“She’s delusional,” I said. “I’m already spoken for.”
“Lucky girl,” she whispered.
“Luckyme.”
We walked away together as jaws dropped and whispers rose behind us.
And for the first time in a long damn time, I felt like I wasn’t pretending.
I knew it was coming the second the butler told me she was in the solarium.
The solarium.
Not her office, not the drawing room, not even the upstairs library. The solarium was where she staged social executions over sparkling water and those tiny biscotti no one actually eats.
When I stepped in, she didn’t even look up. Just turned another page in her European fashion magazine and sipped something green that probably cost more than most people's rent.
“Mother,” I said, bracing for impact.
“Leo,” she replied, eyes still scanning the page.
I waited.
And waited.
She finally turned her face toward me—gorgeous in thatsurgically timelessway. Her skin never wrinkled, only tightened. Her expression was bored perfection. But her eyes?
Sharp. Cold. Calculating.
“So,” she said, folding the magazine shut with a graceful flick. “I’ve been hearing things.”
There it was.
I played it cool, slid into the chair across from her, even crossed my legs like I was some laid-back Armani ad. “You know how it is. People love to talk.”
She cocked her head slightly. “About you dating a scholarship girl.”
I smirked. “Jealous nonsense. I got paired with some townie for a group project. Bianca’s just pissed because her popularity’s dropping faster than her GPA.”
Her perfectly arched brow lifted a fraction. “I always did find Bianca a bit too…pedestrian.”
Wait—what?
“I beg your pardon?” I said, stunned.
She smiled. “Just because she summered in Nantucket and her family has a hyphenated last name doesn’t mean she’s elite. Her mother was a pageant runner-up and her father made his money selling luxury RVs to reality stars. It’s gauche.”
I blinked. “You’ve been pretending to like her for three years.”
“Of course I did,” she said breezily. “The poor girl would cling to you like a designer knockoff if I didn’t. And now that she’s whining about some ‘townie,’ I can finally shut her mother up at book club this week.”
What in the Newport high-society hell was happening?
“You’re… happy Bianca’s miserable?” I asked slowly.
She smiled again, baring immaculate veneers. “Darling, you’re my son. If someone’s going to make girls cry, it better be because you’reirresistible, not because I picked the wrong little debutante for you.”
I leaned back, watching her swirl her green juice like it was a martini.
