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Hold up. Abort. Rewind. Pause the television.
Andras had basically just called me a slut.
For starters—a slut is just a woman who knows that she’s allowed to do anything a man is. And secondly—I didn’t need to take this.
I straightened, speaking as slow as possible, making sure my words absorbed into his skull. “What you just said isn’t okay. At all.”
“What I just said is the truth.”
I’d never seen him so animated before. It wasn’t jealousy. Andras never cared about anything but fencing. And even then, he prioritizedme.
Since I’d returned from Seoul, ruined and disgraced, he’d stitched together the pieces for me, doing so much behind the scenes that I knew I’d never understand the full scope of his efforts.
But he sucked with words, and some things were unacceptable to say.
I crossed my arms. “I’d like an apology.”
It didn’t matter that I considered Andras a second father. Or that his words probably came out of concern.
“Do you not hear the rumors?” He doubled down, gesturing in the direction of the throngs of wealthy members on the other side of the wall. “Zachary Sun and his friends only know how to take, use, and abuse. He is a playboy. He will never take you seriously. He can help you with something now, then stop when he tires of you.”
He was right.
Zach said so himself.
I was a Band-Aid. A cure. An antidote.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
A means to an end.
I tilted my chin up. “I’m a big girl.”
“Ah, but you are still agirl.” Andras tapped my nose, peering down at me. “Do yourself a favor and listen to a grown-up for once in your life. That thing with your stepmother should be buried right along with your late father. He would want you to get along with her, Fae. He would want you to start fresh. Choose peace, not war.”
I wasn’t the one who chose the war.
I was dragged into it, kicking and screaming.
I shook my head. My next class with Zach started in ten minutes. I wondered if he’d even show up, everything considered.
“I need to go.” I tightened the strap of my bag over my shoulder. “Thanks for the advice, but I’m going for it.”
I twisted on my heel, marching to the women’s locker room. As soon as I elbowed past the door, I collapsed onto a desolate bench and buried my face in my hands.
It’s fine.
You’re fine.
Zach Sun is your ticket to redemption, and you’ve never shied away from one-night stands.
This isn’t dirty. It isn’t wrong. And this won’t end with your heart splattered on the piste, a sabre speared through it.
That was the thing about growing up in an environment absent of human affection. I found it in any place I could—including, andespecially, in one-night stands.
Growing up, Dad delivered scraps of love in titrated doses in hopes they’d go unnoticed by the other three Ballantine women.
He did his best to keep the peace, hoping to raise all three of his daughters in harmony. And he did consider Tabby and Reggie his daughters, equal in value to me, even if they didn’t share a drop of his blood.
