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I shrug and spin my laptop on the table, catching it when it’s facing me and flipping it open. “Wouldn’t have pegged him as your type.”
“What do you know about my type?” she asks, glancing up at last.
“You made it pretty obvious by slobbing the D-boys for the past three years,” I point out.
She scrunches her nose. “Brain damage acting up again?”
“You’re one to talk.”
She huffs out a breath. “What?”
I shrug like I’m barely paying attention, but inside I get that little dopamine hit that always comes with knowing I got under her skin. “You’d have to be brain damaged to want anything to do with Royal, not to mention the demon twins,” I say, logging into my laptop.
She gives me a haughty smirk. “What can I say? Tall, dark, and handsome is my type. Maybe toss in a few tats and bit of a bad boy vibe while you’re at it. Hey, look at that. Guess your buddy makes sense after all.”
“Leave him alone,” I growl.
“Jealous?” she challenges.
“Why would I be jealous?”
But fuck, I am jealous.
It pisses me off to realize it, and even more so because Gloria Fucking Walton figured it out before I did. Jesus. I must have more brain damage than Dr. Swift is aware. If I didn’t, why the fuck would I be jealous that the demon queen didn’t choose me to destroy this time?
Duke and DeShaun walk in, tossing a baseball back and forth. DeShaun runs to the back of the room, knocking tables aside with no notice of the people sitting there.
“Put her there,” he yells, holding up a hand.
Duke hurls the ball, and he jumps to catch it, knocking aside a chair just as a kid goes to sit in it. The chair and the kid go tumbling, but he just whoops in triumph and whips the ball back to Duke. The kid picks up his chair with an exclamation and slams it back into place, but the elite pay him no mind.
“Damn, you got an arm on you,” Duke says to DeShaun as the ball smacks into his palm with an audible crack. He shakesout his hand and then grins, turning to us. “Hey, Glory Hole. I need a catcher’s mitt. Borrow yours?”
Everyone around the room snickers, glancing at Gloria with barely contained delight at the reminder of the salacious things the Dolces said to their former queen. Gloria sits frozen, her face pale and rigid, which only makes Duke and Deshaun chortle louder. Duke ambles to the back and slaps his friends’ shoulders like it’s the best joke they’ve ever heard, though it’s obvious they were setting it up the whole time.
Gloria just ducks her head over her laptop, her lashes fluttering as she blinks a few times, like she’s holding back tears.
I’m overcome by an absurd urge to stand up and snag the ball and hurl it into their laughing faces. I tell myself it’s nothing, an instinctual reaction to the sound of their cruel laughter because it’s been aimed at me for so many years.
But that would be suicide, and I didn’t survive this long just to throw it all away by being a fucking idiot.
Like Dixie said, I have no reason to defend Gloria. She never stood up for me when the shoe was on the other foot. In fact, she joined in the taunting that still wakes me in a cold sweat some nights. So why should I stand up for her now?
nine
Rumor Has It… The fallen usurper wants back on the throne and is willing to go to any lengths to reclaim the crown that was so misplaced from the start. Will her pathetic act of demeaning herself by sitting on the floor at the foot of the kings fool them into believing this is anything more than a desperate bid for attention?
Gloria Walton
“There you are,” Harper says, stopping at the Dolce table and planting a hand on her hip. “What the fuck are you doing on the floor?”
“Penance,” I say, smoothing my hands along the top of my thighs and holding my head high. I’m sitting beside Baron’s chair like a dog at his feet, ready to obey my master’s every command, but I still have to look pretty, since according to Duke, there’s a “No Uggos” policy at the table. So I sit on my feet, my legs folded primly under me, my back straight. I can’t hang my head in shame. I have to look everyone in the eye as they walk past, snickering at my position, glorying in my downfall.
“That’s why she’s on her knees,” Baron says. “Penance.”
“Right,” Duke says, laughing. “That’swhy.”
“This doesn’t concern you, Harper,” Baron says. “It’s between us and Glory Hole here.”
