Chapter 34 Aweek passed with no sign of Harmony. Matthew kept saying he thought she might change her mind and come back. I knew better. She'd decided we were not worth it and had gone home. I couldn't blame her, and I didn't hold it against her. We'd ruined her time at college, and our actions had gotten her thrown out. I wished she'd accepted our apologies, but I suspected she didn't believe they were true. Classes passed in a montage of grief much like I'd experienced when I lost my wife. Nothing mattered. My students took advantage of my distracted state, and I couldn't find it in me to care. I'd lost Harmony. Nothing else fucking mattered. I ended class ten minutes early, unable to stand looking at my students another second. They stood with surprised grins and gathered up their belongings. All but one. Delilah. She lingered too long putting her books away, and I waited for the inevitable. She took her time walking down the steps toward me. "Are you okay, Professor?" I hated the way she said it, hated the way she looked at me. "Fine. Can I help you?" I refused to give her the pleasure of saying her name. She'd brought me the news about Harmony. That put her so high on my shit list I was tempted to fail her, except it forced me to deal with her another semester. "I'm sorry Harmony left." The low, sultry tone held no indication she cared at all. I grunted and picked up the tests the students had left behind on my desk. I kept an eye on Delilah for my own sake. "It's for the best." Delilah said the same thing Harmony did. And it pissed me off even more hearing it again. "So I hear." I let it go at that. If only Roberto or Matthew would come in and give me a reason to end this conversation. I couldn't walk out. My next class started in ten minutes. Delilah had caught me in a perfect moment. Delilah perched on the edge of my desk, the same way Roberto did. Intentional or something else? "She really wasn't great at keeping secrets. If she was, she never would have told me all the things you did to her. You and Matthew and Roberto." I stiffened with every word out of her awful mouth. "You don't know what you're talking about, and this is not a proper conversation between students and professors." "Oh, I know." She crossed her legs and kicked them back and forth. "It's time I told you the truth, Stephen. I'm great at keeping secrets. And I'm more than a little interested in seeing what Harmony was talking about." Shock tightened my grip on the papers. They crunched in my grasp, almost ruining them. "You can have me, if you want. Just like you had Harmony." She leaned forward to lock her hands around her knee. "And you won't even have to share." Did she think this was attractive? Or was it that she thought what we had with Harmony was so shallow she could be replaced? "You can have me all to yourself ... unless you want to share me with Professor Bellington and Professor Rossi. If that's the case, I'm open to anything." She winked and slid from the desk. "What do you say?" "Get the fuck out of my classroom." I pointed at the door. "There is no way in hell that I'd ever have you in my bed." My vehemence heated the room to boiling, or maybe that was just me. Delilah stopped her deliberate approach and pouted. "You don't mean that. Harmony was innocent, barely even knew what sex was, much less how to perform. You won't have to worry about that with me." "Leave. Now. Or I'm calling security to escort you out." I resisted my impulse to slam the papers down on the desk. Giving in to the anger would give her more power. It showed she'd gotten under my skin, and I wasn't about to let that happen. Her nostrils flared, the look in her eyes full of something I couldn't define. "You don't want to tell me no." I stood my ground, snorting through my nose. "No." I'd never been one to give in, especially in a situation like this, and I sure as hell wasn't about to start. "Are you going to leave, or should I make that call?" "Oh, I think you want to hear my counteroffer." Hands on her hips, she looked me over in that sleazy way many men looked at women. It was distasteful and downright rude. "Say yes, or I destroy you. Not just you, but Matthew and Roberto as well." I laughed so hard my sides ached. With every vicious roll of ill humor, Delilah's eyes tightened. "How do you think you're going to do that? The dean already knows about us." Her victorious expression fell just enough to prove she hadn't known about that. Apparently, Harmony hadn't told her everything after all. I kept going, driving the wedge deeper so she had no room to maneuver. "Harmony took the fall for us. You have no leverage to make me do anything. And even if you did, it would never happen." It took less than a minute for her to regain her confidence. I'd expected longer. No. I'd expected her to fold and slink away. She wasn't the first student to try and blackmail me into bed, but she was the most persistent. "I have other ways of destroying you." She maintained eye contact, probably thinking it would make me believe her. I tapped the papers into a neat pile and slid them into my bag to grade later. It was the only thing that kept my mind off Harmony, and that only worked for a few minutes at a time. Had she made it home okay? I'd texted her, and so had Matthew and Roberto. We hadn't asked for anything except for her to let us know she was okay. The lack of response had us all worried. Delilah snapped her fingers. "Hey, are you listening?" "Nope." I shook my head and shouldered the bag. The move reminded me of Harmony, and I almost lost my mind as the pain of losing her spiked. "I said I have other ways of ruining you." I had no interest in listening to her drivel. Checking the clock proved pointless. My class was due to start, and I was still unable to leave unless I wanted to abandon yet another group to an hour of online videos. Not a bad idea. They might learn more until I figured out how to move on without Harmony. "I'm the one who wrote the threatening messages to Harmony." A sly grin dimpled her cheeks. "She thought she was being so careful." She rolled her eyes. "Please. A kindergartener could tell she was sleeping with you three. It was too easy to scare her into running away." All the fury I'd kept penned up exploded outward. "You're the reason she left?" "Of course." Delilah looked at her nails, then up at me through thick lashes. "I couldn't have her around ruining my opportunity." "There is no opportunity. You don't have a snowball's chance in hell of hooking up with any of us." I headed toward the door. Matthew and Roberto needed to hear about this. "If you're done being a bitch, I have work to do." She stood in my path, her hand extended like she might put it on my chest. "I'm being a bitch? Oh please. I'm not the one who got pregnant by her professors, then ran off. Who knows"-she shrugged, blinking wide eyes innocently-"maybe I'll convince her to abort the baby next." "Like hell you will." I barged past her, not bothering to check my speed as my shoulder crashed into hers. "Stay away from me, and from Harmony." Shock had almost rendered me speechless, but there was no way I'd let Delilah win, even if it was all in her head. "This is your last chance, Stephen," she called out to me from the middle of my classroom. "One word from me and this all blows up in your face." "I'd rather eat shit and die. I'll take my chances." I turned in the doorway and let her see the full force of my anger. She blanched and took a step back. "That's right. That is what you're up against. I will protect Harmony at all costs, and there is nothing you can say or do to change my mind." I'd lost one woman and child. No way I'd let another slip through my fingers. Harmony was pregnant. The more I let those words spread through me, the more sense everything made. Delilah blackmailed Harmony, or the threats themselves had been enough. Put that in with Leighona's reaction and her accusations, and the fear of an unexpected pregnancy, and the whole situation turned into a powder keg ready to explode at the slightest spark. That spark came in the form of Dean Carpenter. Harmony did more than take the fall for us. She hid her pregnancy. Why? One thing I'd learned from being married to an amazing woman, they had reasons for everything. And the fault for this one came back to me. I understood it as I ran from the building at a dead sprint. Matthew would be in class. I checked my watch. Rossi should be free. I'd tell him first, then we'd talk to Matthew together. I had to make this right. By demanding we all keep our feelings out of the equation, I'd unintentionally made Harmony feel like she could not come to us when she found out about the baby. My heart took flight as the weight of it all settled on me. Happiness spread with the same heady sensation I'd felt when I found out about my first child. I was going to be a father. It didn't matter that biologically the father might be Matthew or Roberto. We were all in this together. Pain lanced my side before I made it halfway to Roberto's classroom. I slowed to a jog and sent him a text to meet me outside. Minutes later, I spotted him running my way, his face pale and eyes tight. "What's going on?" He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. "You mentioned Harmony. Have you heard from her?" I filled him in on what Delilah said, ending with the most important information. "Harmony's pregnant." Roberto sucked air so hard he coughed. "What? For real?" "I don't trust Delilah at all, but she was all too happy to admit that to me. Maybe she thought I'd be appalled." Some men would be. Was I worried about Harmony? Yes. I also wanted to be there for her in any way she allowed. Roberto regained his color an instant later. "Does Matthew know?" "Not yet." We turned at the same time and headed toward the theater hall. "We might have to wait a bit. He's in the middle of class." Our strides slowed enough that we didn't look frenzied. When we reached the trees outside the theater hall, we stopped and took a minute to catch our breath. "You think Delilah will really try to talk Harmony into an abortion?" Roberto spoke my worst fear aloud. I tensed without meaning to, and he clapped a hand to the center of my back. "If she does, I hope Harmony says no." We'd respect her decisions, but if she didn't want the baby, I hoped she at least offered us a chance to raise the child ourselves. If it came to that. Now that we knew the truth, we had a chance at finally showing Harmony how much she meant to us. I'd been prepared to let her go, but that was before I realized that she'd been forced to walk away and maybe she still wanted us but had been too scared to say anything. A single mother returns to the city she left seven years ago after breaking up with her ex to seek treatment for her son’s leukemia. Upon learning of her return, the ex immediately searches for the lo...