She followed him upstairs.
The second floor was vast, hushed, and tastefully underused. Too many rooms for just two people. Not that the house seemed to mind.
Gage’s room was immaculately kept—grey built-ins, sharp lines, everything aligned like it had been arranged with a ruler.
On the shelf, tucked betweenThe Art of Warby Sun Tzu andTitan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., sat a gleaming fencing mask and half a dozen narrow, silver trophies engraved with his prep school’s crest. Evidence that even then, Gage had been mastering control with a blade.
“No posters on the walls?” she asked, fingers grazing across the shelves.
“Wasn’t in my room enough to warrant interior decorating.”
Of course he wasn’t. He was too busy preparing for the future to do something as mundane as think about what he enjoyed from popular culture.
“How long did you live here?”
“We moved in my first year of high school. Closer to King Global. Easier to shadow my father.”
“Did you like it?”
“I didn’t not like it.”
She went to him. He fixed her necklace. “You did well tonight.”
“I didn’t drop anything or insult anyone. I call that a win.”
“They like you,” he said.
“I can’t really tell.”
“They’re not demonstrative.”
“That’s okay,” she said, “they don’t have to be for me.”
He held her gaze. “You’re the first woman I’ve brought here.”
She stilled. “To your room?”
“To this house.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to look too pleased.
She was theexception.
…His first.
Gage’s hand found her wrist, the other her jaw. He kissed her, thankfully keeping it restrained because she was pretty sure his childhood furniture was silently grading her.
Then, against her skin, he murmured, “London will be better with you in it.”
Georgina was curled on the window seat, legs tucked under her, wearing one of Hunter’s oversized crewnecks and sipping something fizzy from a glass. A ceramic tray sat between them, scattered with dewy, cut fruit.
Georgina stabbed one with a silver pick, because in Mayfield Hall, no one was so crass as to use the wooden ones.
Bea sat at the end of her bed, back propped against the carved headboard, hair still damp from her shower. The lights were low, the apartment hushed except for the occasional sweep of wind against the balcony doors.
“You never told me how dinner went yesterday,” Georgina said, gaze still on the night skyline. “With Gage’s parents.”
“It went well, actually.”
