Spearcrest Queen (Spearcrest Kings: Prequel #6)

Blue Summer

My summer in New Haven is the colour blue.

The blue of the American summer sky, the blue of the hydrangeas framing Evan’s aunt’s house, the blue of the Long Island Sound, that famous impassable chasm between the houses of Gatsby and his Daisy.

The blue of Evan’s eyes, a ridiculous blue that sometimes doesn’t even feel quite real.

Liar’s blue, I used to think, the beauty of the colour disarming enough so you’d never know you were about to get hurt.

Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Harvard Law School.

I’ve not told Evan that I’m going early, or that I was accepted into the Direct Admissions for Remarkable Talent, a pilot programme designed to bypass the traditional bachelor’s degree requirement.

It also comes with a significant scholarship, something I couldn’t afford to pass up.

In exchange, we’re expected to attend a summer crash course ahead of the main cohort, starting in mid-August. I’ve been waiting for it all summer, oscillating between excitement and dread.

I don’t know why I haven’t told Evan.

Maybe because I don’t want to shatter the dream just yet.

Maybe because I don’t think he’d care much anyway.

Maybe because I just want one last dream-blue day .

The morning of my final day of summer, Evan bursts in like a ray of sunshine, golden and beaming, two cups of coffee in hand.

“Get up, sleepyhead. It’s a beautiful day, I’m taking you out.”

If I had the courage to tell him the truth, that I’d rather spend today alone with him, watching the stars over the estuary, kissing under the sharp witchy crescent of the moon, I would.

But I can’t.

So instead, we spend the first half of the day on East Hampton’s Main Street, wandering into shops that make me feel as though I ought to disintegrate into a pile of dust the moment I cross their gilded thresholds.

Evan points at bracelets, dresses, trinkets—anything he thinks I’ll like.

“Sophie, how about this?”

Evan gestures, and a sales associate lifts a gold necklace from a marble bust, handing it carefully to Evan.

The pendant is a pear-cut emerald wrapped in tiny diamonds.

It’s a beautiful piece, one I couldn’t afford in a thousand years.

Evan moves to fasten the necklace around my neck, and I duck gracelessly away, shaking my head.

“Are you kidding me? My skin would probably set aflame the moment real gold touched it.”

“What do you mean?”

I glance at him, his blue eyes wide with confusion.

Those big hands, handling that delicate gold chain.

A mere trinket to him; to me, a lavish collar.

Is it innocence or stupidity, to be so rich that you can’t conceive the thought that others can be so much poorer than you?

It’s not Evan’s fault, I know that.

Not his fault he was born into this beautiful life, this glimmering dreamworld.

But it is his fault that he once looked me in the eye and said, It’s not my fault you’re poor, is it ?

My chest constricts.

The smell of the boutique, roses and leather, is cloying, too rich for me to breathe freely.

In the gilded mirror, I see her , the girl I used to be.

All elbows and angles and acne scars, shoulders squared, eyes too wary for her age—the girl Evan once tossed aside like she meant less than nothing.

I blink, my throat tight, and the reflection shifts back to me now: Sophie Sutton in a short sundress, older and wiser now, maybe even slightly happier.

But the hurt, angry girl is still there, lingering like a bruise.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say quickly.

I gesture at the necklace, forcing a half-smile.

“Unless you intend to buy yourself a pretty necklace.”

A flash of anxiety in his blue eyes.

“I want to buy you a pretty necklace.”

A strange pain twists through me.

I know he means it. I know he wants to shower me with gifts and expensive shiny things—proof of his love.

And I wish I was soft and malleable enough to let him, to accept his love without fear.

But I spent years hardening myself, and now I don’t know if I could ever step out of my own armour.

“Come on, Evan.” I give him a smirk.

“Save your fortune for all those models you’ll have to pay to date you during your mid-life crisis.”

I breeze out of the boutique, hoping to leave behind my guilt along with the silk scarves and rose perfumes and emeralds.

Evan catches up with me as I emerge into the sun-drenched street.

He catches my arm and swings me around to press me back against the cool glass of the shop front, blocking out the sunlight with his body.

“I won’t need to pay models to date me,” he says, “because I’ll have the most perfect wife in the world.”

“You’re going to marry Zachary Blackwood’s girlfriend? ”

My joke rings hollow, the guilt clinging to me like mud.

I try to push him off but he keeps me firmly pinned, forcing me to look at him.

Or rather, to not look away.

“I’ll never find anyone I want to marry more than you,” he says, voice low and so earnest it sends a tremor through me.

Does he know I’m leaving tomorrow?

The question flashes up, then fades away as his thumb brushes over my cheekbone.

“You know that, don’t you?”

I should tell him, I know I should.

I want to tell him.

But Evan would fight it.

He would fight it, like he’s been fighting all along.

And I barely even have the strength to fight myself .

I shrug. “I don’t believe in marriage.”

“You’re lying to me,” Evan says in a breath.

The air from his lungs mists against my lips, the tingle of spearmint.

I look right up into his eyes, my heart a fist clenched tight, and I say nothing at all.

Until finally, he has no choice but to step away with a sigh and let me go.

I’m a poor conversationalist for the rest of the day, throughout dinner at a beautiful restaurant on the waterfront, and all the way back to the house.

Evan asks me if I like the food, the evening, the necklace he insisted on buying me in the end.

He talks enthusiastically about the fall, how he’ll be working in his father’s office in New York, how it’ll only be a few hours away from Harvard, how often we’ll get to see each other.

“I don’t think I’ll have much free time,” I interrupt.

“The programme’s pretty intense.”

He frowns.

“What programme?”

Shit.

“The one I told you about, Direct Admissions for Remarkable Talent.” A lie—I know full well I never told him.

I gesture vaguely. “Harvard Law’s accelerated thing for, you know, academic masochists like me.”

Evan looks at me for a long moment, eyes shadowed in the low light of the car.

I wait for his reaction, an unpleasant sensation tightening my muscles.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.

And then his whole face transforms, eyes softening, mouth parting in a beaming smile.

“That’s incredible, Sophie. Look at you—Remarkable Talent, huh? You might have hated Spearcrest, but it’s definitely paid off.”

The world lurches around me as if it’s been suddenly ripped off its axis.

A wave of nausea curls cold in my stomach.

It’s definitely paid off.

Like Spearcrest didn’t almost destroy me.

Like it wasn’t a war I fought tooth and nail, on my own, day after day.

Like he wasn’t part of the reason I had to fight at all.

Evan leans over to nudge me playfully, oblivious to the ice crystallising inside me, leaving me utterly cold and unfeeling.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“There’s not much to tell, really.” I turn away, already detached from the moment.

“I guess I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to enjoy the summer while it lasted.”

If he’s hurt that I never mentioned the programme before, he doesn’t show it.

He rains down an enthusiastic flurry of questions—he’s not realised his comment about Spearcrest has pierced me straight through.

How could he?

He doesn’t understand.

I don’t think he ever will.

Back in the house, I rush to my room to get changed, to get away from him, from the memories of Spearcrest crawling through my mind like insects.

But he follows me into the guest room and before I can say anything, he cups my face in his hands.

“Hey, what is it?” he asks, eyes seeking mine.

I drop my gaze out from under his, looking around the room, looking at anything but him.

“Sophie,” he says, low and a little rough.

“Look at me. I’m not completely stupid, I can tell something’s wrong. Have I said something to upset you?”

I shake my head, my throat tightening painfully.

Even if I wanted to tell him the truth, I know that I simply couldn’t right now.

So I free myself from his hands and turn around.

“Please, Evan,” I whisper.

“Can you help me out of my dress?”

He obeys without protest, even though I can tell he doesn’t want to let this go.

He unfastens my dress, warm fingers brushing against my back.

I step deliberately back into him and out of the dress.

He buries his face into my neck, muttering against my skin.

“Stop avoiding the question. Tell me what’s wrong.”

But here, the balance of power is tilted on its axis.

Here, Evan’s wealth, his family’s influence, everything he has in this life, which normally grants him power over me, it’s all meaningless.

Here is where I have all the power, enough power to make me forget about tomorrow and about Spearcrest—so much power it sends a dizzying rush through me.

With an audible sigh, I roll my head back against his shoulder, arching my neck against his mouth, and I take his wrists to gently lead his hands up my arms and over my chest. He doesn’t need more encouragement than that to take my breasts in his hands, squeezing them through the black lace of my bra, and whatever words he was about to speak melt as his mouth moves hungrily up my neck.

Evan spins me around in his embrace, hauling me up into his arms. I’ve always been taller than most girls my age, tall and ungainly, but he lifts me up against him like I’m as delicate as a nymph, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me over to the bed.

When he spreads my legs and lowers his body down to prop my thighs on his shoulders, I reach for the bedside table lamp.

It casts a golden glow that catches on Evan’s skin and sends his shadow looming against the walls.

When he sees me reach for the lamp, he looks up with a feral glint in his eyes, and catches my wrist. “Oh no, you don’t.”

“It’s too bright in here.”

“No.” He pins both my wrists down, throwing me a warning glare.

“Keep those hands right there, Sutton. Don’t you dare move.”

“Dim the lamp at least,” I murmur as he tugs aside my panties with his thumb.

“It’s ruining the mood.”

“No, it’s not.” He looks down at me like I’m the most delicious meal he’s been served tonight.

“On the contrary, Sutton. Trust me.”

I don’t trust him, but I don’t need to.

Evan’s love is always up for debate—his desire, never.

His desire is a living thing, imprinted on every feature of his face, every tensed surface of his body.

It’s alive in the way he kisses me between my thighs, slow and lingering with his eyes closed like he’s praying, and the way he holds me when he fucks me, gathering me to his chest like he wants to encrust me there, the emerald in the gold pendant of his heart.

When he comes, his entire body trembles, and his lips are crushed to my temple, as he says, over and over again, “I love you, I love you, I love.”

And then he slumps over me with a strangled sigh, and he kisses my mouth.

“I love you. I can’t get enough of you. It’s like I’m fucking sick, Sutton, I just can’t get enough of you.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“I know,” I lie.

Because Evan’s just dreaming, and when he wakes up, the soft blue dream will fade, leaving behind only the stark grey reality that I no more belong at his side now than I did at Spearcrest.

And that’s okay.

Because this time, I won’t have to watch him wake up and walk away.

I’ll already be gone.