“We’re notthatfar from the city,” I point out. “You could go on weekend trips if you wanted.”
Aurora sighs. “Avernia might not be nearly as trendy and modern as Pratt, but the course loads are too intense. Why else do you think I stayed over break instead of back home visiting my mom and dad?”
Neither of us note that her parents—my aunt Lenny and uncle Jonas—made a special trip up to exchange Christmas presents or that we know the real reason she didn’t go home has less to do with homework and everything to do with Foxe James.
Not that I have room to talk. I left LA because of my mistakes after all.
I curl into my heating pad, exhaling heavily.Fuck, that feels good. The lingering pain is soothed by the warmth seeping into my skin, and I pull my knees up, keeping it in place.
Propping my head on a pillow, I open my laptop and sift through my favorites folder on some streaming site. I swipe past dozens of classics and musicals, eventually cuing upCasablanca. My favorite.
Focusing on Humphrey Bogart, I lie there for a while, desperately trying to keep my mind off the green-eyed stranger from earlier and the pleasure he wrung from me.
And the fact that I didn’t get his name at all.
6
SUTTON
For centuries,Dupont Manor has hidden away in the foothills of the White Mountains, overlooking Avernia College. It’s a haunted shell of an estate, complete with massive sitting rooms, outdated floral wallpaper, and a swimming pool no one bothers to fill now that my youngest sister, Gigi, is at boarding school in London.
I don’t enjoy coming here. Sometimes it still smells like Bellamy, like hope and mint chocolate, though before her death, she lived on campus like me.
Ice lines Beckett’s blue eyes where he glares from across the main living room, like twin glaciers attempting to freeze me solid.
I glare back, because what appears to be an impromptu meeting between him, Mother, and Dean Bauer doesnotconstitute a fucking emergency, yet he ended my night early by claiming there was trouble brewing.
A night of mistakes, maybe, but one I was looking forward to nonetheless.
The scent of latex still clings to my fingers as I enter, glancing past Beckett at Justin Bauer, who sits on one of the sofas gawking at my mother.
She’s a stunning woman in her own right, but I imagine it’s more the novelty of having Claire Dupont in his midst that’s causing his rapture.
It’s rare for the lech to get invited places because he’s wildly unpopular among the founding families. But he’s so gutless, they keep him around.
Hence, I imagine, his presence now.
Dean Bauer is also easily intimidated and seduced by severe women, so I find his impropriety unsurprising.
What I do find surprising is the fact that he’s here at all, considering I watched his campus home go up in flames mere hours ago, and I was certain he’d been in it. Yet he’s clean and polished, freshly showered and feigning nonchalance as if nothing happened at all.
Such is the way at Avernia. Without mystery and anonymity, the university doesn’t function. I don’t know why I’m ever shocked at the lengths city and school officials will go to to cover shit up.
Mother lifts her chin, her dark green gaze unyielding as it meets mine.
“What the hell is this?” I ask, breaking the silence when no one else tries to.
“An intervention,” Mother replies, sipping from a porcelain mug. She pretends it’s oolong tea, but I don’t need to walk over to know it’s spiked with something—an antidepressant or French wine, perhaps.
Between arthritis ending her career as a pianist early and losing a child, I wouldn’t blame her for sedating herself more openly.
Beckett huffs at her answer. “Is an intervention a group therapy session where we talk about my faults and wonder out loud if I can be trusted in public anymore?”
“Sometimes yes,” Mother says, patting the space on the love seat beside her, beckoning me. “Sutton, darling, come sit. This is important.”
I walk over, perching on the cushion before she can ask again. “Where’s Father?”
She rolls her eyes. “Jean-Louis is having one of his spells. You know how those go. Don’t expect to see him outside his bedroom unless you’re a Westwood or Blackwater.”
