He rolls his eyes. “If it were the two of us, would your parents have reacted the same way?”
“No,” my response is immediate. “And this isn’t favoritism. They would be upset, and they’d use any threats and measures to break us apart, but eventually, they’d let it go. Because, unlike Sawyer, they know I’d never allow the business to fail.”
He lifts a brow. “And he would?”
“He’s… gullible,” I sigh. “Very smart, but he is also in love, and he sees Astrid through rose-colored glasses. She could ask him to sign off the entire company to her under the pretense of wanting to feel secure in their marriage, and the fool would do it.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
I straighten up. “Never. No matter who I marry, it’ll be the man I love. But I would never betray what my parents have fought for, what my great, great parents have built from scratch. I’d give up a marriage to save the legacy, and unlike Sawyer, I see right through bullshit. He doesn’t.”
“Does that mean I’ll never see the inside of the Sloane vault?” He teases.
I roll my eyes. “If you’re lucky, I’ll show you my bank account.”
He shrugs. “Oh, I already saw that.”
“You what?!”
THIRTY-TWO
The first town closest to the Academy is the basic university town. It has a couple of good bars, a few clubs, and some restaurants that definitely aren’t worth the price of the food. It has a theater, some boutiques, and everything you’d expect of a small town with three thousand citizens.
“What the hell are we doing here?” Kenzo slumps into the passenger's seat, pulling the hood of his hoodie further over his head, concealing his face almost entirely.
“Just shut the fuck up.”
There’s a cafe right across from us. The coffee’s good, but overpriced, and not my choice of drink. It’s almost five in the evening on a Friday, and the classes for the first week back have ended over two hours ago. So why the fuck is she inside the damned café with that bastard?
“Oh,” Kenzo groans, straightening up in his seat. “We’re stalking Sophia. Just what I needed to start the weekend.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not stalking. It’s keeping track of herwhereabouts.”
“Without her knowledge,” Kenzo drawls. “Which is the definition of stalking, by the way.”
“No one forced you to be here. Aiden or Elias would’ve been happy to be here instead of you.”
“Unfortunately, Aiden’s gone home for a wedding, and Elias is probably trying to hook up with some of the girls from our year.”
My eyes skim over the glass window of the cafe, the detailed drawings of the cherry blossom tree on it. It’s quite artsy, but I genuinely don’t see the point in any of this.
However, Sophia’s sitting in a booth that’s across from the window. She’s far enough not to see my car, but close enough for me to see her. She’s sitting across from Damien, wearing her hair in a tight pony with one of her damned bows, the pink adding contrast to the otherwise entirely dark grey clothes.
Why the fuck is she laughing?
The motherfucker can’t be that funny, can he?
My grip tightens on the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white from the pressure, and my jaw clenches in anger. Sophia doesn’t know when to listen, and when to act the part of the little brat, and it’s getting on my nerves a lot more than anything she’s done recently.
But that bastard is what’s pissing me off more. He is still not getting that I’m very, very serious about my threats. He’s still lingering around and acting like I didn’t break his fucking fingers for even touching her, let alone taking her out on something that only he can consider a date.
“Relax,” Kenzo mumbles. “You’re my ride back. I don’t want you driving us off the cliff because she spoke to another man.”
“You’re being overly dramatic.”
“Am I?” He looks at me with a blank expression. “Besides, whyare you so bothered by this? What happened to the whole I-don’t-actually-care-about-Sophia thing?”
“I don’t,” I defend, my words coming out a little too quickly. “I just don’t like her spending time with him.”
