“I said I knew you,” she snapped back at me. “I did know you, just not that well. But I knew you enough to understand that you didn’t fit in with the rest of them. You’ve always been different than the others, like that bitch face, Victoria.”
“Sheisa bitch face,” I said, momentarily distracted by how much I didn’t like her.
“Can we stop talking about her? She’s nobody. She’s powerless,” Luke said, his voice thick with pain. “I fucked up. Harlow’s right. I swore I wasn’t going to do this to you again, Willow. I can’t be the reason the Remingtons make you disappear.”
“What happened last year?” I asked. I hated how foggy it all was. I hated how little my brain could grab onto as thoughts and feelings went spinning around in tornado force flurries.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” Luke began to say, but outside the hedges, I heard a commotion. The sound of a few voices talking excitedly.
Over the hedge came the sound of my name being called. Victoria at first, half-heartedly, and then Alexander and Rome’s voices joined in calling for me. Alexander’s voice sounded broken, terrified. As fake as our engagement felt to me, his concern felt genuine at that moment.
“They told me she’s gone,” he said just outside the hedge where I could still hear it, his voice straining under pressure. “Fuck, if I lose her again. If she takes off and I find out she’s on the road again—”
His voice broke off in anguish.
“He’s looking for me,” I said to nobody in particular. “I have to get back to my room, or I have to explain everything to Alexander, and I don’t think I want to.”
“Wise choice,” Harlow said. “It’s probably best if the two of you keep away from each other for now. Or at the very least, only hang out if I’m here with you.”
“We’re not children,” Luke grumbled. “We don’t have to be treated like them.”
“Really, Lukie dear?” Harlow asked, and her face whipped around towards him. “Two minutes alone with her, and you’re already doing this. You want me to find out what happens when you’re with her for half an hour? Wait until you’re caught fucking, and the Remingtons destroy your family?”
He mumbled something in response, but I could see the red creep on his cheeks that matched my own. He was thinking about it, as was I. The moment our bodies would come together when he would take control and take me places I craved with every cell of my being.
I wanted him to dominate me. I had sharply outlined memories of him standing above me, making me beg for it. And oh god, how I loved to beg when he was the prize being offered up.
“You need to move!” Harlow barked at me. “Jesus Christ, you’re as bad as a bitch in heat! Now, go!”
I looked one last, longing time at Luke and finally turned and pushed through the hedges to rush back to my room, darting around the edges of the courtyard where nobody could see me.
I felt consumed with guilt, I could still feel Luke’s lips on mine the rest of the way, and when I finally stood alone in the center of my private Upper suite, I put my fingers to them and took a moment to remember.
He felt so good, and he felt so right. He might have come after Rome, replaced him somehow after I lost him, but he was deeply burrowed into my heart and belonged with me.
I was still standing with my finger pressed against my lips and my eyes closed when my door flew open. I hadn’t locked it, but I also hadn’t expected Alexander to come in without knocking. He was usually such a strict gentleman, adhering to the code of conduct we all followed in the Uppers.
One of these seemed to be minimal contact with each other, even though we were engaged. That’s the only thing that made the engagement tolerable. Knowing he wasn’t going to pressure me into bed.
“Willow!” he exclaimed and crossed the floor in two long strides as my eyes snapped open. His anguished face was all I saw, and at that moment, he had seemingly dropped the facade he normally clung to. He lost all pretense and control. His hair was mussed up, and he wasn’t sneering at me or anyone else with that innate knowledge that his breeding was superior to everyone else’s.
At that moment, he was handsome. He was coiled like a wild animal, ready to spring and attack whatever it was that threatened me. His white shirt clung to his muscled body and was damp with sweat, the fear he’d had oozing from his body.
He smelled musky, though, not sweaty. Like good breeding and good money had cleansed him of all base biological responses.
And despite all of that, he didn’t make me feel the way that Rome did. Or Luke. Two men I’d been with, at least in my fantasies. Two men that I’d loved at different times, one when I was younger and one after I’d lost the first.
All details were fuzzy around the edges for me, but I had the sense that it was true.
With Alexander, it all felt wrong. As if our cells repelled each other, like the auras of our bodies weren’t compatible, and our souls knew it.
“I thought I’d lost you again, fuck,” Alexander rasped and grabbed me by my shoulders. “We were looking for you around campus. Where were you hiding? You know I can’t stand it when you hide from me. We don’t need to keep playing those games.”
Before the coma, I sounded awful. Playing games, sneaking around on Alexander. I didn’t get the sense that I’d be like that now.
“I wasn’t playing games. I ran and got a little turned around,” I said. “I panicked during treatments. They scare me now.”
“They’re essential for you to maintain good physical and mental health,” he insisted. “I’ll come with you next time. I’ll help you relax so you won’t run away.”