Let It Be Me, Becky Wade [beautiful books to read .TXT] 📗

brought to the dean’s attention by Dr. Grant himself, who called the dean to alert him to Dylan’s application. The dean informed me that I’m very fortunate to have the esteemed Dr. Grant in my brother’s corner.”

He kept his face impassive. His heart thudded in his eardrums, which was stupid. His heart didn’t thud like this when he was cutting on a child’s aorta.

“I told you about the dean’s email concerning Dylan on Saturday,” she continued, “and you said . . . What did you say? I think you said, ‘Good for him.’ You most definitely did not say that you were the one who’d . . . who’d—” she sliced a hand through the air—“manufactured the dean’s interest in Dylan!”

“I don’t have the power to manufacture anyone’s interest. I simply called the dean to tell him about a promising new recruit.”

“And, no doubt, to ask him to keep us in mind for scholarships.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

Color flared on her cheeks. “So. Not only did you go behind my back to pull some strings, but then you didn’t come clean about your involvement when you had the chance.”

She was blowing this all out of proportion. “I know the college applications have been hard on you and Dylan. When I found out that he’d applied to Georgia Southern and realized I had a contact there, I wanted to do something to help. So I called the dean. But I planned to keep my involvement anonymous—”

“Because you knew I wouldn’t like it. But you got caught.”

“I got caught doing something good for your brother.”

She scowled at him. “Dylan and I are not helpless. We are not incapable. We are not incompetent! We don’t need a Daddy Warbucks to pull strings for us behind our backs!”

“I know you’re not helpless—”

“That’s not what your actions say.” A strand of hair slipped over one eye. She shoved it back. “Do you, with your degrees and your money, pity Dylan and me?”

“No.” But honestly, how could he not pity her? She was supposed to have accepted a full ride to Princeton.

“I think that you do pity us,” she said, reading his mind. “Which annoys me no end because, in case you’d failed to notice, I’m an exceptionally independent person. My job is important and satisfying. Dylan and I are doing fine. We don’t need necklaces or graphing calculators or art supplies or hubcaps or phone calls to deans. My affection can’t be bought. So, please. No more.”

His temper stirred. “I was trying to lend a hand.”

“But you didn’t ask me first before involving yourself in something that pertains to my brother.” She drew herself tall. “I’ve been taking care of him for a long time, and you can trust that I will continue to take care of him. We don’t need your intervention.”

“Everybody needs the help of others sometimes, Leah.”

“I don’t need help from you. At all.”

Sebastian crossed his arms and said nothing.

“Well?” she said, clearly waiting for him to tell her he was sorry.

For making a phone call for her brother’s sake? He wasn’t sorry. “If you think I’m going to apologize, I’m not.”

Without another word, she stalked from the alley and down the sidewalk.

Seething inside, he watched her go.

Turn around, Leah.

She didn’t.

She was leaving. She was going to get in her car and drive back to Misty River. And he was irritated with her, so her departure should be okay with him.

It should be. But it wasn’t. He set his jaw to keep himself from calling out to her and asking her to stay in Atlanta with him for another few hours, months, centuries.

Leah pointed her car toward home.

As the miles passed, the city dropped away. She drove into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and then higher as her brain chewed on the events of the weekend the way she’d chew on a piece of taffy that had been mostly delicious but ended with a surprisingly bitter finish.

Fabulous Saturday, with their Halloween dinner at a sky-high restaurant that had as its carpet the lights of Atlanta’s buildings. Their servers had been dressed in costume, and she and Sebastian had shared a dessert named Death by Chocolate.

Wonderful Sunday with church and museums, a movie night at Sebastian’s apartment, and kisses that incinerated the air.

Rocky Monday, which had started out with promise and finished with the realization that Sebastian had been meddling in her affairs.

In her lifetime she’d received one huge advantage—her years at the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted at Clemmons. She’d had no qualms about accepting that gift. And, had she been able to take Princeton up on their offer, she’d have had no qualms about accepting that gift, either.

Back then, she’d been a teenager. Economically disadvantaged. The daughter of a volatile family. She’d been desperate for education and comfortable with the idea that she’d earned her scholarships through merit.

But ever since she’d turned Princeton down, she’d been a citizen of the real world. She couldn’t afford to spend her days in the lofty realms of pure mathematics when she needed to stretch every paycheck in order to keep a boy fed, clothed, sheltered. She taught, graded papers, forced Dylan to eat vegetables, badgered him about turning in his homework. She was the person who haggled with health insurance, called the exterminator, and made mortgage payments.

For ten years, she’d received no advantages. She’d done it the hard way, and she was proud of what she’d accomplished. It humiliated her to think that when Sebastian looked at her, he saw someone in need of assistance.

She was not Sebastian Grant’s charity case. And his non-boyfriend status in no way gave him the right to call the dean of the fine arts program on Dylan’s behalf.

Sebastian had only met Dylan . . . what? Three times? He hardly knew Dylan.

Sebastian hardly knew her.

She hardly knew him.

Only . . .

That wasn’t entirely fair. Or correct. She had a feeling that while it was true that Sebastian hardly knew Dylan, he might know her quite well already. Just like she might know