Breathless #4 (The Breathless Romance Series - Book #4) Read online

  BREATHLESS #4

  The Breathless Series Book #4

  BAD BOY FRAT

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams

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  Chapter One

  After a few moments, the sheer shock of my mom’s message on my phone began to abate; I decided that I had to get back to my dorm room — that was not the kind of call that I could make in the middle of campus where anyone could hear. I hurried across campus, my heart pounding in my chest. They hired a private investigator? I shook my head as I remembered that detail. I wasn’t sure whether to be angry with them for taking that precaution when they had no real reason to suspect that Johnny had ever done anything wrong or upset and panicked about whatever the investigator had uncovered about him. You never confronted him about that comment. You never talked to him. You never even asked him about it. In spite of the fact that I’d given up talking to him about what I had read, I had never quite fully lost the back-of-my-mind feeling of fear and suspicion about Johnny.

  I didn’t even wait for the elevator. I half-ran through the hall of the first floor of dorm rooms and punched at the safety bar of the door to the stairwell. My heart was pounding so fast I barely noticed the stairs themselves as I went up flight after flight, heading up to my room — the one place I could safely call my mom and talk about whatever she had found out through her private investigator.

  I should have known my parents would hire someone; I should have known that they wouldn’t have taken the cue that I’d chosen my own college, that I was an adult. I should have guessed that they were going to be just as paranoid as ever about any guy I chose for myself. It wasn’t fair, but I should have expected it. I paused as I came to one of the landings between floors, almost out of breath from how quickly I had been taking the stairs. It couldn’t be anything, could it? I thought about it. Johnny had only ever had the one situation in his life, hadn’t he? Or maybe — the thought chilled me — there was something that the girl in the dining hall didn’t know about. Maybe there was a history there.

  I couldn’t believe it. There was no way Johnny could possibly be some hardened criminal or some abusive, cruel person. He was sweet and kind and thoughtful constantly when it came to me. I hadn’t known him very long, but if someone had the kind of past that a private investigator could uncover, they wouldn’t be able to hide their true colors, would they?

  I made my way up the last couple of flights of stairs more slowly; I couldn’t reconcile the Johnny I had met, the Johnny I had made love with and who had taken me into the woods on the sweetest, nicest date I had ever been on, with someone who could be the kind of man who would alarm my mother. Of course, I thought bitterly, it could just be that she thought he was dangerous because one of his uncles once shoplifted from a store. In my mom’s eyes, a poor background would be dangerous. But nonetheless, I had to lend her a certain amount of attention. I knew that in spite of how little I respected her views on wealth and things like that — her pretentiousness — she loved me and cared about me and wanted me to be happy. She wouldn’t have called so many times if it was something like Johnny being poor.

  That opened up the question once more in my mind of just what it was that Johnny had done. If he had done something other than be involved with a girl who committed suicide, I should know about it, shouldn’t I? I came to my floor and pushed the heavy stairwell door open with difficulty. My heart was pounding inside my chest as if it wanted to explode, and I had to walk slowly, already exhausted, towards my dorm room. I had to hope that Georgia wasn’t around; I needed the most privacy humanly possible for the conversation that I was about to have with my mom. What had her stupid private investigator discovered? I couldn’t imagine. It had to be more than what had happened with Claire, didn’t it? I had taken Johnny at face value when he had told me about his involvement with the girl who had committed suicide. But there had been that comment. On the one hand, I had Johnny’s assertion that he had only been her boyfriend and that people were still bitter at him, still blamed him, for not being able to save a troubled girl from killing herself. On the other hand, there were the spiteful words of the girl who obviously wanted Johnny for herself and the comment from Claire White’s memorial page where someone had said that Johnny should be in prison, too, and that what he had done to Claire was not love.

  And I had Johnny’s behavior. He had always been sweet and kind with me, funny and confident. I had seen him be aggressive on the ice, but that was how hockey players were, wasn’t it? I had never seen him treat a single woman with anything more than slight disgust and that was when the jealous girl from the dining hall had flashed him and pressed her boobs against the Plexiglas at a game. My mind was spinning as I closed the door to my bedroom in the dorm and caught my breath. I looked at my phone. Mom obviously urgently wanted to tell me something — I couldn’t just let it wait. I would have to call her and find out what she knew or thought she knew about the situation.

  But as I pulled up her contact information and started to hit the button to dial out, it occurred to me that once more I wasn’t giving Johnny the benefit of trust. Anything that Mom had to say to me was something I wouldn’t be hearing about from the man it concerned himself. I was once more going to listen to what amounted to rumor instead of confronting the man who had told me he loved me.

  I had been with him so many times; I had had so many opportunities to ask him more. Even when we had been alone in the woods and I had asked him about Claire White, I had just let it go when he asked me to. At the time, it had seemed like the best idea. It had seemed cruel to try and drag it out of him when he was clearly upset about having to talk about the girlfriend he had lost his virginity to. But had it just been stupid of me to let him distract me from asking about it again? Every time I had been on the edge of confronting him, asking him to his face if there was more to the situation than what he had told me before, I had stopped short. It would be better just to face whatever Mom had heard from her ridiculous private investigator and figure out how to deal with it. Figure out how to confront Johnny and what this meant for me.

  I pressed the call icon on my screen and took a deep breath. Mom would probably still be freaking out; one of us had to remain calm. I closed my eyes as the phone rang. Damnit, Mom, I thought as it rang once and then twice. You wanted me to call back. Answer the damn phone already.

  “Sweetie! Oh thank God,” Mom said the moment the call connected. “I’ve been so worried all this time.”

  “Mom,” I said, as she started to rattle on, sounding
panicked. “Mom. What’s going on? You hired a private investigator? Isn’t that a little over the top?”

  “Sweetie, if you knew what I know about that boy you’re dating you’d thank me for it.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Okay, so tell me what you know about Johnny.” Mom took a deep breath, and I knew she had been expecting me to argue harder against what she and Dad had done. I just wanted it over with; I wanted to know if there was something else for me to worry about with Johnny or if there was just the same old scandal.

  “One of his girlfriends, a girl called Claire White, killed herself a few years ago,” Mom said. I sighed with relief. It was just the same scandal that had come up before.

  “Mom,” I interrupted. “I know about Claire White. She was Johnny’s girlfriend, they were together in high school, and yeah it’s very sad that she killed herself, but it’s not like someone can blame Johnny for that.”

  “Becky, sweetie — if he could do what he did to her, what’s to say he won’t turn around and do it to you, too?” I rolled my eyes again.

  “Claire killed herself, Mom. What are you talking about? What exactly do you think he did?” Mom gasped.

  “You don’t know? Oh, baby girl.” Mom’s voice dropped and I heard a mixture of fear and sadness in her tone. “It wasn’t just some troubled girl who killed herself. Claire White…a group of boys from that school drugged her and raped her, Becky. They took pictures of her while they were doing it and spread them all around the school.” I felt my blood starting to run cold; I remembered what I had seen on Claire White’s memorial page, what the people had said about the different boys who had been involved all going to jail. And then the comment that Johnny should be with them. Oh God.

  “They raped her? And took pictures?” I heard my voice as if it was far away, I was in so much shock at what Mom was telling me.

  “Yes, Becky. That Claire White girl was so ashamed of herself — she was bullied and made fun of and it was so awful that she killed herself. She couldn’t deal with it. If…if Johnny could to that to one girl, he could do it to you, too.” I shook my head. For a moment, I couldn’t believe it, not any of it.

  “What happened to the boys?” I wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear her say it.

  “The boys are all in prison; all of them except Johnny.” The words made my stomach sink to my knees.

  “Well if Johnny’s not in prison, he must not have been involved,” I ventured to argue. I could imagine my mom shaking her head.

  “The world doesn’t work like that all the time, Becky, and you know it. He’s a big hockey player — he probably got off scot-free just because of that. Nobody wanted him to be carted off to jail when he could be playing.” My throat felt tight, my mouth was dry. “He was a really big deal in that town; a home hero on the ice.”

  “I…I mean, come on, they have to uphold the law. I’m sure there’s just something…” I couldn’t think of anything, though.

  “Our investigator was only able to discover that there was a sealed file on Johnny about the investigation. Nobody knows what’s in it — except for law enforcement. And Johnny, of course. But nobody really knows what his involvement was. Becky…if he wasn’t involved at all, then why would he have a police file?” I didn’t have any answers for her. I had no idea what to say to that. I took a deep breath. There had to be something that I could find out from Johnny himself, something to make this right. I had been wrong to call my mom before talking to the man I loved himself.

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” I told my mom.

  “Becky, please be safe, sweetie. If Johnny was involved in something like this…and your dad says that the frat he’s involved with is wild partiers…”

  “Mom, I’ll call you back. Don’t worry about me.” I finally convinced her that I was not going to get murdered in at least the next twenty-four hours and hung up the phone, my whole body feeling numb.

  Chapter Two

  After a few minutes of sitting in my room in shock, my brain started to finally thaw. Mom had to be wrong about Johnny’s involvement in that case. Even if he was a big deal hockey player in his hometown, it wasn’t like the law could possibly have overlooked that, was it? He didn’t come from a wealthy family. He didn’t come from the kind of family that had a lot of clout. I had to talk to him about the situation, as much as it would put a strain on everything between us. I had to know what was really going on.

  As I sat in my room making up my mind, I thought about all of the things I had heard and seen and done with and about Johnny. I thought about the trip out into the woods and how simple and wonderful the date had been, but how scared I had instinctively been when he’d turned onto the trail in his huge truck, away from the town, away from prying eyes. I thought about our trysts in the closet at the country club and in my bedroom. I thought about the way that he had never been anything but sweet to me, but the way I had seen him on the ice, pushing, shoving, and all but brawling with the other teams’ players. I thought about my dream that I’d had — the nightmare of seeing him beating Claire to death with his hockey stick. But that hadn’t been even remotely based in reality, I told myself firmly. Claire’s death had been at her own hands.

  But then I thought that if Johnny had been involved in Claire’s rape, then it would be just as though he had beaten her to death. If he had even been one of the guys taking pictures, sharing them around, laughing at the poor girl who had already been victimized, it was just as bad as if he had abused her — it was abuse, even if it wasn’t physical.

  I had to find a way to get to the bottom of it. I had no idea where Johnny was — if he was in class, if he was anywhere on campus, if he was back at the frat house or in the dining hall. I texted him. Hey Babe, you busy? I couldn’t bring myself to unload the whole horrific mess on him in text message form. That wouldn’t be fair. I had to talk to him face to face. I fidgeted in my dorm room while I waited for him to answer. Even if he was in class, I knew his phone would be close at hand. He’d feel it vibrate and then he’d respond. I could find a few minutes to talk to him alone — somewhere.

  I started pacing my bedroom floor back and forth, waiting. Minutes passed by achingly slowly. After five minutes, I knew I had to try again. Hey Babe, thinking about you. How’s it going? I sent it off and chewed on my bottom lip, pacing some more. I felt like a lion trapped in a cage; all I wanted to do was break out and run amok. I took a deep breath. Maybe Johnny didn’t have his phone on him. Maybe he had it in his backpack and it was on the ground somewhere. Maybe he didn’t know I was texting him because it was on silent. I tried one more time, sending a quick string of emoji. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where he was on campus. I didn’t even know that he was on campus. But I absolutely had to talk to him. I had to get his side of the story on the issue of Claire White.

  As I waited for a response from Johnny, I thought about the fact that Claire’s memorial page had been full of comments about the boys who had driven her to suicide. I thought about the person who had anonymously said that Johnny deserved to be in jail with the rest of the boys. That what he had done to the poor girl wasn’t love. I had memorized that stupid posting in my head; I had worried about it so much. I had driven myself crazy about it and then completely forced myself to forget it rather than confront Johnny about it. I chewed on my bottom lip some more as I waited for him to answer at least one of my texts. He had to have his phone near him; I couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t replying. Scenarios flashed through my head. As ridiculous as I knew them to be, they were so real in the instant — scenarios of him being arrested, him committing a crime, or being lynched.

  I had to get out of the room. I couldn’t just stay there — not without answers, not without at least trying to talk to Johnny about what my mother had uncovered. She was right about one thing: the Claire White case was much bigger than just some girl who had been troubled, who Johnny hadn’t been able to save. Whether or not he had any part in the attack on her, he hadn�
��t been entirely forthright with me, and I would have to get the full truth from him before I could put my mind at rest. He told me he loved me. He told me he’d loved me ever since he set eyes on me. How could he be as terrible as that and love someone? He’d told me he loved Claire, too.

  As quickly as I had run into the dorms, I found myself snatching up my keys and ID card, slipping my phone into my pocket, and heading out of the room. I nearly tripped over my own feet trying to get down the stairs, too impatient still to wait for the elevator. I didn’t want to run into anyone. I just wanted to find Johnny, talk to him about everything that was going on. I didn’t have any idea of what to even believe anymore. How could someone who was so gentle and sweet have drugged and raped a girl he claimed to love? How could the charming, polite, smart guy I had fallen head over heels for be the kind of guy who could bully and torment a girl to death?

  I got to the ground floor, somehow managing to avoid falling down the stairs after several near-misses when my feet didn’t quite land fully on a step. My heart was pounding, and I could feel my eyes stinging. I had to find Johnny. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, convinced I had felt it vibrate — nothing. I put it back in my pocket; in my panicked state, I didn’t want to drop it on the cement walkway and break it — that would put me out of touch with everyone. I tried to slow down the rapidly beating of my heart and get myself together, but every minute the situation weighed on me more and more. I started out of the dorms, trying to think of where Johnny could be. I checked the dining hall first. If he wasn’t in class, or at the frat, he would be there, I thought. Or at practice. I peered in and didn’t see him anywhere. I even pissed off one of the workers by not even bothering to wait in line and swipe my card, instead making a beeline for the dining area to see if a closer inspection would reveal him.