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A rage whose origin I didn't know exploded in my stomach and I narrowed my brows.

Emely tucked one of her deep brown, wavy strands behind her ear and looked down shyly before unbuckling her seatbelt.

Something inside me faltered again. This time it was my heartbeat.

“I could almost guess that this conceited girl had something to do with this guy.”

I should have looked at Olivia, not at her, but I couldn't take my eyes off Emely. I should have done it, because what I was doing here, thinking, feeling... It was all an idiotic chain reaction to my behavior.

I should never have spoken to her, never danced with her…

How could I have known that I would ever be attracted to a Senseque? To someone who couldn't stand me and tried to get rid of me.

The realization had made me restless, and as soon as she was near me, I seemed to feel more than was healthy for me.

I was a Ruisangor. Feeling was something Nicolaj had trained us out of early on, as it made us vulnerable. Unfortunately, that had never worked for me. I had tried to drink it away, dance it away, and damn it, erase it.

But what would we have left if we erased the memories that made us feel?

I didn't know what to do, and now I was floating in the air, frozen, hanging by a thread that threatened to choke me.

When my thoughts weren't focused on all the problems with my father, they were on her.

I should have turned away. But it was too late.

She looked up. And the smile disappeared as if the wind had blown it away from her beautiful face.

I hated that whenever she seemed happy, I was the one who ruined it.

God, I should despise her. I wanted to wreck her car just like she had wrecked mine. Damn, I had had so many plans to make her life a living hell. But I wasn't sure anymore if I really wanted to do that.

“Would you like me to get you a latte?”

Emely tore her gaze away from me and looked at him, a restrained smile on her lips, which meant as much as, I don't like lattes. And yet she nodded and added, “Sure.”

She drank her coffee black.

Confusion spread through me, intensifying when I realized she wasn't wearing the black trousers but the black skirt of the Vanderwood Uniform.

“From the way he looks at her, I bet he's her boyfriend...” Olivia laughed condescendingly.

“Her future fiancé,” I pressed out more seriously than I intended, and Emely's head turned back to me.

It was that innocent look. A mixture of uncertainty, confusion, nervousness... And it captivated me every time. It was as if there were a thousand unspoken words between us, as if there were a part of her somewhere waiting to be explored. Desperately longing to be dragged out of her golden cage. In a brutal way that would leave no turning back.

She had shown me her boundaries, made it clear that there was nothing to clarify. But her tears on the evening of the winter ball had spoken the truth.

What did she think? That I was blind?

She could lie to that Russian donkey, but I could see in her eyes that her words that day when I had caught her in the closet, the words from the library, and the words from yesterday were only half the truth.

Emely was lying to herself. Once again. It was as if she had a talent for blocking out the obvious. For repressing what her father did to her.

I should have listened to her, stayed away, ignored her, but there was something that, despite everything, drew me to her.

The way she stood there and stared at me, that look. Silent, rooted to the spot. Ten meters too many between us.

“Don't let those murderers unsettle you.”