It’s just that shallow.
I loosen a breath and turn my gaze up at the attendant, her flushed cheeks, the awkward pinch of her mouth. New, she must be.
I doubt she’ll last long.
“Scones,” I order. “A double espresso. And a dozen biscuits.”
She dips her head, then bustles off down the aisle.
Grandmother huffs a quiet sound. The disapproval is blatant in that alone, so she really doesn’t need to look me over like I’m a filthy rag before she turns to look out the window. But she does.
Oliver puts his earbuds back in.
Dray reclines in his seat, lounged. His stare flickers over me, sweeping the collar of my Ralph Lauren sweater, the plain diamond earrings needled into my lobes, the puffiness of my face exposed by all my hair gathered into a ponytail atop my head.
For a while, he just considers me.
I sag in my seat, only looking away from the window when the attendant returns with my order.
Even then, I don’t meet his gaze.
There is nothing calculative in the way he watches me; it’s one of those looks of his that mostly comes without harm. He considers me and matters outside of me. His mind drifts from the present.
That is good—for me, at least.
Because it means Dray hasn’t yet learned the truth, that I know. He hasn’t been informed of that revelation.
Father might want to keep it hush.
There has been too much of a plot to keep it from me. All this time, all over the break, no one breathed a fucking word about Dray and my contracts.
Whatever reason is behind that, it’s the same reason my family haven’t told Dray that I know of our betrothal now.
His ignorance of that must have him believing my vitriol towards him today is generic backtalk from me, the usual, or seasoned by the push into the fountain.
That’s if he even thinks about it.
It’s allIthink about.
The whole ride back to England, to the airport, I am scheming. I must scheme, I must plot.
There is no other way for me to endure this.
If I do nothing, two things will happen this year.
I will graduate The Academy of Bluestone for the Education of Exceptional and Elite Society.
I will marry Dray Sinclair.
I stew on one thought for the rest of the jet ride:
Not if I can help it.
end of book two
