He exhales a long, slow breath and traces a finger down the side of my face. “I know it might be hard for you to believe, but I miss you.”
“You’ve done an odd job showing it,” I say, but still, there’s no malice in my voice.
He goes on. “I know I shouldn’t have been so cold to you, but there’s not really a way out. I had you, and it all went wrong, and now I’m stuck with Victoria.”
“Stuck?” I glance down the hall. “I don’t understand.”
“How could you.” He rolls his eyes and looks out of the window for a moment. “I have responsibilities. I have a legacy to uphold.”
Astor looks at me and I can see deep regret in his eyes. “I wish so much that I could be with you instead. I wish that somehow it was possible.”
I have to look away, out the window onto the school grounds that bear his family’s name.
He takes a step nearer to me and his fingertips drift up the side of my arm, over my bare shoulder, and all the way up my neck to my mouth, where he strokes my lips with his thumb for a long moment.
His voice goes almost wistful. “I wonder if it would be enough.”
Our eyes meet, and he’s so, so close.
His touch and all the fire that comes with it floods back into my memory. With that one sensual touch, he steals away my breath and some of my resolve. Part of me wants so much to kiss his thumb, resting there on my lips, and that part of me wants to reach my arms up and around his neck and kiss him hard and long, and show him just how much I have missed him and how much I care for him, but I can’t.
“What would be enough?”
He draws his finger back, and I immediately crave his touch. “Nothing,” he says. “It’s impossible.”
I think I know what he means, and I’m part excited, and part disgusted. Astor isn’t mine. He isn’t even his own, apparently.
Still, looking up at him here, so close … I have to get the hell away from him before I cave and follow my desires.
“I have to go.” I tell him, and I turn on the spot and leave him standing there looking after me.
Wills and Blair both stand when I reach the table. Blair looks at me worriedly.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Victoria sighs loudly and rolls her eyes, looking as if she couldn’t possibly be more annoyed. “She just went to the bathroom. What’s all the fuss?”
I take Wills’ hand in mine and give it a squeeze as I rejoin my place beside him. Astor returns a moment later and takes his place. No one else seems to notice that anything is amiss, but I can’t keep my mind off what he said. I don’t know if I can sit here across the table three seats down from him and pretend like nothing happened. Nothing really did happen, except that he awoke that part of me that longs for him, and that’s the part that’s currently winning out.
“I’m … fine,” I say offhandedly to Blair. He looks slightly disappointed, as if he has missed an opportunity to come to my rescue somehow and prove himself to me.
Wills tilts his head and eyes me questioningly. “Do you want to leave?”
I feel awful. He’s been looking forward to tonight for so long, but I feel like I’m suffocating.
“Would you mind? I’m so sorry. You can stay if you want to.”
He shakes his head. “No, we’re basically done anyway. They’ve just served dessert.” He indicates the two huge pieces of specialty chocolate cake that are sitting at our places.
“Wow. That looks so good,” I say, wishing Astor had waited to beguile me until after dinner.
Wills smiles at me. “I’ve got this.”
He picks up both plates and holds his arm out to me. “Shall we?”
We say goodnight, and he leads me away from the table as both Blair and Astor watch me go. Wills walks me out to the docks at the boathouse on the lake, and we finish our date there, dancing under the full moon and eating cake with our hands because we forgot to borrow any silverware.
He’s exactly what I need to get my mind off of Astor. He’s sweet, he’s charming—and I think he knows exactly what upset me so much. Of all the faults these boys have, jealousy is not among them. It’s like each one of them makes up one part of a whole. They’re more than inseparable, they’re … inevitable. And for that, I am grateful.