But then I ended up back at home for the holidays, and that was where I stayed. Cross was hardly around—not that I would’ve noticed much with everything that was going on—but I overheard my father comforting Sofia when she expressed how upset she was that he seemed to be pulling away.
I’m certain he was absent during the holidays because I was home, but who am I to care?
“Your room?” I repeat.
“Yeah.” He straightens to his full height. “Myroom. Didn’t realize you were hard of hearing, Wallace.”
I should’ve known this was too good to be true.
My father knew something was up when I announced that I wasn’t going back to Yale after the holidays.
“You’re the smartest in your class, you have a full-ride to Yale, and you don’t want to go back?”
“No.”
“Something happened.”
“Nothing happened–”
“You don’t have to tell me what happened, but don’t give up on school because of it. What if you transfer? To Shadow Valley?”
I know exactly why Cross is here. My dad probably bribed him to watch out for me, or maybe he thought I’d feel more comfortable if I had him around…safer.As if.I’d rather live alone, because I’m not sure being in the same house as Cross would be consideredsafe.
The question is, does Cross know that’s why he’s here?
I cross my arms and put all my weight on one foot. “So you mean to tell me that we’re roommates?”
His eyes narrow, like he’s just as put off by the thought as I am. “We’re sharing a house, not a room.”
I roll my eyes. “Housemates, then?”
Cross is busying himself with his phone, a half-smile overtaking his lips at whatever is on the screen. “Whatever you want to call it. Just don’t say it in public.”
The only thing worse than sharing walls with my rude, offensive, careless,jerkof a stepbrother is going back to Yale.
“Did you know?”
Cross lifts his gaze to mine quickly. Those brown eyes, rimmed in thick black eyelashes, narrow again, but he doesn’t answer. He just stares a hole in my face.
We stand in uncomfortable silence.
I clear my throat. “What did your new stepdaddy give you to get you to agree?”
Anger flashes across his face. “Stepdaddy? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I feed off his emotions like I’m starving. I lean back against the doorjamb, my suitcase touching my leg. He’s blocking the other two doorways, which gives me nowhere to go but into the room he says is his or down the stairs. Neither seems like a good option.
“Surely you didn’t opt to share a house with your spoiled brat of a stepsister…” I throw out the same insult he flung at me the last time we spoke. Something in me demands I keep poking the bear. “You either didn’t know, or my father bribed you.” I tap my finger against my chin and pretend to think. “What does Cross want?”
He advances on me, his jaw clenched. He stops a hair’s breadth away and braces his hand on the doorframe over my head. He’s so tall that he effortlessly leans down into my space. It takes all of my willpower not to cower.
“One, I can’t be bribed,” he intones.
I hold my breath and angle my chin with a feigned boldness. My heart pounds so hard my chest aches.
“And two…” Cross grabs onto my suitcase. “I don’t want anything from your father.”
His brown eyes darken. I open my mouth to push him a little further, because although I know he doesn’t like me, and he is intimidating, the old Scarlett never would’ve let him get away with talking to me like this.
