Eternal Eden Read online

Professor Roberts slid last week’s quiz facedown and patted my desk, as if trying to ease the shame of the grade circled in red pen. If I was lucky it would be a D, but since I was never lucky, it was likely an F; F for flunking, failure, forget-about-law-school.

  I’d squeaked through winter quarter an eighth of a grade point above academic probation, but only two weeks into spring quarter, I doubted I’d make it another two before having my student file tagged with the dreaded term. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  “You’re on the Welcome Wagon Committee, right?” Professor Roberts asked, drawing my attention from the quiz where I was still debating if I should turn it over to inspect the damage.

  “Yep,” I answered automatically. I was on every and any committee, team, group, or club that would have me. I was desperate to fill every waking second with something to keep my thoughts from wandering to that night nearly six months back, and since my academic aptitude had taken an extended vacation, I’d signed up for three intramural teams with varying degrees of a ball and racket, an outreach program for disadvantaged children at a local elementary school, chess club (I didn’t know how to play and was the only female, but the guys at least didn’t treat me like I was a mutated form of the bubonic plague), and I mucked out stalls twice a week at a local horse rescue shelter.

  “I was just assigned a new student who is starting next week and requested a tour of the campus.” Professor Roberts was my academic advisor too, although since he hadn’t even known how many credits it took to graduate when I’d ask him, I’d consider the title advisor a stretch.

  “No problem,” I said, shoving my quiz in my bag without peeking at the grade. If I didn’t look, I could live in a state of denial that I’d outdone myself by earning a C. “I’ve got Monday afternoon open.”

  “Actually,”—he cleared his throat—“the student requested the tour for this evening.”

  I stood up and swung my bag over my shoulder. “It’s Friday, there’s three dozen parties taking place tonight if the new student wants to get a feel for college life at OSU.” I, however, hadn’t taken part in any of these college rites of passage yet. I was a bonafide freak-of-nature by my college-aged peer’s standards. “I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal if we wait until Monday.” I was irked someone would think they were so important to need a tour on a Friday night with a few hours notice, and even more irked I didn’t have anything planned to have an excuse to fall back on.

  Another clearing of his throat, and not in the I-need-a-lozenge-kind-of-way. “The student’s family made a considerable donation to the school”—nothing like the all-powerful buck to bend people over backwards—“and I already told him we’d have no problem getting a tour arranged for tonight.”

  A him—perfect. Just what the world needed; another entitled, rich, man-boy skating through life on his daddy’s designer coat-tails.

  “Of course if you’re not available tonight I can do some checking to see if someone else is available,” he said, as a gesture. We both knew there was no one but me on the committee—at the whole university—who would be free on a Friday night.

  “I’ll do it,” I sighed under my breath. “No problem.”

  His shoulder’s fell. “Great, thanks Bryn.” He stepped aside and let me pass by. “He said he’d be at the MU commons at seven tonight.”

  Mr. Money-Bags had already set a time and location before anyone had agreed to it. How typical. He was feeding into every stereotype of a rich boy I had.

  “Name?” I called out over my shoulder, shoving the auditorium door open.

  “William,” he hollered, the name rolling down the aisle and blowing over me. I got a sudden chill. “William Winters.”

  “How am I supposed to find him in the MU?” The building was huge and packed to overflowing with bodies around the clock.

  “If it’s anything like when I met him for breakfast this morning in the cafeteria”—he scratched his head, chuckling—“he’ll be surrounded by a throng of women.”

  Super—a rich, entitled, womanizer. My favorite kind of human beings to be around.