Bet Father never thought Dray Sinclair would want me as his wife, not once it was revealed that I’m a deadblood. The highest hopes my father probably had was Landon, an aristos ready to slip and fall. Then he almost had to settle on gentry, but Dray Sinclair extended his offer.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment my fate was sealed. I was done for then, and I don’t even know what day it was.
It whirls me back to Rugby Sunday.
After Dray assaulted me in the library, and then escorted me downstairs, my father looked at him, a silent question in that shared glance, and Dray shook his head.
I wondered then what that was about.
Now, I know.
Father was checking to see if Dray had told me.
Dray wants to be the one to tell me.
Oliver can lie all he wants, try to convince me that Dray will tell me when the time is right, so I don’t break and shatter in the middle of the final semester, so I don’t become a distraction before the exams.
But I know better.
I know Dray.
He wants to be the one to look into my eyes—and break me. He wants to see the realisation battle against denial in me.
He wants to watch the tears.
That is who he is.
Father won’t protect me from my fate.
Oliver won’t, either.
Their loyalties lie with the Videralli.
Not me.
Never me.
I watch the waters mould to the boulders.
The article is my only hope.
Anxiety floods through me in violent waves the moment the thought touches my mind.
The adrenaline from the other day after Mildred, it caved me to temptations. But now, it has faded. The hate has settled, the rage subdued.
I woke that next morning to a hollow gnawing sensation in my gut.
I don’tregretit. But I fear it.
That article will humiliate Dray.
To do that to him, so publicly, is to back him into a corner. He will choose, either to wear the shame of it and continue with our engagement, or to back out and save face.
Face is everything in our world.
That’s why everyone wears such pretty, polished masks.
I’m going to crack his.
