Sadie’s POV
The rumors reached me before Monday's first lecture.
I was walking through the faculty corridor, coffee in hand, when I passed two adjunct professors huddled near the water cooler. They didn't see me. Or they didn't care.
"–that's what I heard. The Blackwood heir. Can you imagine?"
"Well, she is pretty. In a plain sort of way. I can see the appeal."
"Pretty enough to keep a secret pregnancy quiet for six years? That's not pretty, that's calculating."
I kept walking. My coffee tasted like battery acid.
By noon, three people had made comments that were clearly designed to be overheard – casual, deniable, dripping with plausible deniability. A graduate student in the faculty lounge asked if I'd met "the Blackwood family" and seemed surprised when I said yes. A secretary in
