Page 83 of The Bargain

Or because, unlike me, he still remembers that everything between us is still supposed to be just an act?

St Dominic wasn’t an act, though. No amount of lying or charm or invoking of rules or bargains could change that.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me, love?” Elias says. His voice has dropped a few octaves, grown velvety and caressing. “Too busy with schoolwork?”

“I’ve not been avoiding you,” I snap. Trust him to go on the offensive as a defensive move.

He tilts his head. “No? I’ve not seen so much as a glimpse of your golden hair in the past two weeks.”

“I’ve not seen you either,” I point out. “Maybe you were avoiding me.”

“Nothing stopping you from coming to see me, love,” Elias says. And, before I can even reply, he adds with a curling smirk, “After all, you know where my bedroom is, don’t you?”

The heat in my cheeks deepens, and I can practically feel the blush invading my skin.

“Girls aren’t allowed in the boys’ dormitory.”

“It’s not stopped you before.”

“That was different.”

“Because you needed me then and you don’t need me now?” he asks, low and almost needy.

And I know it’s an act he’s putting on, but the words sting, still.

“Isn’t it the other way round?” I raise an eyebrow. “You seem to be busy enough hanging out with all your shiny new Brotherhood buddies. Did they make you sacrifice a goat to get in?”

“Nah, they dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night, put a hood over my head and tossed me into the lake.”

For a moment, I can only stare at him, shock and sadness swirling in my belly, a sickening concoction.

“Please tell me that’s not true.”

He shrugs. “Eh, think of it as networking, love.” He grins. “A man’s gotta have connections, right?”

And just like that, without him even trying, the Pearsons are standing right there, in the corridor with us, their stiff smiles printed into my mind, a perfect echo of their faces in that The Times article about the gala.

St Dominic House was only a temporary patch on a gaping, urgent wound.

“Then you’re going to love this.” I straighten myself, my chest almost bumping into his, and he moves back ever so slightly, surprised. “I’ve come here to ask if you’d like to come spend Christmas with me and my family.” His eyes widen ever so slightly, and I gesture crisply. “Your new best friends will be there, Dimitri and Blaise. Their whole families. You’ll get to meet my uncles, the future Lord Blackwood and the heir of the Montcroix estate.” Now it’s my turn to smirk. “Plenty of fancy new connections to add to your Rolodex, without having to be thrown into any bodies of water.”

“Rolodex?” He scoffs. “What are you, eighty?”

“You want to come, yes or no? We set off tomorrow, and we’ll be at Blackwood Manor, so only two hours from here.”

He tilts his head, considers it. His eyes are pits—I can’t tell what he’s thinking at all. And then that familiar expression is back—the exact same one he had on his face at St Dominic House Observatory, after he told me his memories of me would be like the light of a dying star.

A look of such startling, unsettling affection I almost flinch from it.

Don’t.

“Does that mean I get to meet your parents?”

My heart skips a beat. Don’t, Elias.

I swallow and flash him a look.

“They won’t be the most famous people there, if that’s what you’re wondering.”