Chapter 12
Malena
My heart beat violently against each rib.
I stared through the halfway open threshold.
I didn’t know what any of this meant, but I wasn’t about to waste any more time.
Conrad’s presence loomed at my back as I tracked a beam of moonlight that peaked through a tiny window. It showed us we were very much still below ground-level, because the twelve-inch window sat right where the wall met the ceiling and was partially obstructed by dirt on its outside face.
Excitement gave way to apprehension, and it cemented me to the floor.
“Age before beauty.” With a flourish, I swept a hand toward the room.
I’d seen enough horror movies to know that I, the ambitious brown girl, would not be going in first. Besides, nobody killed off the cute white boy. He was perfectly safe.
“Just admit you’re scared,” he said when it became clear I wouldn’t be moving.
“I’m not scared.” I scoffed despite him being correct, then angled my body so he could step past me and through the threshold. He closed the door behind us and did just that. “I’m trying to figure out where we are.”
I drew up a mental map of our location. We left the Scroll the doorway we’d just walked through was one I’d passed countless times and always assumed was a closet.
“That’s not true at all.” He ran his hand along a shelf, pushing a bit of dust into the air. “Lightning famously strikes twice.” He took a few more unhurried steps, like it wasn’t against all sorts of rules that we were in this office to begin with. “It’s why skyscrapers have grounding beams.”
I blinked. Something about that threw me. Admittedly, I’d expected him to be a little more air-headed.
“How oddly jaded,” I noted.
There wasn’t much in the office. The gabled window had a clear view of the quad in the distance, and I once again wondered how many times I’d walked past, oblivious to all that hid below.
“Realistic,” he corrected.
“If you say so…”
I rounded the desk and took a second to think about what lines I was willing to cross. I shrugged it off and knew I’d rationalize my choices later. I bent slightly and began trying the drawers, only to find them all locked.
“This was anticlimactic,” I said through a long sigh.
I glanced up to Conrad, whose gaze was fixed on my attempts at ransacking the librarian’s desk. The corners of his eyes softened when I planted my hands on my hips and gave him a look like Are you just going to stand there?
“Maybe they host a rave between the shelves when we aren’t around. We should check, for good measure.” He shrugged and made for the door.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking, but I blinked at his back and quickly moved my feet, because for the first time since we started, he seemed on board.
This section of the library was small and cramped, with the bookshelves spaced no more than a couple of feet apart. Bronze wall sconces did enough to illuminate our path, but I’d walked this floor so many times, I could probably do it with my eyes closed.
But I kept them open and tried to remember everything in case it was important. Since clearly, there was a lot more than met the eye.
We walked ahead another couple of steps, down the last aisle. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find, but there wasn’t anything here.
The thrill I’d felt walking up those stone steps waned. There was probably a reasonable explanation that I just wasn’t seeing. I turned and looked at Conrad, who wore a divot between his brows. Like he felt bad that all my excitement ended the way he probably predicted—with nothing.
Humiliation swept over me.
“Is someone there?” a new, unfamiliar voice filled the quiet.
My pulse spiked.
“Shit,” I hissed.
After three years of perfecting all the many lies of Malena Amin, this was what threatened to bring me down?
Flustered, I wondered why Conrad stood unmoving. I looked around in panic. “They’re going to find us.”
He looked over his shoulder then back at me.
“Relax.” His voice lowered but remained calm, washing over my nerves. He closed the space between us and gripped my waist.
I sucked in a startled breath. This close, the pine and musk in his cologne managed to knock the remainder of my panic down, replacing it with something else.
“What are you—”
“We need an alibi.” His controlled tone fanned across my skin as he dragged his hands up and laced his fingers around the back of my neck, tilting my chin up. My ribs rattled around my frantic heart. “Play along.”
Without further explanation, he walked us backward and pressed his lips against mine. I tensed for a millisecond, just long enough for a burst of electricity to shoot down my body.
My hands curled around his collar, my lips parted, and then everything melted together.
With a gruff groan, he deepened the kiss.
His body molded against mine. He raked his fingers into my hair, and just like the expensive whiskey he’d been drinking at the party that I could taste on his lips, he was intoxicating.
The heat from his body, the commanding pressure of his lips, the subversive feeling of having a need be sated… it was addictive.
Pushing me harder against the bookshelves, he groaned again. This time, the sound reverberated down my throat and arrowed itself right between my thighs.
Fuck. Who knew being pressed between a dusty bookshelf and a marble slab of a torso would feel so good. I rolled my hips against his, chasing the high, desperate to pull that sound from his throat one more time.
A glaring light shining onto our intertwined bodies broke the spell.
“What are you doing in here?”
Conrad pulled away, his eyes connecting with mine. Unfocused and gorgeous. For a moment, he looked completely lost.
Then, he cleared his throat.
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” he mumbled between heavy breaths as he turned to face the security guard.
“I’m so sorry.” I took a step forward. “We…”
“Conrad Hastings.” Conrad outstretched his hand and introduced himself in a smooth and warm tone that reminded me of the night of the masquerade party.
And maybe it was the rush I’d just experienced or the dim light, but I was sure I saw something in his palm.
“Apologies, we lost track of time. We didn’t mean to interrupt your work. ”
The security guard’s eyes darted down as he cautiously shook Conrad’s hand.
I bit back a scoff.
“Don’t let me catch you in here again,” he warned, stepping to the side as he shoved his own hand into his pocket.
With that, we were escorted out the main entrance.
We rushed down the stone path that led off campus, away from the Amherst Building. It was only a couple of blocks until we approached Radiant, and with our time running out, I had to know. “Did you bribe him?”
“We’re walking out of there scot-free, aren’t we?”
“And that usually works?”
He shrugged. “I’m Conrad Hastings.”
He didn’t need to lie, in fact throwing around the truth—like his name—was pretty useful for him. All while I had to set up a fake identity in order to scrape by with a normal college experience.
He looked down at me as we turned the corner in front of our building, like he was waiting at the other side of a tennis court to return a serve. “I know how that sounds, so you can spare me the moral high ground.”
“I am blackmailing you.” I reminded him of his gross exaggeration of our agreement, breathing out a chuckle as I stepped inside the lobby. “I don’t have any moral high ground here.”
A full-blown smile broke out across the steep cut of his jaw. A real one that came alongside a tiny roll of his shoulders and a subdued laugh.
The notes rang deep and rich.
Our eyes caught, and I stilled.
“You have…” Conrad leaned in and brushed something off my shoulder. His breath skated across my cheek, goose bumps prickling every inch it touched. His palm smoothed over the nape of my neck. “Paint?”
Cloudy and warm, a familiar tension returned.
“You… do too.” I pressed closer, my mind blanked.
And then, a tapping along my thigh yanked me out of the moment.
My heart raced, even faster now.
It was my burner phone. The hurricane-force wind that was reality smacked me in the face. I hadn’t checked my phone all night, and I definitely didn’t have service for most of it.
Shit.
I took a step back and fumbled for it. Five missed calls. My mom didn’t do well with feeling ignored. She got anxious then angry, and then it was up to me to do damage control. “I should probably go.”
He blinked a couple of times, his jaw flexing. “Yeah.”
“Thanks for the tour.” I pushed my phone back into my pants. “The article won’t take long at this rate.”
“Yeah… You’re welcome.” His brow furrowed as he muttered something I didn’t catch.
I turned and walked quickly to the elevators.