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“What happened between you and Sade Royales, future Duke by day and fucking warlord by night,” Mel says. I open my mouth, but she holds a finger in my face before a single word can make it out. “And don’t even try telling me it was just that night at the party, because I wasn’t born fucking yesterday.”
My eyes fly over to Eva, but her arms are crossed, and her stare firm. She also believes that Mel should know. I look longingly after Annie, but it’s gonna be a while before she makes it back. The cafeteria is just in the adjacent hall, but the spaces are huge at Norton King’s, plus there’s bound to be one hell of a line. People are still out to gossip, stealing glances at us, but at least the snapping of pictures stopped.
I take a deep breath.
“I was going to tell you,” I murmur.
“I fucking knew it.” Mel slaps a hand on the table. “Wench, you’ve been fucking him all this time, and hiding it from us?”
“No, notallthis time.” My eyes snap up to hers, and this time I glare like I mean it. It shuts her up enough to give me a chance to frame this the right way.
Glancing around to make sure no one is listening or trying to record our conversation, I signal for them to come closer. Eva already knows the story, but she’s not disinclined to hear it again. With all three of us now leaning in over the table, I tell the story of the masked man breaking into the mansion and fucking me. My words come out hushed and fast, but they get it all.
“You mean to tell me Sade Royales got past my family’s security and violated our premises?”
Eva shoots her a glare. “I would say he violated far more important things than that, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Mel readjusts. “I’m sorry. It’s just...It makes me angry. And scared.”
“Scared you should be,” Eva says. “Ending up on the radar of a King is never a good thing, I said that much from the start.” She looks at me. “But now it seems the problem is far bigger than we thought. Said King isn’t merely interested in you, or playing with you, or even protecting you. He’s freaking in love with you.”
My heart jumps at those words, even though they sound ludicrous.
“That’s insane,” I mutter.
“Insane?” Mel chimes. “Wench, he placed himself between you and those officers. He looked ready to take a bullet for you. He didn’t even protest when they called you his girlfriend. All you could see was his back, but I had a good visual of his face, and trust me, the unhinged bastard actually looked proud. He wanted people to believe you were his in that way, at least for a little while. Then he even grabbed one of the other Kings by his throat. And by that what-the-hell-is-happening-here look on your face, you don’t even grasp what that means.” She shakes her head like I’m some idiot who doesn’t understand the gravity of their situation. “You stirred up some shit, girlfriend. This King is on the edge for you, and he’s a fucking psycho.”
She glances at the Kings’ table up in the gallery, where only the creme-de-la-creme sits. Not even the rich kids on campus get to sit with them, let alone someone like me. Now there they are, two of the most powerful men on Earth, going at each other because of me.
“They look like fucking Hulk and Venom,” Mel comments.
I observe them from under my eyebrows, doing my best to not be obvious. Carlton is basically talking at Sade, gesturing around and then pointing at his own chest with his thumbs. Probably making it clear to Sade once again how his fucking the maid is affecting him, while Sade stares him in the face like death made flesh.
“Afterparty Justine,” Eva snorts, arms crossed and her eyes fixed without any veils on the two men discussing up in the gallery. “Whoever started that nickname is gonna watch it die an early death.” I’ve rarely seen this mean-girl look on the young professor’s face, but it makes her damn sexy. “Now everybody thinks your pussy is made of gold or something, forhimto lose it for you like that.” She jerks her chin in Sade’s direction.
“Yeah, I guess it’s a flex,” I breathe.
“Flex my ass,” Mel hisses. “Wench, you know I suspected from the get-go that Sade had some kind of twisted attraction to you that went beyond the physical, but this? This is nuke level. There are serious consequences to what a King does, which is why they should always act responsibly. And Sade, for all of his simmering violence, was always responsible and dependable as a rock. But he’s losing that now, and that can’t end well for any of us.”
I look up at Sade facing Carlton like he’s ready to make good on his promise, and my heart gives a stupid little flutter. No, I can’t find satisfaction in this, I can’t be this disturbed.
Mel shakes her head, her tone softening.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t mean to say you don’t deserve to be with someone like Sade. I’m a lot of things, but not a classist cunt. It’s that hell could literally break loose if he decides to ditch all of his obligations for you.”
I lean back with my hands up.
“Okay, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. What are we even talking about? It’s not like Sade and I are even together. We’re not a couple. He uses me for sex, that’s all, and maybe he felt obliged to do something when he saw me in shit with the police. Up in the library, he...” I look at Eva, whose eyes are still on the gallery, watching Sade and Carlton. The latter seems to have calmed down while Sade speaks slowly, not a muscle moving on his face beside his mouth.
“He did swear to protect me.”
Now I have her attention again.
“That’s a good thing,” Mel says, “because I guarantee you, the story with Dean will be forgotten within days. But his fiancee? That’s something to worry about. Her family controls a whole bunch of luxury brands, and half the media in this country. If she wants to destroy someone, she will. Sooner or later, she will become Sade’s official cunt to fuck, and after what happened today, she’ll sure be holding a grudge.”
Gertrude Fairfell may become a problem, but she’s not the one who causes the fine hairs to stand up all the way down my spine right now. It’s Dogg Wilson, whose gaze I catch. He’s heading up to the gallery, where the other Kings are, his eyes on me under thick brown-blonde eyebrows.
Maybe Sade can make Afterparty Justine disappear from people’s minds, but surely not his. Dogg will hold on to that image of me because he likes it too much. He’s notwillingto let it go. He holds my gaze as he makes his way up to the top of the stairs, and, at the end, he gives me a telltale grin. No, Dogg Wilson isn’t done with me. The only thing Sade’s protection accomplished was to make this game even more enticing for him. He stares at me like he has a death wish, and he’s going to take me down with him.
