The week’s exhaustion has him running his fingers through his tousled chestnut hair, his lashes low over honey eyes.
He’s slumped on the windowsill, his spine digging into the frame, and it must hurt—but he’s so weathered that he doesn’t seem to care.
He looks up as the door creaks shut behind me.
I unhook the strap from my arm, then toss aside my bag. It thuds onto the desk on my right.
The soft honey of his gaze follows the bag for a beat, then he blinks and returns his gaze to mine.
For a moment, we just consider each other, our new places on a chessboard, our new roles, pawns and knights moved, queens replaced, kings protected.
Between us, dust has gathered over blackened desks and cracked beakers. A grey smear of spiderwebs collects between the legs of fallen chairs.
It all thickens the silence that’s settled in our locked stares.
Neither of us wears kindness in our gazes.
He wears fatigue, and I consider him with a distance that, just six months ago, was warmth and flustered attraction.
Now, I don’t see what I saw back then.
Now, I have no use for the mask I once wore for him.
“I thought you were ignoring me,” I start for him and—coming around the corner of a metal table—stop to fold my arms over my chest. “Do you make a habit of snubbing women after you’ve had your way with them?”
Eric’s faint frown is slow to knit between his brows. “You don’t know,” he decides after a long moment.
I arch a brow. “Know that you’re with Asta? Yes, I figured that out when you attended the ball with her—and without a heads up. Charming.”
Eric’s mouth tilts. “I wrote you. I wrote you when your father officially declined my offer—and to apologise for not speaking to you at the ball.”
My jaw tightens.
For a beat, I marinate in his words—then loosen a curt huff.
I’m not surprised.
I did suspect that my mail was being sorted through, that unfavourable communication was being blocked before it could reach me.
But he also just admitted to writing meafterthe ball,afterhe attended it with Asta, not that he wrote to warn me and apologise in advance.
There is no warmth in me as I consider him, waiting for more explanation, waiting for some reason I should care about any of this performance between us.
“I didn’t intentionally ignore you,” he adds, but the flush on his cheeks says otherwise. “I was just… preoccupied and didn’t have a moment…”
His lie trails off.
I know it’s a lie. Not just because of the shame on his cheeks, but because Father wouldn’t have rejected any offers until the one with Dray was officially cemented. The final contracts signed.
And I know my father was here at the academy just this week, on Monday, and he was here to deal with those contracts.
The smile that tugs the corners of my mouth is sleek. “When?”
Eric’s brows lift. “What?”
“When did my fatherofficiallydecline your offer?”
“Before the ball.”
