Claimed by the Soroity Daddy

Chapter 1 : Meet Cute

*Chloe*

Do you ever notice how time seems to slow down when you’re doing something you hate?

It’s not like I was new to the phenomenon, but after enrolling in Professor Bergen’s Early American Lit class, I understood it on a whole new level.

I sat near the top of the auditorium, staring down past seats filled with glaze-eyed students struggling to remain awake for another twenty minutes of Bergen’s droning monotone lecture. Everything about Bergen looked and sounded dry. I wouldn’t have been surprised if his body creaked when he moved.

At that moment, my professor turned his back to the class as he scrawled on the blackboard. The grating screech of his chalk, as it squealed across the board, made me thrust my fingers into my ears.

He finished, at last, and turned back to face us.

“So, in Benito Cereno, we have what kind of narrator?”

Let’s just say nobody stampeded all over each other in an effort to be the first to respond. Bergen’s tone and expression remained stagnant as he continued to appeal.

“Anyone? Anyone? What kind of narrator do we have in Benito Cereno?”

“First person?” said a tired-sounding voice near the front. No doubt they wanted to answer just to get the ordeal over faster.

“I’m afraid that’s incorrect,” Bergen replied. “Anyone else want to take a stab at it?”

The blonde-haired girl next to me leaned in close, putting her lips close to my ear. “I’d like to take a stab at my wrists if it means I don’t have to be in this class a second longer.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh too loud. “Sylvia, you’re so wrong,” I said when I’d recovered.

“Like you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

“Anyone?” Bergen said, looking right at us. “Would anyone like to answer?”

He turned back around and began writing on the board once more. “Unreliable. Benito Cereno was an unreliable narrator.”

Bergen turned back toward the class, his gray brows living high on his face.

“Can anyone tell me what makes him an unreliable narrator?”

A dark-haired, brown-skinned girl with a very short skirt raised her hand in the row below us. “He didn’t know the slaves had taken over the ship?”

“Correct.”

Bergen had zero enthusiasm even when someone got the answer right.

“How does Connie know this stuff?” I whispered to Sylvia.

“Connie? She doesn’t. Look, she’s reading the cliff note app on her phone as we speak.”

Sure enough, our sorority sister used the yellow and black words on her screen to give the correct answer. I wasn’t sure if I should admire her tenacity more or her ingenuity. I just wanted to survive early American Lit. She wanted to get an A like she always did.

Sylvia and I didn’t get straight As. I had a pretty high B average, but Sylvia often skated by with the bare minimum for a C. Unless it was for a class she really liked, then she always got an A.

I figured that had a lot to do with who her father was. Alexander Cross, the billionaire CEO of CrossFire Security Solutions. Well, not just that one company. He owned a bunch of companies; a mythical figure who Sylvia frequently spoke of but whom I’d never seen.

Alexander Cross was good at two things: making money, and spoiling his daughter rotten. Not that Sylvia would ever admit to being spoilt. Hell, I’m not sure she thought she even was spoiled. If you grow up used to that kind of privilege and lifestyle, you think it’s normal.

Not me. I wore a stupid paper hat thrice weekly in the university commissary just to earn enough to eat. My scholarship took care of my tuition, but not the numerous fees and tangential costs of attending college.

“I could strangle Tiffany for telling us this class was an easy A,” Sylvia muttered under her breath as Bergen screeched his chalk across the board some more.

“It probably was easy for her. She likes to read all of that old-timey s**t. Jayne Eyre, Jane Austen… Hey, how come so many of them are named Jane?”

“Jayne Eyre is the name of a book. Charlotte Bronte was the author.”

I looked at Sylvia and c****d an eyebrow. “How do you know that? You don’t know anything.”

She thrust her tongue out at me playfully before showing me her phone. “I’ve got the cliff note app too.”

The sound of students packing up their notebooks, laptops, and writing implements created a background hum that drew my attention away from Sylvia. Bergen noticed it as well, glancing up at the clock on the wall.

“Class time is up already. Okay, don’t forget we have a quiz on Monday morning. Sample questions are available on my webpage, which is listed on the syllabus…”

Everyone just shuffled out of there as fast as possible without really listening to him. As usual. Sylvia and I were among the first out, due to our proximity to the exit. I burst through the door and squinted in the bright afternoon sunlight.

“Oh. my God, it’s finally over. I thought I was going to fall into a coma,” Sylvia groaned.

“I know what you mean. Why do we have to study this old-timey s**t, anyway? They don’t make the math majors use an abacus, or the science majors study the humors of the body.”

Sylvia shrugged her bare shoulders. Her tiny lace camisole top and short, short bottoms were perfect for the warm weather. They drew the eyes of more than a few male students as we passed by. Some of them checked me out, too, but my leggings and loose-fitting T-shirt left a lot more to the imagination.

“Hey, do you want to get pedicures this weekend?” Sylvia asked.

“I wish I could, but I’ve got to finish my term paper for Criminal Psych.”

Sylvia nodded. “Oh, that’s right. Maybe after that class, you’ll be able to solve, um, the mystery.”

Sylvia strenuously avoided saying out loud what she really meant. Namely, that my father had been found dead under rather dubious circumstances. The police called it a homicide due to a failed carjacking. I wasn’t so convinced.

Sylvia was only half right, though. I’d given up on finding out who killed my father a long time ago. Now, I just wanted to understand why. Why would one human being decide to need the life of another human?

According to my classes, there were a lot of different reasons, but no definitive formula you could use to determine if someone was a killer or not.

Sylvia and I were joined by Connie, who wore almost the same outfit as Sylvia. Her black hair shone like a ribbon in the setting sun as she fell into step beside us.

“Hey, are you guys going back to the house?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “We’re done with classes for the day.”

“Is it cool if I walk with you? I’m trying to avoid Ned Sprangly.”

“The engineer guy? I thought you two were dating?”

“Dating?” Connie sputtered with laughter. “Oh nooooo! No way. He was helping tutor me and then he asked me if I wanted to eat lunch and I said sure and then he wouldn’t let me pay for my half of it and the next thing you know…”

Sylvia and I theorized that Connie’s lungs went all the way to her feet. She could talk like an auctioneer without ever seeming to need to take a breath.

She continued to prattle almost all the way across the rolling hills of the tree-heavy campus. Stonebridge University had a lovely campus, something that was often lost on me because I was too busy rushing from class to work and back to class to appreciate it.

Then Sylvia and Connie went to the shop to buy a bottle of Ph-balanced water, and I waited for them on the roadside. When I thought of how much salary I could get from the job as a waiter in the noisy and chaotic bar, I saw someone walk up straight towards me and try to put his hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, where is Connie?”

When I looked up, I saw a face with thin cheeks and coppernose. It’s Ned Spranly, who tried to seek Connie and she totally had no interest in. I did not think Connie would like to be bothered by Ned, so I shook my head.

But Ned did not leave, and he looked at me with great interest.

“I know you, you are Connie’s roommate. You guys are always together, and you must know where she is.” He tried to get closer to me, which made me keep backing up until I leaned against a tree, ”Come on, tell me.”

“I really don’t!” I twisted my head toward the shop and preyed that Sylvia and Connie would help me get out of this trouble, but Ned blocked my sight, ”All I know is she does not want to date with you, and you should leave now.”

I thought Ned would become angry from embarrassment and leave me alone, but I was wrong. It seemed that he transferred his interest to me, and asked, “So do you want to have a walk with me?”

“Of course not!”

“Why? I know you need money, and that’s why you work in the bar.” He said as he ran his hand around my shoulder, ”You can endure the drunks and allow them to touch you, but you don’t want to walk with me?”

“That’s total a different story!”

I tried to get rid of him, but he held my arm tightly. I felt pain and almost everyone’s attention had been attracted by us. They must hear Ned’s words, and they also knew I had to work in the bar to earn my own tuition and living expenses. Their sight made me feel like running naked on the street, and I felt shamed with tears brimming in my eyes.

At that time, all I wished was to dig a hole and hide myself in there. But I heard footsteps, and somebody came towards us.

“Let her go.”

The voice sounded familiar, and I could not hold myself to look up at him. The next moment, my eyes widened when they fell upon him. There was no word to describe his eyes, which made me think of sky. Yes, they possessed warmth in spite of their cool color. A warmth that set my skin ablaze wherever it landed.

For a man twice my age, he showed no signs of being infirm. His long sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, allowing me to see the play of muscles and tendons on his forearms. Alex’s tailored suit was cut to display his broad shoulders and tapered waist. He could have been an action movie star based on his physique.

“Hello, Chloe,” He said in a gentle word and smiled with no warm, “You need any help?”

At that time, I forgot Ned and everyone else. All I could do was to look at the intoxicating eyes and said.

“Hello, Mr. Cross.”