Windswept by Anna Lowe Page B

then one utterly depressing Sunday morning that ought to have been a really great Sunday morning he could have spent with Mia if he hadn’t been such a dick, he let his itchy fingers do a little snooping on the Internet and followed the hunch that had been growing in the back of his mind.
    Mia Whitman, sexual harassment.
He typed it in as a search term. Hit enter. Waited.
    Nothing.
    He stared at the screen for a while then typed again.
    Mia Whitman, Olympic swimming.
Because a woman who swam like Mia had to have been that good, or at least close, right?
    And bingo: pages and pages of swim meet results dating not too far back with Mia’s name at or near the top. Lots of top-ten, even top-five results in major collegiate meets with times that made him whistle, they were so fast. He scrolled through another three pages of results before a headline jumped out at him.
    Collegiate Swimmer Puts Past Behind Her for a Shot at Olympic Gold.
    By the time he got three sentences into that article, his blood was boiling.
    For most competitors, this week’s Olympic Trials are a chance to realize a dream. For one, it is a chance to escape a nightmare,
the article started.
For years, Mia Whitman chased her dreams with an intense training regimen: morning workouts, evening drills, with barely enough time for a shower, meals, and classes in between…
    He skimmed through the next part then slowed down again.
    Henry J, a fellow student at Tufts, wired the camera after hours in the showers…
    The women’s squad couldn’t have suspected…
    If it had been a newspaper in his hand, he would have crumpled it up and thrown it away, wishing he could take back what the guys in his squad had said.
    “Did you try it with her in the shower, Hayes?”
    “Yeah, did you lather her up?”
    He took five long breaths and read on.
    The videos circulated through several fraternities before being brought to the attention of campus police…
    Sexual harassment lawsuit filed by head of women’s squad…
    He shook his head more with every line. It was one of those no-win cases where a woman had more to lose by bringing a man to justice than in letting him get away. But Mia had stuck to her principles, pressing charges and making the case public, thus bringing a maelstrom of exposure upon herself. He could picture the whispered comments she must have had to endure.
    “Hey, isn’t that the chick from the videos?” some fraternity bastard would snicker on the way to class.
    “Hey, baby, want to lather up for me?” the jerk’s buddy would add.
    Ryan weighed an imaginary bat in his hands and pictured how good it would feel to put it to work on guys like that.
    Now she wants to put that all behind her,
the article said.
“All I want to do is swim my best,” Whitman said, refusing further comment…
    He scrolled ahead, looking for the results of the Olympic Trials. He ran a finger down line after line of names, times, places until he finally found it: Mia Whitman, women’s 800m, fifth place. A tight finish in which she’d missed her chance by a fraction of a second. The end of an Olympic dream.
    He’d sat in front of the screen for a long time, scrubbing his face so hard, he probably wouldn’t have to shave for another couple of weeks.
    No, Mia hadn’t been overreacting. Not one bit.

Chapter Fifteen

    Mia sat very, very still, trying to hold the tears back. A mish-mosh of tears, because no matter how often she told herself the memory of stupid comments wouldn’t hurt her, they still did. But at the same time, the sight of Ryan looking at her, droopy and inconsolable as a saggy-eyed basset hound, pulled from a whole different well of sorrow.
    She knotted her fingers together and groped for something to say.
    “You told them,” she said, and it came out somewhere in between a disbelieving whisper and an angry hiss. “You told all those guys at the pool you were sleeping with me!”
    Ryan shook his head. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
    God, did he have