But then Eric adds, “I should have withdrawn when Asta was cut loose by Dray—but I didn’t. I held onto the possibility of yours, too.”
The timing tangles in my margarita-infused brain, and my face twists as I mentally sort through the memories of the ball, the first offer from Dray—
But all that does is make me dizzy, so I stop.
“I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to tell me,” I confess, and the dress is starting to become too cold against my skin.
Eric’s gaze cuts down—and so I know the cold is reaching my breasts—before his throat thickens and his cheeks flush.
The corridor is hushed.
The lights hum faintly, and snow presses against the windows in thick white sheets.
“I wasn’t sure if I would choose Asta over you. So I held onto your contract until it was officially unavailable—and that was the day before the ball.” Guilt flattens his mouth, a stroke across his sunkissed face. “Asta has been pissed about it ever since your father mentioned it in passing—to Mr Ström.”
My lashes shut.
For a beat, I scrape for the strength not to call my father. Not a pleasant call. But not a call I would survive, especially since neither of my parents have phoned me at the academy since the semester started.
No one in the family has.
Not Nonna, not Grandmother Ethel (though she rarely does, and when she does, it’s usually a call of mostly silence, some barbed words, accusatory questions, and she always hangs up without a word, often while I’m in the middle of a sentence).
But this news on Father, it’s a niggle of annoyance darkening into anger.
He knew what he was doing, dropping that information casually into conversation—to Mr Ström of all people.
He was digging the knife in, twisting it, with a smile, while the dances and delights of the ball spun around them.
Father in that moment would have felt victory.
His daughter, the deadblood, the untouchable, the lesser beauty, got Dray Sinclair.
But in his petty battles with his so-called-friends, I’m thrown into the storm.
No wonder Asta’s been a bigger thorn in my ass this semester.
“I’ll be sure to stay clear of her,” I sigh.
“Wait—”
I arch a brow, my strappy heel slid a half-step back and halted on the runner rug.
“Just… You didn’t hear it from me, but… don’t sleep in your bed tonight.”
That brow tugs a bit higher.
“Asta might have let Mildred into your dorm room, and maybe I overheard something about itching powder in your sheets, so… Bunk with Courtney, maybe?”
My face falls—and darkens.
Fucking bitches.
I’m not in the mood to wait for the imps to change my bedding.
The margaritas, the bad wine, the spirits and the high of the smoke in the party, it’s got me in need of collapsing into my plush bed.
Slipping into Courtney’s for the night is so not an option.
