Read Fall For You [The Jane Austen Academy Series #1] for Free Online Page B

the melee. Their heads snapped back to their monitors.
    Anne handed Lizzie her recorder with Rick’s interview. Lizzie pressed Play to listen to what she soon understood to be the most mortifying series of stilted questions and answers about Rick and his class schedule.
    “Do you have any experience doing interviews?” Lizzie asked.
    Anne nodded, plucking an imaginary piece of lint off her sleeve. “You’ll recall I used to chair all the student applicant interviews.”
    “Then what explains this disaster?” Lizzie pressed the recorder closer to her ear to continue listening—like that would make the interview any better. Once he’d finished describing his sixth-period syllabus, the conversation died away so that all she could hear were the noises in the classroom—clacking keyboards, squeaking chairs.
    Rick’s voice cut through the silence, “Are you well, Anne?” Followed by Anne’s ragged intake of breath and, “Yes.”
    “And your family?”
    “Quite well, thank you.”
    Followed by silence, then finally, Rick saying, “You look well, too. Still.”
    Lizzie pushed the recorder directly to her ear, not believing what she was hearing, but then all she heard was the recording of Georgiana calling her name. The recording switched off.
    “You know him,” Lizzie said accusingly. “You already know Rick.”
    Anne nodded, but her face was completely closed off—there was a story there, Lizzie knew it. “You knew him a lot,” she pressed.
    Anne looked past her, out the window, but nodded again. Lizzie looked down to Rick’s bio, studying it more carefully this time. “His family is from Merrywood. You attended the same middle school.” Lizzie glanced up at Anne, who hadn’t looked at her since staring out the window.
    For once, instead of blurting out her question, Lizzie bit it back. Anne’s eyes had misted.
    Could Rick and Anne have been an item? Had he dumped her? Cheated on her? A guy who looked like Rick had no end of options—still, he’d gone on to the Naval Academy, which implied strength of character. What had happened between them?
    “You’ll have to do the interview again,” Lizzie said.
    That comment did bring Anne’s eyes back to hers. “Could you interview him instead? The dance is so soon, and we both know journalism is your passion, not mine.”
    “What is your passion?” Lizzie asked suddenly. For the amount of time Lizzie had spent thinking about Anne—about how unfair her nepotism had been, about how oblivious she seemed to the struggles of the other students—she knew very little about her.
    “I don’t know,” Anne said with a helpless shrug.
    Lizzie felt a tug of sympathy. Anne’s school, her home, had been sold out from underneath her, her gorgeous ex-boyfriend was wandering the halls and would no doubt be dating the hottest girl in school—although Lizzie secretly felt that was still Anne—by the end of the week, and Anne had no idea what she wanted out of life. Lizzie, at least, knew what she wanted. She wanted Georgetown. She wanted the White House.
    “Do you at least know what you want for dinner?” Lizzie said with a smile.
    Anne grinned.
    Lizzie remembered she was supposed to meet Ellie later—but she could eat a quick meal with Anne, just a little nibble, and then her real dinner with Ellie before they went to their tree.
     
    * * *
     
    The dining-hall door under the We Will Be Heard motto was just swinging open as Anne and Lizzie walked up the pebble path. Lizzie glanced at Anne, who finally seemed to be breathing normally. The sun was setting, casting colorful beams through all the stained glass windows and doors of the Academy. Lizzie felt it again—that sense of ease. That sense that she was home.
    “Left or right?” Anne asked as they filtered into the cafeteria.
    “Left or right what?” Lizzie asked.
    “Bed. We haven’t really talked about it.”
    Lizzie laughed—how weird that they were going to be roommates. She wouldn’t have imagined