Page 16 of Solo

He gives me a sheepish shrug. “I don’t know. Something tells me she’s not your favorite pupil.”

“Excuse me?”

He flashes a cryptic smile. “Let’s just say that word around campus is that there’s no love lost between the two of you. And do you know what that tells me, Dr. Markham?”

I sit back in my chair. This should be good.

“No. But please, enlighten me.”

“It tells me that you see something there. In her. You see a side of her that other people don’t. Maybe the real Katherine Brenner. Now, I’ve met the girl, Doc, and I have to say, she’s not all rainbows and sunshine, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” I say flatly, but he’s unaffected by my tone.

“Do you find her to be difficult in your classroom, Doc? Because I’m curious to see if your observations are the same as mine.”

I lean forward, over the top of my desk and he moves in closer, as if I’m about to tell him some deep, dark secret. For a split second, his eyes light up with anticipation.

“First, stop calling me ‘Doc,’” I spit. “Second, I don’t know who the hell you think you’re talking to, Mr. Kilpatrick, but I have no intention of violating the privacy of any student—whether I like them or not.”

“Okay, so you don’t like her then.”

He starts to scribble furiously in his little notebook.

“That is not what I said!” I protest.

“You didn’t have to.”

He grins. I scowl.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” he coaxes, waving his hand at me dismissively. “I can keep your identity a secret. No one will know you were the one who made the comments. I know you’re a hard-ass in the classroom—it’s not surprising that someone like her would rub you the wrong way. Well, here’s your chance to tell the world about Senator Brenner’s daughter. Is she an entitled bitch? Does she get a free pass cause her daddy’s a politician? Go ahead, you can tell me anything. I’ll make sure the whole world knows the truth.”

I’d give anything to knock the obnoxious grin right off his fucking face, but I can’t. Instead, I take a deep breath, close my eyes for just an instant, and keep my voice as even as possible. “I think you should leave now, Mr. Kilpatrick.”

He doesn’t budge. In fact, he’s looking downright comfortable in my office chair, as if he’s some long-lost friend who’s stopped by to reminisce about the good old days.

“She’s quite the student. Did someone tell you to give her a pass or special treatment? Or maybe someone offered to pay you off to give her good grades?”

I can feel my face getting hot as my blood pressure starts to rise, but I just stare at him without so much as a twitch for a response.

“No?” the reporter asks, raising an eyebrow and then jotting something else down. “Well, what about romances? Have you seen her with any particular guy? Or, better yet, any particular girl?”

I get to my feet so fast that my chair rolls back and hits the wall behind me with a crash.

“Seriously? This is what you consider news?”

He shrugs without so much as blinking an eye.

“Doesn’t matter what I think is news, Doc. It’s what the people want to read. What they want to buy. Senator Tucker Brenner is going to announce his bid for the White House very soon. That’s going to put him and Kate into the spotlight. I intend to be the one who’s there with the scoop on the daughter of ‘Senator Satan.’”

“Out.”

“Oh, come on…”

“Get. Out. Now!” I growl.

The jackass doesn’t move from his chair.

“If you’re not gone in the next ten seconds, I’m going to call campus security. Then they’ll call the police and charge you with trespassing, Mr. Kilpatrick. Hard to work from a jail cell, you know. And with a snow storm on the way, who knows how long you’d be stuck there.”