He actually smiled at her. She was being a straight-up bitch, and he smiled like she'd delivered him a win. And then offered to send a copy of her 'article' to his notoriously publicity-averse dad. He was absolutely messing with her. Smug bastard.
"I'll keep you posted," Rosario said reluctantly, because she couldn't exactly say no to that. And then, to forestall any sticky follow-up questions like what's the publication?, she made a show of glancing at her phone, noticing the time, and closing her book with a soft, decisive thump. "Right, well, this has been... something, but I have a class." She drained the rest of her half-cold coffee and stood, already shoving her stuff into her bag. "See ya round, I guess."
She started off at a brisk stride before Archer had a chance to get a word in. Let him be smug on his own.
Rosario was way early for Anatomy, arriving even before the professor to find the room still occupied by an earlier class. That was fine. There were benches in the halls, she could get out her book and catch up on her interrupted reading, and put Archer Goldenhawk (all damn three of them!) out of her mind.
She wasn't thinking about it. She wasn't thinking about how in the hell Archer had found out about the emails and whether his dad knew as well and how exactly did AG2 stop people in the press from dropping his name? Should she be expecting legal threats? Was that why Archer was screwing with her, cuz he knew there was never gonna be an article (which there wasn't anyway, but—)?
She wasn't thinking about it. She refused.
It was easier once the other class had trickled out, once she was sitting at a desk with her notepad set out in front of her and the chatter of voices all around and the professor at the top of the room struggling to get the computer to work with the projector. Easier to slip into study mode and out of— whatever the hell that had been just now. It was a problem for later. She filtered out the voices and sank her concentration into the textbook.