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Men, young or old, single or in groups, and even some who wereclearlywith their girlfriends or wives, all twisted their necks to keep her in their sightlines for as long as they could. From the front or the side or behind, Avril Knight was a nearly unparalleled specimen. Used to this kind of attention, she’d seemed wholly unaffected by it—and no one had so far dared do anything more than look.
She’d even crudely, grinning the whole time, joked a little while ago about how many of the guys here would have killed to see her put herself up for sale as a Christmas gift.
She wasn’t grinning now. In fact, arms folded and wielding a rarely seen scowl, she looked uncharacteristically irate as the leading individual of the three men gesticulated and yammered on about a topic Liam couldn’t yet overhear.
Her response to their presence was more than enough to accelerate his walking pace. Once he entered her peripherals, Avril’s gaze latched onto him. Something harder and more jagged than relief but close enough to it that it was what Liam thought of appeared on her face.
“There you are,” she said, transitioning from that unusual expression to one of barely polite geniality. Standing, she briskly waved the three men to move aside, though they didn’t do much more than take a single step back. “Come meet someunderclassmanI go to Bellmore with.”
As she called out to him, the attention of the three men—all Bellmore attendees, apparently—universally swapped to him. It didn’t take much to understand the type of men they were, but they all did their best to make it as overabundantly clear as they could.
Through their expressions, he saw haughtiness, disinterest, and even derision. Without any more interaction than a look his way, he could tell they’d already written him off. Possibly just because they suspected that hedidn’tattend Bellmore like they did. Or maybe because they’d just realized that Avril wasn’t here alone.
“This is Cliff, Elijah, andTrent,” Avril continued, eyes alight with blatant scorn. “They’re juniors at Bellmore.”
Emphasis on the final name or not, Liam would have wholly focused on it. Even though he usually heard it accompanied by a last name, he’d heard it enough times to know who Avril now disdainfully introduced him to.
Trent Alden. The man whom Anna’s father wanted her to marry.
For a first impression, he did little to convince Liam that Tess and Avril were in the wrong for showering as much vitriol upon his name as they had whenever he became the topic of conversation. The blond-haired scion to Alden Electronics barely withheld his contempt as he peered down his nose at Liam alongside his two friends. It was the expression of someone who barely registered him as worth the few seconds he spent looking at him. If arrogance was a scent of cologne, then Trent Alden drenched himself in its pungency every morning.
“Hi, I’m Liam,” he said, keeping his own opinions better controlled behind a polite but barely pronounced smile. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Did you get what you needed to?” Avril butted in, denying Trent or the other two a chance to reply to him.
“Yep, I did,” he said, understanding what she wanted. “We’re all good to go now.”
“Great.” Avril scooped up some of the bags around her feet, handing over a few but holding onto a few more herself. She barely glanced at Trent and the others as she said, “Then we’re off. Ciao.”
Only Liam was positioned to see the utter look of disgust on Avril’s face when Trent didn’t stay silent as she tried to break their two groups back into two.
“Hold on, Avril,” he said, though his focus remained on Liam. “What’s your last name? Do you go to Bellmore?”
“It’s Carr, and no, I don’t.”
He saw it immediately; his estimation in all three of their eyes plummeted even further. They didn’t recognize his family name, and he didn’t attend the elite college they did. Which meant he was barely even a person to them. The haughty superiority rolling off them was practically palpable.
“Where do you go, then? The community college?”
Really? Bellmore or community college? Those are the only two options?
Holding back his distaste toward Trent and the other two, he shook his head. “Nope, I got to Perrymont.”
One of his lackeys—that was the only way Liam could see them—barely hid his scoff. In response, Liam barely held back an eye-roll. It wasn’t worth it. The more he engaged, the longer he and Avril would have to suffer in their presence. The more that their foulness would sit over their memories of what was otherwise a rather productive shopping spree.
Trent’s attention shifted to Avril, who was doing a worse job restraining her contempt with each passing second. “Really? You’re slumming it with some nobody from Perrymont? That’s sad.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Trent,” Avril replied, disgust transforming her fine, full lips into a scornful scowl. “Can you not be a complete douchebag for five whole minutes? Fucking hell, you’re such a pain in the ass every time I see you.”
While his cohorts’ eyes widened in shock, Trent took the outpouring of venom surprisingly well. Folding his arms but otherwise not physically changing, he stared into the emerald incandescence blazing out from Avril’s eyes.
“And you’re always so vulgar. I’d say I’m surprised, but it clearly runs in the family if your brother is any indication. Just goes to show that money can’t make manners. I’m just glad you can’t seem to rub off on Anna any. Her father should have separated you two a long time ago.”
The deepest layer of hell would have felt chilly compared to the inferno of vehement hate Liam felt while standing next to Avril. He should do something, say something,deescalatethings before Avril began immolating the ground underneath her feet while they stood on the second story. Before he could figure out how to do that, she unloaded a howitzer of loathing upon Trent Alden.
“Keep running your mouth and find out who gets separated from whom, Alden. I haven’t even started throwing my weight around but fuck around a bit more and see if you don’t find out. Want to see what damage I can do to you—to all three of you? Go ahead and do anything other than fucking turn around and slink away. I. Dare. You.”
As if a shell had exploded directly in front of them during what they’d perceived would be a heroic forward charge into No Man’s Land, the three men stood there, stunned, astonished, stupefied. In the face of the hate seething around Avril, they were speechless. The threat, at least to them, was clear. For Liam, he was still several pieces of context away from a clear picture of why they looked so utterly terrified.
