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“Come on, help me pick,” she insists, tugging at my elbow, and I sigh, actually forcing myself to look at what’s hanging on the wall. Although nothing groundbreaking, there are some decent landscape pieces, just pretty meadows and glimmering skylines that don’t look any different or more special than any other landscape I’ve ever seen. Then there’s the abstract art, which I personally feel looks as if someone just dumped cans of paint over a canvas and then had the gall to charge nearly six figures for, and “concept” art, with things like storm clouds holding negative words as the shape of a head is shown empty. I can’t help but roll my eyes at that one, but of course, Winter pauses in front of it, cocking her head to one side.
“That’s really deep,” she murmurs. “Like—sometimes your brain is just only bad things, and if it was all gone—”
Your head is already pretty fucking empty,I want to say, but I don’t. It’s not worth the fight it would start. I just shrug again. “Pick whatever you like.”
“This is supposed to be something we do together,” Winter pouts.
“Just pick something.” I turn away, scanning the room again for anyone who might be worth talking to. She’s already acting like my girlfriend—no, acting like my fiancée, really, and it’s pretty fucking annoying considering nothing has been signed or decided for sure yet.
“You’re ruining it.” She turns away from the painting, her face flushed. “Let’s just go sit down for dinner.”
Dinner is one of those thousand-dollar-a-plate affairs, starting with soup and salad with truffle dressing and caviar on toast points, which is one of those rich-people foods that I’ve always particularly disliked—I’m not sure what’s especially tantalizing about eating fish eggs. But Winter nibbles at a piece of toast with caviar, acting as if it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten in her life, following up with a cracker smeared with foie gras.
The conversation is dreadfully boring too—we’re seated with two other families that I know vaguely, and Winter is carrying on a regular conversation with the wife and daughter while the husband—Mr. Bransworth, I think, is asking me about my classes and how I like university. Surface-level chit-chat, small talk, and I find myself more annoyed with it than ever.
The rest of the dinner is delicious, as I would hope for the price. Wagyu beef and velvety potatoes, crisp roasted vegetables, and some fancy dessert made of a wobbly custard with fruit, and of course, Winter just picks at it, taking small bites and pretending not to be hungry. It’s a trait that I’ve always hated in certain girls, how they act as if a few bites is enough to sustain them, all so they can stay skinny.
Athena doesn’t have a problem eating. But then again, she does more than just a Pilates class here and there or a light jog.
Why do I keep comparing her to Athena, as if Athena is really someone I could be with?I try to picture Athena here, in a place like this, eating this dinner and trying to make conversation with these people. She’d be making fun of everything, from the caviar to our table guests to the ridiculous art, and I suddenly, weirdly, concernedly—miss her.
I shouldn’t. Winter is behaving exactly as a lady of our class should. There’s technically nothing that she’s doing wrong. But tonight, it feels as if every little thing she says or does grates on my nerves. I try my best just to ignore her, and her bird-like eating and inane conversation, all the way until the last course is served and the music starts up, and Winter tugs at my arm.
“Let’s dance,” she says, and I can’t really come up with a reason to tell her no, so I stand reluctantly, taking her arm and following her out onto the dance floor.
As I take her into my arms, hers winding around my neck as my hands settle on her hips, I try to find some desire for her, some attraction. She’s an objectively beautiful woman, slender with a lovely delicate face and that thick gorgeous hair, perfect for burying my hands in as I fuck her in any position. She’s pedigreed, educated, trained in all the ways to be a perfect wife. Any man would want her.
But as we twirl around the floor, her swaying close to me in a way that I know is meant to be seductive, I don’t feel anything. No arousal, not even a twinge of desire, let alone the desperate, fierce need that I feel whenever I’m with Athena, that lust that feels as if I can’t contain it, can’t stop myself from doing the most depraved, filthy things that my mind can imagine. If I’m honest, I’ve never felt anything like I feel when I’m with her and said the things I say. She drives me mad, just like she seems to drive Cayde and Jaxon mad, and the only reason I can think of is that she’s so different from any other woman we’ve ever been with.
If this were two hundred years ago, she’d be dead already, her blood soaked into the soil. But instead, she’s very alive, living in our house, affecting everything I think and do.
And right now, all I want is for her to be in my arms instead of Winter.
The night drags on what feels like endlessly. Winter keeps me out on the dance floor for a while, and I almost feel bad because she’s clearly having a grand time despite my attitude about the whole thing. It’s clear that she sees this as something of a date and that she’s loving every second of it. It’s almost enough to make me feel guilty—although not quite. I haven’t forgotten how she behaved with Cayde earlier, and I’m not entirely sure that I don’t believe him when he said he’d fucked her. Although I’m surprised, he hasn’t said something about it before now.
It’s not until the night is finally over and we’re headed out to the car that Winter stops, tugging on my elbow as she looks up at me. She looks even paler, almost ethereal, wisps of her red hair coming loose and blowing around her face in the coastal breeze in the outdoor lighting.
“You didn’t enjoy it, did you?” She looks vaguely sad. “Being here with me.”
I press my lips together, wondering what to say. Should I be honest with her? Would she even know if I lied? Athena would know. I can’t imagine this night turning out the way the country club lunch with Athena had, with her giving me head on the drive as I sped out of control down the road and fucking wildly after I’d pulled off. I can’t imagine Winter ever doing anything like that. Maybe if I asked her to, just to make me happy, but where’s the fun in that? It was the spontaneity, the wildness of it, the fact that Athena both did and didn’t want it that made it so fucking hot.
“No,” I say finally. “I don’t particularly enjoy you, Winter, or nights like this with you.” I smile tightly. “But isn’t that what society marriage is? Marriage for people of our class? We fulfill our roles and tolerate each other.”
Winter’s jaw clenches. “And you have your fun with Athena. Or someone else like her when you get tired of her.”
“Did you expect me to have it with you?”
She licks her lips, looking away. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Your father didn’t offer you to me for fun. He wants the power of being tied to the Blackmoors, the influence, and he wants it through you. And you know that. You do too, that’s why you’re agreeing to it. But deep down, it’s not enough for you, even though you’ve been told all your life that it’s supposed to be. You want desire, sex, love. That’s why you’re so mad that I told you to keep your legs shut until I decide I want to fuck you, because you’ve been trying to get it out of your system until then. Because you know I don’t want you, that I’m just going to agree to marry you because you’re as good as anyone else, and you’re hoping that either I’ll change my mind or you’ll be able to fuck it out of your system before our wedding. But I won’t, and you can’t, so it’s time you make peace with that, Winter.”
She’s staring at me open-mouthed, her green eyes brimming with tears, and I know I should feel bad, but I don’t. I’m suddenly seized with the feeling that if I’m going to marry Winter in four years, that I want our relationship to at least be honest, not built on lies. I might dislike her, and I might not be able to give her what she wants, and she might never be happy with me, but at least we can be honest with one another.
But Winter doesn’t look like that’s what she wants. She looks as if she’s about to burst into tears, and I let out a sigh.
“Come on.” I open the car door for her. “Let’s go. I’ll take you home.”
However much I might want honesty between us, I don’t think that’s what Winter wants. She stays in sullen, miserable silence the entire ride back to the dorms. I pull up to the curb and wait for her to open the door, but she sits there for a long moment, her fingers picking at the satin skirt of her dress.
