"Hold up, Violet." He totally ignored the yells of his friends and focused his attention fully on me. On all of me. His blue gaze ran up and down my body in a way that wasdefinitelynot friendly-stranger level, then he beamed a shiny, white-toothed grin. "There's a bit of a party happening tonight. You should come."
I blinked at him a couple of times, but when he didn't elaborate, I smiled awkwardly. "A party on a Monday night? You rich kids really don't have any rules, huh?"
He laughed, but the humor didn't touch his eyes and I immediately regretted my comment.
"So, will you come? I'd like to get to know you better." He pushed for an answer, and I bit the edge of my lip, nervous. What if this was a new kid hazing thing? Trick me into leaving school grounds then call the Dean? But then again, this was a university not high school, and these were royals not orphans. Maybe different rules really did apply? There had been no mention of a curfew in the intro pack I'd been given.
"I guess," I replied when the silence stretched into uncomfortable and I had no better response. "Where and when?"
Alex flashed me another blinding smile. "Don't even worry about it, Violet. I'll come to your room."
"Alex!" The angry,stunning, dark-haired guy roared, stalking across the synthetic grass toward us. He—and the other boys—were clearly sick of standing around waiting for our conversation to finish.
"I should go," I said quickly, giving Alex an apologetic look.
He rolled his eyes at the other guy, who'd almost reached us, then shot me a small nod. "See you later, Violet."
I started making my way back out of the sports center, but the other guy didn't even bother to lower his voice as he made his feelings about the school’s charity case perfectly clear.
"That's seriously scraping the barrel, Alex," he sneered to the beautiful blond boy. "Then again, we shouldn't expect anything less fromyou."
"She was already wearing a man's coat," someone else added with a nasty snicker, "so she clearly puts out. Five hundred says Alex gets his dick sucked tonight."
More laughter joined in, and my whole face burned with embarrassment as I stalked away. I refused to walk any faster, though. Refused to let them see they'd gotten to me.
"Double it and I'll take that bet," the first, gorgeously angry one replied. "She looks frigid as fuck."
For some reason, hearing them betting on whether I'd put out or not boiled my anger just a little too far, and I paused, my head whipping around to glare. No one was watching me, though, as Alex slammed his fist straight into the brunet guy's face.
He'd hit him totally without warning, and the guy staggered back—mostly in shock, from what I could tell. He was huge, muscled and strong, and Alex clearly had no idea how to throw a punch.
Still, it didn’t matter when the intent to hurt was there.
“Shut your filthy mouth, Rafe,” Alex spat at him, pointing with a threatening finger. “That’s my future wife you’re trashing.”
The taller guy—Rafe—didn’t seem to give two fucks about Alex’s words, though. His face twisted in murderous rage, and he flew at the blond boy with frightening violence. A split second later, they were surrounded by jeering guys, all sweaty and dirty from the game that I'd interrupted. Meanwhile I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.
"Don't even stress it," someone said from nearby, and I was startled to see the same girl from the bathroom. Mattie. "Those two will fight over who'd breathe more air if they could." She gave me a shrug, then made her way around the brawl to where all the other shiny girls were basically drooling over the action.
Stunned, I just shook my head and exited the arena.
Quietly, though, Alex's words after he'd thrown that punch warmed me all the way through. He'd been joking, obviously, but it still gave me butterflies to imagine what my life might be like if I were dating a guy like him.
Chapter 4
By the time I’d finally found my room—after a quick detour to the kitchens for some lunch—I was wrecked. My whole life had been uprooted; I'd stuffed everything I owned into one crappy little bag, been flown half way across the world, and arrived at my new home in an honest-to-god castle. My brain was officially short-circuiting.
On the upside, I had a private roomandbathroom. Scratch that, I had a freakingsuite.
Apparently nothing was too good for the children of our world leaders, and I benefited from their expensive tastes.
The enormous bed against one wall was big enough to sleep about six kids from my group home, and the whole room could have held twenty of the narrow cots we'd slept in. My investigation revealed an attached bathroom with a toilet, shower,andbathtub, as well as a huge walk-in closet fully stocked with clothing in my size.
"This is..." I stood in the middle of the cushy carpet and looked around me with awe. "Insane."
Since I'd already missed half the day's classes, I wrote off the rest of the day and went to explore that bathtub that screamed my name.
As it turned out, the scented bubbles I poured in were more relaxing than anticipated, and when I woke up some time later, the water was cool and my skin was all wrinkly.
