Indebted: Part Three (Series Finale): The Virgin & The Bad-Boy Billionaire (A BWWM Billionaire Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the seating area. My eyes won’t focus clear enough to make out the details of his face.
     
    “…I said, Kendra Cole!” the Dean of business looks agitated as the words soak into my brain.
     
    “Oh, shit,” I whisper. Sweeping across the stage, I reach the podium where he waits with my diploma in hand. A quick handshake and a smile blur together in a second, then it’s all over. The culmination of two years of hard work scrawled across a single sheet of paper. Floating to the other side of the stage, I join my peers and wait for the Dean to make his way through the endless list of names.
     

     
    As soon as I’m allowed to leave the formality of the graduation ceremony behind, I race down the stairs of the stage and start twisting through the crowd. Brianna and my family are making their way over to me, but I hurry past them. My only focus right now is to reach Matthew before he disappears into the mob.
     
    Craning my neck does no good, I just can’t see over all these small groups of people congregating all over the lawn. Hopping up onto an empty folding chair, I twist and turn like a balloon figure on a car sales lot, trying to track him down amongst the hundred other dark-haired men in suits.
     
    There he is! I spot him near the back seats. Jumping back down to the grass, I push through the remaining crowd like a linebacker at the Super Bowl. I’m getting closer, I can see him now that the crowd is starting to space out farther. My years of track and field are coming in handy as I sprint toward him. Although, I still don’t have much experience running in a billowing gown. “Matthew! Wait up!” Grabbing him by the arm, he swirls around surprised and confused. Not as surprised as I am to see that it isn’t Matthew’s arm that I’m clinging onto at all, but a stern looking stranger.
     
    Yanking his arm back from my grasp, he pulls his suit jacket down firmly. “Excuse me! Do I know you?” His eyes narrow into thin slits as I shift my weight from foot to foot, locked under his irritated stare.
     
    “No, you don’t. I’m sorry.” I mumble to the golf course cut grass beneath our feet. “I thought you were someone else.” Defeated, I turn away, slowly making my way back to my family.
     
    Brianna stumbles through the group of stragglers around me, out of breath. “Kendra,” she breathes like she just crossed the finish line at an Iron Man, “what are you doing?” Gasping and puffing, she clings onto my arm, and I’m not entirely certain that she isn’t about to faint. Even though I know this isn’t the time to give her yet another lecture on smoking, in a lot of ways, it feels appropriate. Managing to steady her breathing, she looks me in the eyes, “where are you going? Are you ok?”
     
    I bite my trembling lip. No. I’m not ok. “I thought I saw Matthew,” my voice cracks. “It looked so much like him, I just… I fucked it all up! You were right, I just couldn’t let myself be happy and now I’m going to spend, god knows how long, being miserable. And I did it to myself!”
     
    “No, don’t say that.” Brianna holds me in her arms like a child who’s afraid of the dark. “You can fix this, I know you can.”
     
    “No, I don’t think so. There’s only so much that people can take, you know? I’ve been such a brat to Matthew, I can’t blame him for not wanting anything to do with me.” Hot tears spill over the corners of my eyes and trail slowly down over my cheeks. I ignore the nosy stares we’re getting from people around us. I don’t care about anything right now. It all feels so empty.
     
    “Brianna holds my hand, softly rubbing her hand over the backs of my fingers. “Kendra, you can’t just give up because it’s hard! That’s not you.”
     
    “This isn’t like school, though. It’s different! What am I supposed to do? I called him two days ago, and he never answered me!” My voice is overshadowed by a sob that I can’t hold back anymore.