I pulled my hands away and folded them in my lap. “If that’s true, then what the hell happened?”

He clenched the hand I’d let go of into a fist and stared me in the eyes, like he was willing me to listen to him. “I woke up Friday morning to a phone call from my dad. He had some questions for me. Questions about you. Concerns about how you were paying for school based on a rumor my mom had heard.”

“What?” I gasped. “Your parents think that I’m prostituting myself to pay for school? Where in the world would they get an idea like that?”

“I promise that I’ll get to that part in a minute, but I want you to understand why I listened to the story at all. If it had been anyone but my dad, I swear to you that I wouldn’t have considered for a second that it could be true. But he’d asked the security consultant at his company to run a quick check on your dad’s finances before he called me. And the guy told him there were some red flags, money coming in more quickly than ever before starting this past summer. My dad should have waited for more information before calling me, but he was concerned. Hell, I should have asked more questions, but I was crushed by the idea that it could be true.”

“Your dad had mine investigated?” I asked. “What the hell?”

“I know it sounds bad, and I’ve already had it out with my dad after I talked to Jackson. He feels horrible about the trouble he caused, and he wants to apologize to both you and your dad. We both handled this badly, in part because neither of us knew that the source of the bad information was Sasha.”

“Sasha? You’re going to sit there and blame this on her?” I asked in a disbelieving tone of voice.

“That’s not what I’m saying. Most of this was my doing. If I had just waited instead of flying off the handle, things wouldn’t have gone down the way they did. That’s on me, and I learned my lesson when I couldn’t reach you to apologize and explain for two fucking days. Trust me, it’s not a mistake I’m gonna repeat ever again.”

“I still don’t understand. What happened exactly and how was Sasha involved?”

“I haven’t talked to her about it, but Jackson and I think we figured out what happened after talking to my mom. She got a call a few days ago from Sasha’s mom, who told her that she was worried about how quickly our relationship moved and if I knew what I was getting into with you. They may be best friends, but my mom wasn’t going to listen to her bad-mouth you without cause. And that’s when she dropped the bombshell that started the ball rolling on this mess. She told my mom that there was a rumor going around the school that you were selling sex to pay for college. She didn’t have any details, but she thought my mom should know because where there’s smoke there’s usually a fire. Sasha had approached her mom and supposedly asked for advice on whether or not to ask me if I’d heard the rumor yet or not.”

“Yeah, right. Like she needs advice to figure out a way to try to tear me down with you,” I scoffed, finding the idea ridiculous.

“I think Sasha knew exactly what she was doing. She had to know that her mom would come to mine with her concerns and eventually it would filter down to me. This way, it wasn’t coming from her and I would be more likely to listen. Of course my mom mentioned the conversation to my dad, and he thought it was too risky not to check into the story. She played all of us perfectly, and it almost worked.”

“Not almost. It did work. You believed the rumor,” I said accusingly.

“Baby, no. I didn’t, not really. If I had waited at all before confronting you, I never would have handled it the way I did. I know that’s not the type of person you are. There isn’t a chance in hell that you would ever do that, but I let my jealousy at the thought of anyone else getting close to you fuck with my head. I swear to God that I would have realized what the hell I was saying if you had just stayed a little longer and talked to me.”

“No way! Why would I stay and listen to that bullshit? You would never put up with that kind of crap from me, but you expect me to do it?” I argued.

He shook his head and raised his hands in the air in a gesture of mock surrender. “That’s not what I’m saying. I get why you left. I don’t blame you for it, but we have to figure out this talking thing. I refuse to lose you over some stupid story that I shouldn’t have listened to in the first place.”

“Then why did you listen?”

“Because it was my dad. How could I not listen to him, even just a little? I didn’t know about the flights you offered. What the hell was I supposed to think?” he asked, frustrated, as he stood and started to pace the floor. “I wasn’t even thinking, not really. It wasn’t until you were gone and Jackson nailed me with a punch that I started to think clearly. He knocked some sense back into me, and I tried to find you to explain even though I was still a little pissed off. We needed to talk, but you were gone. Disappeared into thin air. You wouldn’t answer my calls or texts—nothing. I still couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on, and then Jackson found me outside your dorm. He calmed down and wanted to know what happened. So I told him, and his reaction was to laugh his ass off. I swear to God, I almost killed him right then and there. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was so funny until he told me about your Mile High Club flights.”