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It’s Aiden.
“Oh. Hi,” I say a touch awkwardly since he’s caught me off guard.
To be honest, my instincts about him still haven’t recalibrated, either. I’m always a little uneasy when I see him. It’s like muscle memory, the whisper of being trapped beneath him on that table in the basement that has since crumbled to ash.
I clear my throat. Since he still hasn’t said anything, I rush to explain myself. “Um, I just ran into Killian, and he was also wearing a gray hoodie, so…”
“Got it.”
“Yeah,” I say awkwardly. “So… are you just skulking around the parking lot, or…?”
He smirks. “No. I was looking for you.”
“Me?” My eyebrows rise. “Why?”
“Because I have something for you.”
I resist the urge to repeat both of my previous questions and watch him reach into his hoodie pocket and draw out a black envelope with a royal blue wax seal.
“What is this?” I ask, glancing up at him.
“An invitation to the Blue Blood Ball.”
I frown. “What is that?”
“You know the Met Gala?”
I nod.
“Kinda like that, but darker. The Blue Bloods throw one at the end of every fall semester. It’s invite only, but I managed to snag one, and the invitation admits two, so… I need a date.”
My eyes widen. “And you think I might know someone?”
He smirks, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “No. I want you.”
My heart stalls. He says the words deliberately to make that happen, but it makes me uneasy that it works despite knowing that.
Before I met Killian, that night at the Rho Kappa Halloween party, I did feel a very unwanted tug of interest when I was under Aiden on that table. Once I met Killian, that went away, of course, but…
Well, maybe Stacie was a little right.
Maybe I am attracted to crazy, dangerous men.
I’m definitely not going out with this one, though.
“Yeah, I’m sure Killian would love that.”
“No reason he has to know,” Aiden says.
“I think he might notice us coming to his party together.”
His dark eyebrows rise. “Did I forget to tell you the best part? Open the invitation.”
I frown at him warily, but I break the fancy wax seal and pull out a thick piece of creamy vellum. The invitation is written in fancy calligraphy, and I can’t deny a jolt of excitement when I read the first line.
You’re invited to a masquerade…
I look up at Aiden.
