lasted eight seconds.
"She ended it three weeks ago," he confessed suddenly, like the words had been sitting at the base of his throat getting heavier and heavier until they just fell out on their own. "I've been losing my mind ever since." He exhaled. "When I saw you in the club and thought you were her, I was relieved. I thought we'd be fine again. Then she caught us together and ended it again and here we are." He bit his lower lip until it almost bled. "She won't speak to me. She avoids me even when I bump into her on campus."
So Evelyn was a student here too.
The dots connected fast and ugly.
A hollow ache spread through my chest.
I didn't show it. I just gave him silence. He didn't offer anything else and I didn't push.
We went back and forth for the rest of the hour, him fighting me on every single question and answering every one anyway, like his mouth had given up the war his face was still trying to win.
He was sharp underneath all that hostility.
Way sharper than he wanted me to notice.
I noticed immediately but I kept that to myself.
When the hour ended I stood, straightened my blazer and extended my hand across the desk.
"Same time Thursday, Mr. Lockwood."
He looked at my outstretched hand like it was filthy. Then he stood, all six-foot-something of him unfolding from that chair like a slow-motion disaster, and took it.
The second our palms connected, the world slipped.
I felt a pull so sudden and violent and impossibly deep shoot from my hand straight up my arm and detonated in the center of my chest like it had always known exactly where it was going.
I was too stunned to speak.
He couldn't move.
His grip tightened around my hand. His eyes found mine and everything controlled in them just dissolved. What replaced it scared me more than anything had in six months of running.
He stepped around the desk.
I should have stepped back.
I didn't.
His free hand came up slow to the side of my neck and from somewhere very far away I heard my own brain screaming —
Roseline. This is your JOB—
His mouth found mine and he kissed me passionately like he'd done that night. I forgot every single thing I was supposed to remember.
Then his teeth grazed my neck. I felt a sharp sting right at my pulse point. It was an Alpha's mark. An ancient and irreversible bond snapped into place and then a vision hit me like a slap.
I saw a little girl laughing, running through a field with her arms flung wide. Then the same girl, older. Standing at a window while a man's cold voice dismissed her.
She didn't turn around. She just stood there. Like she'd been standing at windows her whole life, waiting for something that never came.
It dissolved before I could hold it.
I stood there with his mark burning into my neck and a ghost memory behind my eyes that didn't belong to me and absolutely no idea what any of it meant.
What the hell was that?
My hands came up against his chest. "Jeremy—"
The door swung open and we broke apart instantly. My hand flew to my neck and the air got knocked out of my lungs. Jeremy turned.
A tall, heavily built man with dark brown hair and easy brown eyes stood in the open doorway. He wasn't startled or embarrassed.
He just looked between us, slowly moving from Jeremy's expression to my flushed face to my hand pressed flat against my neck.
He knew exactly what he was looking at.
Every single bit of it.
His mouth curved into a slow smile that made my heart sink.
"Well, well, well." Micheal Cornwell stepped fully inside and let the door slam shut behind him. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his phone, and took a photo.
"This," he said pleasantly, "is going to be a very interesting semester, Ms. Campbell."
- Writer
