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Catching myself in a lie, I was immediately catapulted back to my memories of the winter ball.

Dancing with her had been different...

With Olivia, it was either fun practice or a stressful affair. We had met through competitive sports, and that still connected us. Even though I hadn't danced in a long time, my body still remembered how it was done.

“What a shame. You really had potential,” Olivia grumbled, raising her eyebrows.

She looked me up and down as if she could still find traces of my past somewhere. In vain.

I shrugged, turned away, leaned against Adrian's hood, and let my gaze wander across the parking lot.

“I'm just not a dancer.”

“You could have been one.”

My voice filled with bitterness. “My grandfather would never have allowed that. And Tristan hated it.”

Because it had reminded him of my mother.

Before Olivia could say anything about Tristan, I continued.

“Besides, that ship has sailed.”

Olivia snorted in frustration.

I hadn't wanted to reject her, but she only knew half the truth about back then, and yes, I was a coward for not bringing myself to talk to her about it until now.

“Come on.” She stood directly in front of me. “Maybe give it a chance.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adrian look up from his phone and laugh arrogantly.

My gaze wandered back to him.

“Since when do the corners of your mouth work?”

It was the fact that he was laughing at all. When was the last time he had really laughed? When I had drunk him under the table? At twenty-three?

“I wish I had as much time as the two of you.”

Olivia rolled her eyes, and I gave her a look to let her know that I knew she had realized by now that Adrian was still the same.

Complaining again that he didn't have time. How typical of him. After all, he had responsibilities. Who else but him?

“Adrian just reminded me that I'll soon have no free time at all,” I remarked, turning to Olivia with a grin.

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you kidding?”

“He's been studying like crazy lately,” David laughed from his white Lamborghini, leaning against the driver's door.

My eyebrows shot up.

Was he spying on me?

Apart from Camille and Laurent, David was the only DeLoughrey who did not belong to the family bloodline, but enjoyed a high rank within the clan through the DUIO. Camille had fought for him to be accepted when I had still been a kid.

When he wasn't on campus, he worked with Bastien in the unit, and yet he still managed to keep track of what everyone in the family was up to.

It hadn’t been until Larissa had joined the clan and kept asking me questions about the members that I had noticed how little I knew about David after all these years. I didn't even know why, after earning all those degrees in various natural sciences, he was studying again, as if he were collecting degrees like Camille was collecting cars.