My jaw dropped a little. “Are you actually asking me?”
“Obviously,” he smirked. “You think I’m gonna roll in with a girl from Milton Academy? Please. I’ve upgraded.”
I blinked. “I could… use a few days out of here,” I mumbled, trying to hide the way my chest fluttered. The thought of escaping Royal Oaks, even temporarily, felt like oxygen.
Shani perked up instantly. “Can I third-wheel? Because I’ve been dying to hit Newbury Street.”
Tristan flashed his signature grin. “The more the merrier, ladies.”
And just like that, I found myself in the backseat of a black SUV with heated seats, cruising into Boston for a weekend of shopping, iced lattes, and pretending like the world didn’t burn just weeks ago.
It was the perfect fall weekend.
The city was alive with that crisp, golden energy that only New England in late Autumn could pull off—leaves crunching beneath our boots, the scent of roasted chestnuts and overpriced coffee wafting through the air. Boutique windows sparkled. Shani tried on every shade of lip gloss in Sephora. Tristan carried our shopping bags like a personal valet-slash-bodyguard, snapping candids of me laughing when I forgot to care how I looked.
He posted one of us—me in a cropped cable-knit sweater, him in a camel coat with his sunglasses pushed back on his head. The caption just said:
Fall royalty #JandT #OaksRoyalty #NotSorry
The comments exploded. I should’ve been anxious. I should’ve cringed at the whispers that were probably spreading back home.
But I didn’t.
For the first time in weeks, I felt like me again.
Not Jade the scandal. Not Jade the scholarship girl. JustJade—the girl who could breathe, laugh, spin in her new dress in the mirror and actually like what she saw.
Even if I knew it couldn’t last forever.
Even if I knew his eyes—Leo’s—were still chasing my shadow, even from a distance.
Tristan noticed. Of course he did. But he didn’t push.
He just walked beside me, told every sales associate to treat me like a queen, and made the world feel wide again. Safe again.
That weekend, we weren’t just surviving Royal Oaks.
We were rewriting it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
LEO
Homecoming was a week away.
So was our first basketball game of the season.
And I was playing the only game I had left—pretending everything was fine.
Smile sharp. Shirt tucked. Charm on standby.
Vivian Ashcroft strolled beside me like she belonged. To be fair, she probably did. Her bloodline was traceable to some offshoot of the Crown. She spoke three languages, ordered custom school uniforms before the ink dried on her transfer papers, and sipped tea like it held state secrets. Royalty-adjacent, polished, and camera-ready.
And utterly not Jade.
People were already talking.
“He leveled up.”
