Chapter 33
33
W e were a solid two hours into our road trip when I finally had enough of Royce’s never-ending requests to drive, and caved. It was kind of worth it to see the grin on his face when I tossed him the keys after filling up the car with gas.
“Really?” he asked, beaming. “You’re not just fucking with me?”
I rolled my eyes and climbed into the passenger seat which he’d been occupying since we left campus. “I don’t know why you want to drive my car so badly. Your Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR is worth four times as much and has a shitload more gadgets going on. Like those seat warmers. I wouldn’t mind some of those.” I mumbled the complaint as I cranked up the heating and turned all the vents in my direction.
I was constantly cold these days. It’d been ten days since I returned to campus, eighteen days since my hike through the woods, and I still couldn’t get warm. Royce thought it was in my head, and I thought he should shut the fuck up.
“Because yours is a real car,” he replied, turning on the ignition and stroking the steering wheel in a disturbingly sexy way. Royce…was fucking with my head. He’d caught me checking him out a couple of days ago when he came back from the shower in just a towel and now was making my life hell .
He smirked at me, catching me staring at his hands. “She purrs so nicely when her engine gets revved,” he told me with the thinnest of veils over his innuendo and I groaned.
“You’re insufferable,” I growled. “Just drive. The sooner we get to this dumb getaway the sooner we can leave, right?”
He pulled out of the gas station and flicked my indicator to rejoin the main road. He smiled gleefully at the mechanical click of my indicators and I shook my head. Rich boy had never driven a car more than two years old before.
We were—after days of back-and-forth arguments—on our way to a Devil’s Backbone Society fete. It was a countryside weekend getaway where several chapters of the society from different universities got together and…partied, I guess? The guys had assured me there were no challenges and the only games were friendly entertainment ones. There should be no danger and as I was attending as a plus-one—not a society member—I would be essentially left alone.
I hadn’t been able to focus much on looking into Abigail more. After reaching the ends of what the easily accessible internet could provide, it seemed like I’d need a hacker or a PI to help get more info there. I wasn’t completely convinced, especially with the idea that I’d be ignored at the event. But failing that, Nate argued, I was still safer there with the four of them than at Nevaeh alone.
That was the only part we agreed on. And I didn’t hate having Royce as my constant shadow, so it would be weird without him for a whole weekend.
After ten or fifteen minutes, I relaxed with confidence that he actually knew how to drive my stick shift vintage and wasn’t going to grind the gearbox. We’d fallen into a really easy rhythm these past ten days. Dare I say, we’d become friends?
“So…now that I know you want to fuck me, I guess I’ll have to challenge Heath to a duel,” he announced sometime later, making me choke on the sip of soda I’d just taken.
I spluttered while he grinned and smacked him with the back of my hand. “I do not want to fuck you. And no one is challenging anyone to a duel in my name, you fucking dork.”
He hummed thoughtfully. “Did you know that a dork is actually a whale’s penis? So I think that’s a compliment. Thanks, Squirrel, I do have an above-average dick but I’m a little uncomfortable to hear you’ve been looking. Creep.”
My face heated, and once again I cursed my quickness in blushing. “That’s blatantly made up, Royce. And I haven’t looked so couldn’t comment.”
He shot me a sly look. “Sure you haven’t…just like Carter hasn’t been trying to swap out for sleepover duty every day this week.”
If I wasn’t already blushing, I’d be doing it now. Royce had been spinning the narrative that Carter desperately wanted to get me alone but I wasn’t buying it. Royce just liked shit stirring. If Carter really wanted to talk, he’d call. Or he’d approach me in person. Neither of which he’d done.
Heath, on the other hand, had been doing everything possible to spend time with me and didn’t seem to give two shits that Royce was around when he kissed me.
“How about some music?” I suggested in the least subtle conversation change in history.
Royce scoffed a laugh but didn’t press the issue as I turned on the radio and browsed through the channels. My car didn’t have Bluetooth or smart anything, so it was radio or nothing.
In total, the drive took seven hours, and I let Royce keep his position as driver for the remainder of the trip while I napped on and off. Long car rides sucked, but the alternative had been to take a private jet with Nate, Heath, and Carter…as well as Paige and Jade. No fucking thank you. Carly—the traitor—had left a day earlier to visit her gran on the way and was meeting us there.
“Fucking hell,” I murmured as we drove up the long oak tree-lined driveway. “This looks like a castle.”
Royce nodded. “Close. I believe the architect was heavily inspired by the Palace of Versailles.”
I grimaced, eyeing the opulence with distaste. “Here’s hoping no one loses their head. How many people are at this thing?” Because there were a lot of luxury cars parked on the perfectly manicured lawns.
“Uh…for the day’s events I believe it’s roughly two hundred. Not everyone is staying on site, though. Just us—twenty from Nevaeh—and two other chapters. So like sixtyish total.”
I wrinkled my nose, unbuckling my seatbelt. “There’s that many rooms? This place is enormous.”
Royce gave a laugh, turning my car off and sliding out of his seat. “Yeah. It really is. Let’s go find where we’re staying, roomie.” He pocketed my keys and draped an arm over my shoulders.
I had to bite my cheek to keep from glancing up at him, already painfully aware how good he looked. The last thing I needed was to see the golden sunlight lighting up his blond hair like he was some kind of religious figure.
“Hi Royce!” a woman called out from somewhere nearby, but he didn’t react. Instead he just led me up the marble steps to the front door and opened the impressive wooden door.
“After you, my lady,” he teased, gesturing for me to enter the replica palace.
On a huge pinboard displayed in the foyer we located our room assignment—yes, we were still sharing—and took the fancy key from the hook.
“This reminds me of that key you’ve got,” I told Royce as we ascended the huge grand staircase in search of our room. He had a pretty antique style key on his keyring that I’d admired a few days ago when he’d left them lying on my desk.
He glanced at the key in my hand and nodded. “Sort of. Except mine is functional .” Because his wasn’t a key, it was a bottle opener. Typical guy.
Our room was lovely, if a little small. Royce told me that he’d get someone to grab our bags out of the car later if I wanted to go meet up with Carly, and I agreed enthusiastically.
We found my friend in the Great Room, playing poker with a bunch of guys I’d never met. She looked like she was winning too, judging off the pile of sparkly rocks on the table in front of her.
“You’re here!” she exclaimed, leaping up to hug me quickly. “Sorry boys, I’m out. Good game, though.” She quickly scooped her pile of gems into a velvet pouch and hurried us out of the room once more.
“Carly Briggs, were you card sharking?” Royce asked in a scolding tone. The two of them had developed a cute sort of friendship since he’d moved into my room, and I quietly loved it.
Carly smirked. “Maybe. Not my fault those dumb shits from Zenith were too blinded by the power of cleavage to see me pocketing cards.”
Royce just laughed, grabbing her bag and peering inside. “Holy shit, good score. Nice.” He offered her a high five and she smacked it hard.
I was confused, though. “Why the stones and not playing chips?”
They both shrugged. “Immediate value versus symbolic value. No one trusts the house to pay out fairly.” He pulled out a handful of Carly’s stones to show me as we approached the bar in the atrium. “Buy-in is a lesser value stone like these. Peridot, citrine…crap like that. Then instead of increasing by dollar amounts it just, you know, makes sense. Aquamarine, sapphire, emerald, ruby, then diamonds. You get the idea.”
My eyes bugged out. “They’re real ? I thought they were…actually, forget it. Of course they’re real. You guys are fucking nuts.”
Carly and Royce both grinned like twins. They’d bonded over their privileged upbringings and shit I could never relate to. Like the struggle of having to choose between spending Christmas in Aspen or Zermatt. Poor darlings.
Royce ordered drinks for us all—spicy margaritas—but then paused before handing me one.
“I don’t know if I should let you drink, Squirrel. Are you going to start hitting on me if you have a few cocktails? I don’t want to make things weird…” He winced dramatically and I resisted the urge to toss the damn drink in his face.
Carly snort laughed so hard I worried she would choke on her drink. She was more than amused by Royce’s antics, and I rolled my eyes.
“You guys suck,” I muttered, grabbing the drink from Royce’s hand and glancing around the atrium. “Where’s Heath? He would never be so mean.”
“Nonsense, you just haven’t seen that side of him,” Royce corrected with a laugh, taking a long sip of his own drink. “Mmm, that’s good. Spicy. Wet.” He licked the salt rim seductively and I walked away. As funny as he was…it was also doing silly things to my hormones and I really badly did not need to start mistaking his jokes for actual flirtation.
There were people milling around throughout the whole place, so it was no great shock when I bumped into someone just a minute later. Annoyingly, though, it sloshed half my drink down my front.
“Oh come on,” I complained just a moment before a strong hand grabbed my arm and jerked me to the side, out of the atrium and into one of the internal halls. Shock saw me drop my drink entirely, but then I quickly realized who was to blame. “Carter. What are?—”
“We need to talk,” he snapped, basically dragging me along as he strode across the hall and jerked open a door. “In here, quick.” He ushered me inside and I immediately found us shut in a linen closet.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped, trying—and failing—to open the door again. He just blocked it with his body and unless I was ready to start screaming, I was trapped. Then again, given the general attitudes of the guests I doubted anyone would come to investigate even if I did scream.
He folded his arms, parking his shoulders on the door. “Spark. Please.” The vulnerability and longing in his voice struck me like a knife.
I stiffened, rage filling my chest. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Bassington.”
He sucked a long breath, nodding slightly. “Fair enough. But we need to talk and Royce has been utterly insufferable with blocking access to anything even remotely private with you so?—”
“So what? Your phone doesn’t work? You don’t want to say what you need to say in front of him? Save the bullshit, Carter, I’m not buying. You had your fun in Paris. You won. What more do you want from me?”
A frustrated sound escaped him just a split second before he grabbed me, whirling us around so my back was now against the door and his hand pinned my hips. His other was on my throat, his favorite place, but it was a gentle touch. “What more do I want, Ashley? Where do I even start? I can’t get you out of my head, I want?—”
The door opened abruptly and I tumbled out into Royce’s arms.
“Hey roomie, what’s going on here?” he asked, steadying me with a firm hold on my waist. “No leaving my line of sight, remember? Safety in numbers.”
Carter’s expression was a tortured twist of frustration, anger, and longing. “Royce, please. Just give us a minute.”
“She doesn’t want a minute with you, Carter,” Carly snapped, glaring absolute venom at the achingly handsome man gripping the linen closet doorframe. “And I don’t fucking blame her. What was it you said, again? You don’t entertain overpriced whores .”
He flinched, but I refused to let myself feel bad for him. Instead, I turned my gaze away and brushed a hand down my shirt. “I think I need to change. Let’s go.” Very deliberately, I took Royce’s hand in mine and turned my back on Carter.
He’d had every part of me in Paris. For just a day and a half, I would have given him the whole world. But not anymore. I owed him nothing.