PROLOGUE
Stella
ROYAL OAKS PREP
NEWPORT, RI
The gym smells like cheap perfume, floor wax, and lies.
Royal Oaks Prep Homecoming—where the rich kids pretend they’re normal and the scholarship kids pretend they belong.
Streamers hang from the rafters in gold and navy. Someone rented chandeliers. Because apparently fluorescent lighting isn’t tragic enough.
I stand by the punch bowl, stabbing the ice cubes with a plastic fork like they personally offended me.
Everyone else looks effortless.
Girls in silk dresses that cost more than my mom’s monthly rent.
Guys in tailored suits like they walked out of a watch commercial.
And then there’s me.
Curve-hugging clearance rack.
Drugstore lipstick.
Heels that already blistered my toes.
Scholarship chic.
“Relax,” I mutter to myself. “It’s just a dance. No one’s looking at you.”
A lie.
They’re always looking.
Just not the way you want them to.
Across the gym, Tristan Vale laughs at something Leo says.
Golden boy.
Perfect hair like he rolled out of a cologne ad. Broad shoulders. Lazy, dangerous smile.
Trust fund legs for days.
The bad prince every girl within a five-foot radius leans toward him like he’s gravity.
And stupid, me?
I know exactly what his mouth probably feels like.
Not from kissing.
From almost.
From hallway conversations after class.
