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The last time I’d seen Adam, only days after getting into a fistfight with Xavier at a major event of the London Season, he’d appeared on the grounds of Kendal and announced that he and his mother were working with Georgina Parker to strip Xavier of his inheritance and title. His mother and Georgina were sisters, both divorced or widowed, both with sons from first husbands with distant claims to the Kendal dukedom, both with obsessive desires to wrest that title away from the half-breed upstart who, in their lofty opinions, had no rights to the title that should belong to either Frederick or Adam. According to them, the Buddhist marriage certificate produced when Xavier was nineteen (and rendering him a legitimate heir rather than the bastard he’d always been called) was a fraud, and they would stop at nothing to prove it.
All of this made the fact that Adam and I worked together exceedingly awkward, to say the least.
But at least we were back on familiar footing. He’d traded his posh clothes from the summer for the more familiar uniform of an art teacher: paint-stained overalls, horn-rimmed glasses, and the tweed driver’s cap I’d always associated with him—a scrappy look that matched my own leggings and secondhand red tunic to hide any signs of pregnancy, my long hair tossed up into its messy bun where it would be relatively safe from glitter and glue. No more comparing my borrowed clothes to his designer duds. We both looked like the teachers I’d always thought we were.
Adam glanced at the photographers, then back to me with a bit of sympathy. “Carrie said they’ve been camped out there all morning. They asked about you as soon as she got in.”
I grimaced. Our principal couldn’t have been happy to start her day this way.
“I asked John, the day custodian, to put a brick in one of the emergency exits when I got in,” Adam said. “Figured I’d catch you before you got in. Come on, I’ll show you where it is.”
I shook his hand off my elbow, but another glance at the paparazzi had me convinced. “Fine. But no funny business, all right?”
And then there was the fact that Adam had been trying diligently to steal me away from Xavier for the better part of a year. At this point, I didn’t know how or if his interest in me overlapped with his interest in the Kendal title, but I wasn’t interested in finding out.
Adam held his hands up in defeat. “Nothing at all. Just helping a friend over here.”
Friend. Right.
Begrudgingly, I allowed him to steer me around under the cover of a bunch of red and orange maple trees toward the back gate of the school, where we dashed through the playground before anyone saw us. Adam pushed the heavy fire door open and helped me inside, then shoved the brick away to let the door slam behind us.
The echo clanged around us for a solid ten seconds once we were alone in an empty corridor.
“Thanks,” I said shortly. “But to be extremely clear, I’m not your friend. Not after the crap you pulled this summer.”
Adam cocked his head, then irritatingly walked with me in the direction of my classroom. “Really? I think I deserve a little more credit. After all, we’ve known each other for years.”
“We’ve been coworkers for years,” I corrected him shortly. “Which, to be frank, I’m surprised we still are. You made your goals apparent in Kendal. Why is a hopeful heir settling for working at a Brooklyn elementary school?”
“I’m not the heir yet. And did you ever think maybe I just like it here?” He smiled as a passing kid waved at him on his way back to the morning care room from the bathrooms. “Hey, Armie. What’s up, man?” He leaned closer to me after the child had passed. “Did you ever think I just like my ‘coworkers’?”
I veered away as we rounded a corner. I had liked Adam once. Maybe even thought he was cute. But even then, something had been off, and now I wanted to put the entire island of Manhattan between us. At least.
Not a couple of classrooms.
I stopped short outside mine. “Well. Thank you for helping me inside, but I’m going to make things super clear for you. We’re not friends. Things are too complicated. We can work together and be courteous if you absolutely have to stay at Carroll, but otherwise, that’s it for us socially. I can’t really be friends with someone who is actively trying to screw over my family.”
Adam scoffed. “Xavier’s your family now? Is that why you ran off in Kendal? Why do you even care about the future of a man you left?”
“Because we share chil—a child together, and I care aboutherfuture, you pompous jerk,” I said, only too aware of how close I’d come to saying “children.”
I didn’t know what stopped me. It wasn’t like I needed to hide my condition anymore now that Xavier and my family knew. But something told me not to reveal to Adam that I was pregnant. Not yet.
He tipped his head to the side, like he was evaluating a piece of art. “Maybe that’s because you still don’t really know what kind of person he actually is.”
“Why, because I don’t share your petty high school grudges?” I snapped. “I have to get ready for class now.”
But Adam reached around me to grab the door handle and keep me from opening it, effectively pinning me against the door. “You don’t understand. You weren’t there.”
“Yeah, but look at where we work. Do you really think I don’t have the experience or wherewithal to understand schoolyard politics?” I gestured around us to the actual school we were standing in. “I get that Eton College isn’t exactly a public elementary school, but come on, Adam. Kids are kids. So Xavier was a little mean to you when you were teenagers. So what?”
“It was more than just a little mean. He made my life a living hell.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please. By all accounts, you barely knew each other.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed through his glasses, and his jaw clenched beneath the layer of well-trimmed scruff. He glanced down the hall where a few other teachers were entering their rooms. I checked my watch. We had about forty-five minutes before the rest of the kids arrived for the day, and I had prep to do.
But before I could excuse myself, Adam grabbed my elbow and shepherded me into my own classroom, then shut the door and turned to me.
