“Don’t what?” I replied, taking the printed card from his outstretched hand and finding the day’s menu on it. There was even the date, meaning they printed new oneseveryday. No wonder paper was such a hot commodity when Arbon Academy was just chewing through it for dumb shit like their lunch menus.
“Don’t go searching for more information. You’ve got this look on your face, and I can’t help thinking you’re going to end up in a world of trouble soon.” His brow creased as he shook his head at me.
I mustered up a fake smile, echoing the one Alex had used earlier. “Why would you think that, Nole? You don’t know me.” I was all innocence, and it churned my stomach. Fuck me, if these royals were into what I thought…
“Not yet,” he conceded, “but you’re so much like Mattie I swear you’re our long-lost triplet. Except for the lack of pigment in this hair, of course.” Nolan reached out and playfully flipped a loose curl away from my face. Fucking curls never did seem to stay put, and I’d totally forgotten to use Mattie’s miracle balm after my shower.
“You don’t need to worry, Nole,” I assured him. “I have no intention of grilling you about your so-called ‘sports injury’ over the lunch table.”
He groaned and scrubbed both hands over his face. “Fuck, new girl, that was worded way too specifically.”
I started to laugh but cut off abruptly when the chair beside me scraped out and a large body sat down. Crowding me.
Fuck it all to hell.
“You’re at the wrong table, Cinderella,” Rafe snarled, slouching back in his chair like it was too small for him or some shit. “Prince Charming is over there with his sycophants.” He jerked his head toward the other side of the room where Alex sat, surrounded by gorgeous, preppy students. One button-nosed brunette was batting her lashes at him and talking excitedly about something, but his ocean-blue gaze was locked on me. Or… me and Rafe. His right hand rested on the table, and even from across the room I could tell his fist was clenched so hard his knuckles were white.
“New girl is sitting with us,” Nolan drawled. He looked unconcerned by Rafe’s sneer, but his foot hooked the leg of my chair and pulled me slightly closer to him. Away from Rafe. “Mattie has adopted her as our missing triplet. Even you couldn’t have missed the way they were joined at the hip last night.” There was a strange, teasing note to Nolan’s voice, and Rafe’s dark gaze narrowed in warning.
“Can’t say I was paying attention,” the Swiss crown prince snapped back, picking up the menu card from the table and inspecting it.
Nolan chuckled under his breath. “Sure you weren’t.”
Several more people arrived at the table, none of whom I’d met before, and I shot Nolan a puzzled look. What had that been all about? Was there something going on between Mattie and Rafe? The idea turned my stomach to ice, and I swallowed past the fear of a social faux pas. I’d already made my dislike of Rafe so damn obvious to Mattie, but what if she was secretly hooking up with him?
“Hey girl!” the gorgeous red-head in question sang out, arriving at our table and standing in the gap between my chair and Rafe’s. “I knew Noles would find you. Rafe, can I sit there? Claudette will want to sit with you, anyway.”
Mattie had just tossed the request at the surly prince with such a casual familiarity that it almost confirmed my suspicion. Especially when he did as she asked, getting up and moving to the opposite side of the table where there were still two seats empty.
“Who’s Claudette?” I asked her quietly as she sat down and scooted her chair in closer to me so we could chat. I shouldn’t have been interested. Nothing about Rafe and his arrogant, sexy face should interest me in the least. But if Mattie and Nolan were determined to make me their friend, then I needed to know what was what and who was who. Right?
Mattie gave me a small eye roll and wrinkled her nose. “You’re about to find out.”
A pretty girl with a caramel brown bob arrived at our table, and instead of taking the one empty seat beside Rafe, she proceeded to drape herself all over his back and press a cringe-worthy wet kiss onto his cheek.
Nolan cleared his throat, catching the girl’s attention, and just from that quick look I could tell there was no love lost between the pair of them.
“Claudette Bixel, have you met our new girl? This is Violet Spencer.” Nolan had a barb in his voice as he introduced me, and Claudette just pursed her mouth like she tasted something sour. Nolan continued on, not waiting for her response. “That there is Harriet, beside her is Luca, then Theo.”
I smiled and murmured hello to them all, but just got cold, suspicious stares back.
“Claudette is a princess of the Britains, second in line to the throne” Mattie said under her breath. “She thinks she’s the hottest thing to walk out of England since that sexy prince with the red hair from before the war.”
Ah, the Britains. The territory that had always had a monarchy, even if they had been reduced to more of a figurehead in the century before the Monarch War. And then, obviously, they’d regained their control.
The arrogance oozing from the stunning brunette made sense now.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” I said softly before immediately dropping my gaze to the menu. Pretty much had it memorized by now.
The conversation was stilted at the table, and I knew it was solely because of me. No one could quite figure out how I’d made the cut to sit with the royals, but they were either too polite or didn’t give enough fucks to ask.
The waiter who took our order was in his mid-forties and had a balding head and a very pronounced cleft in his chin. He spoke with a heavy accent, and I could barely understand what he was rattling off about the special of the day. Thankfully there was a grilled chicken and salad on the menu, and with the state of my stomach this morning, that seemed the safest.
“Smart that you’d restrict your calories,” Claudette said to me, from her spot next to Rafe—she was practically in his lap she was so close. The big dude in question wasn’t going out of his way to touch her, but he also wasn’t shoving her aside. Why the fuck was he such a rude bastard to me? No one else seemed to get that treatment, and for some reason I sensed his hatred toward me wasn’t just because of the scholarship thing.
“That was bitchy, Claud,” Mattie shot back before I could open my mouth. “Violet hardly needs to restrict her calories. If anything, we need to fatten our girl up a bit. She’s taken thin to a new level.”
Claudette wrinkled her perfect little nose, perched above the fullest, pinkest lips I’d ever seen. If they were natural, it was definitely worth hating her a little over them. “Is she anorexic then? Or do poor people not have enough food?”
