Free Out of Her League by Samantha Wayland Page B

grains of truth. But I’m not that person on the cover of those
magazines. I don’t scare off men, and I certainly didn’t make your brother
gay.”
    Lachlan chuckled at that, but his smile
didn’t last. “It’s not really working, though, is it?”
    “What?”
    “The not-getting-hurt thing.”
    Michaela looked at him in silence for a
long time. “Not really. You?”
    His smile was wry. And a little sad. “Loneliness
is its own kind of pain, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is.”

Chapter Seven
     
    Michaela Price: Celebutante to the
Stars, Friend to No One.
    Michaela Price has been on campus for a
month now, and while her professors stoutly refuse to offer up any insights
into her academic performance so far, her fellow Crimsonites are more than
happy to talk about what it’s like to have her in class.
    “She’s not really friendly,” one fellow
law student reports. “She keeps to herself and doesn’t talk to the people
around her. The one time I saw her talking to some of the other students in her
Business Law class, she looked suspicious and one of them was rolling his eyes when
they walked away.”
    Another student complained, “You can
tell she’s all the professors’ darling. One guy calls on her all the time.
Seriously, almost half of the class, he’s getting her to show off how she’s
keeping up with the work when the rest of us are struggling.”
    Which begs the question, does she pay
people to help her?
    “I haven’t seen her with anyone, so I’m
not sure who would help. Maybe someone in the class above us?” suggests one of
her classmates. “But who knows? With that kind of money, I wouldn’t be
surprised if she sent someone to class to take notes for her, let alone do the
readings.”
    Not everyone is convinced she’s trying
to cut corners, though. “Maybe she just works hard,” said another woman who
claims to sit near Michaela in several of her classes. “She looks focused when
I see her, and I don’t think you can fake knowing the answers to these
questions, you know?”
    Maybe not. Or maybe there is a sucker born every day.
    --- Crimson Gossip , Blog Entry 1737.
     
    Michaela closed the browser on her phone
with a sigh.
    The headline didn’t even make sense, for
Pete’s sake. The only consolation was that she didn’t think a lot people off
campus read this shit. So far, the mainstream media was still pondering whether
or not she’d driven Callum to be gay, or if he’d been sleeping with men all
along behind her back. God forbid any of them try to find out the truth. Of
course, she and Callum hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with that, either, so
what did she expect?
    Regardless, being the favorite target of the Crimson Gossip was better than having this crap all over the newsstand,
but it was still irritating. The site was determined to insinuate as much
bullshit as they—she? he?—could possibly squeeze out of a few of Michaela’s
classmates and a lot of no-doubt out-of-context quotes. She liked that one of
the women in her classes had defended her, though, and wondered if it had been
Sadie.
    She would have preferred it if everyone had
simply refused to say a word. At least it seemed she could count on the faculty
to be discreet. She’d been at this game long enough that she hadn’t expected as
much.
    She smiled and waved as Lachlan crossed the
street toward her. It took her a moment to figure out why he looked so strangeto her before she realized he was wearing actual, honest-to-god blue jeans.
And a nicely snug t-shirt that showed off his flat belly and muscled arms. And,
well, Professor Morrison was looking damn hot .
    “Hello!” she said with a big smile.
    “Hi,” he said, then shocked the shit out of
her by drawing her into a tight hug.
    She held on, one hand pressed between his
broad shoulders, the other low on his back, her fingertips dipping into the
trench of his spine. The heat of his body sinking into hers felt like heaven.
    She forced herself let go and