Chapter 30 Daniel Crashes A Class
An hour later
After Daniel dropped me off at campus, I quickly scurried off before he could say something… and for good reason.
I met up with Rosalind who I gave an earful for driving off without me. She pleaded her case that Daniel scared her off… which he did to be fair. But that should have been all the more reason for her to not leave me with him.
Nevermind. As the day progressed, I started to somehow give less notice to the curious eyes that followed me around. It seemed everyone was dying to know more about the whole ordeal with Daniel and the professor but were too afraid to ask… which was probably also because of the broody Kane heir.
Sighing and exhausted for absolutely no reason, I entered my final class of the day, wishing for the day to be over before it had even truly begun.
I’d just taken my seat beside a friendly face, the guy I usually sat with in this class before the professor arrived 5 minutes late.
He’d just started to teach as I pulled out my laptop from my bag…. almost dropping the precious piece of gadget when I noticed Daniel enter the class.
The professor took notice but chose not to say anything as he pulled out his slides and started to teach.
Everyone’s eyes were on Daniel as I realized much to my horror, that he was approaching me. The students shot each other confused looks as they should.
This was NOT his class. What the hell was he doing here?!
Daniel neared Noah who was sitting next to me at the far end of the last row of seats. He didn’t even have to say anything, his imposing stare was enough to silently but violently communicate to Noah that he needed to empty his seat. A defiant and stubborn part of me wanted to tell Noah to not crumble beneath Daniel’s authority and take a stand… but that would just be really stupid, it would accomplish nothing except get Noah rusticated from this college.
That whole taking a stand against the big bad bully with the billionaire father thing only worked out in movies.
Noah left but not before shooting me a questioning look to which I carelessly shrugged, unable to offer any explanation as Daniel took his seat next to me on the bench, sliding way too close to me for comfort. I instinctively shifted away from him. He pursed his lips at my gesture, not happy with it apparently.
“What the hell are you doing?”, I asked him through my teeth, looking straight head. The last thing I needed was for the professor to catch me gossiping with none other than Daniel Kane himself.
“I am attending my lecture ”, he told me, turning sideways to face me. Jeez, couldn’t he even pretend to not be talking during class?
I squeezed my eyes shut, not having it in me to continue with his mind games. There was such a thing as too much of Daniel in one day.
“Unless you’ve built a time machine and used it to travel 8 years back in time, then no this is not the lecture that you should be attending”, I bit back, typing away furiously on my laptop, well aware of the curious stares directed our way. He was not helping to wade off the unwanted attention, that too he was the root of in the first place.
“I got bored in my own lecture”, he flatly said, like crashing classes he wasn’t supposed to be in to alleviate his ‘boredom’ was part of his daily routine.
He suddenly wrapped his hand around my shoulder and pulled me to him, making me gape at him in shock. “And I also missed you”, he whispered into my ear, his voice somewhat off.
I felt butterflies in my stomach at our proximity. A sane part of me told me to worry about what the other students would think, that Daniel Kane, nephew of my fiance was cosying up to me without any reservations, that too in a class filled with students and a professor. But I was too engulfed by the heat of his presence and his looming stature to worry about others’ astonishment and judgements on Daniel’s behaviour towards me.
“You saw me like 4 hours ago”, I said, trying to ignore the way that his hand tightened around my shoulders and his fingers slid beneath the collar of my shirt to trace my collarbone. His touch was gentle and tender as he drew soft circles on my skin.
“Still, that’s a long time, relatively”, he husked out.
“And I also had to question you on your deeply hurtful statement earlier…. which you distracted me from asking when you let me get carried away with my filthy thoughts”, he spoke against my hair, taking a deep breath as I shivered in his hold, naturally sinking into him.
“What are you talking about?”, I asked him, my brain in useless scrambles as I looked at him.
“What you said to Rosalind just before I interrupted you…. I think your exact words were that I wouldn’t have even batted an eye or cared in the least had a teacher even assaulted you if you didn’t have anything to do with my family. Now tell me, did you mean that?”, his tone edged on grave emotion as he buried his face in my hair.
I was dumbstruck. I really shouldn’t have worded it like that. I suddenly realized how tense he was, how much tension that giant body of his was holding. I dreaded the fact dearly that he’d been stewing on this for probably hours. I had to be very careful about what I said next.
“I didn’t mean it…. not really”, I stuttered. Even after much deliberation, I’d made a very poor choice of words.
Chills went down my spine when I felt his grip on me go so tight that it hurt, his fingers dug into the outlines of my collarbones as I tried to hide a wince. “Not really?! That doesn’t seem like much of an answer to me. Either you meant it or you didn’t mean it. Not that hard of a question to answer”, he lowly growled, gritting his teeth.
I gulped hard. He really hadn’t taken what I said lightly…. in the least.