Chapter 30
Malena
Ididn’t want to let her go.
I squeezed my best friend, not realizing just how much I’d missed her over the last few weeks.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” I looked past her to the stern, tower of a man who seemed to be trying for a blank expression but whose piercing gray eyes watched the room closely. “Hello…”
He gave me a slight nod then resumed scanning the room.
“What happened to Ridley?” I whispered.
Sabrina traveling with a security team wasn’t anything new, but I was expecting Ridley, the private security she’d had since she was a kid who was with her when she started at Winchester.
He’d only hung around through the first semester of freshman year, at which point her father gave the green light to scale back her team on campus.
Sabrina still had security protocols in place that other students wouldn’t even begin to comprehend, but it was all fairly standard.
“Ridley’s not Secret Service.” She tipped her head to the staunch-looking man standing five feet away. “And Secret Service protection protocol starts one-hundred and twenty days prior to any Presidential election,” she rattled off in a tone imitating her dad. “So, I have Agent Emerson.”
“Oh…” My voice jumped up an octave because this new guy was… well, hot, to put it bluntly.
Chiseled jaw, dark brown hair, broad shoulders.
Basically, the polar opposite to Ridley, who’d always come across like a “fit dad.” He was kind and treated Sabrina like his own daughter.
The significantly younger man with an earpiece and a scowl gave off a completely different vibe.
And I didn’t miss just how he’d been looking at Sabrina since they arrived.
Cora and I would need to bring up the new development next time we had her alone.
“He seems nice,” I added.
“I’m stuck with him for the next while.” Sabrina cast a passing glance over her shoulder.
“Now come on, let’s enjoy the race…” Sabrina looped her arm in mine, and we took a few steps back to our seats.
She looked directly at Conrad even though she was talking to me.
“And then after the race, I’m stealing you for the rest of the day. ”
“Fine.” He held my chin, tilted it up, and pressed a kiss on my lips. Tingles spread down my body, curling my toes. “But we’re going out tonight.”
“Dancing!” Ishani called from behind him. “You’re both joining us,” she added sternly.
Not that I ever needed an excuse to party.
At a small café along the Champs-élysées, Sabrina and I settled at a table in front of a pair of closed French doors.
Outside, in front of the buildings with pale brick faces, tinned roofs, and iron-wrought balconies, was a steady stream of tourists enjoying the less crowded autumn season.
Checkered among them were locals hurrying past, dressed in chic wool coats with understated handbags.
“How are things on your own?” I asked just as we received our drinks and pastries.
Sabrina didn’t talk about her past a lot, but being the closest thing America had to a princess came with a price.
Hers was a kidnapping when she was six. It made the national news for months even though she was recovered safe and sound in a day.
While a lot of people in her family learned to thrive in that spotlight, Sabrina avoided it.
“Good, I’ve even been going out,” she reported, momentarily dragging her fingers along the lip of the marble table and doing a little shoulder shimmy.
When I walked onto campus as a freshman, I was determined to try everything. Sabrina was the opposite; she relied on me and Cora to coax her out of her shell, so this semester abroad was a big step for her.
I beamed. “You look good.”
“So do you.” Her lips stretched with the last syllable. “So…”
“I’m having fun,” I explained as I stirred some sugar into my cappuccino. “Finally managed a trip without my parents knowing.”
The “safety” that my parents’ rigid standards provided also kept my view on the world pretty narrow. With every broken rule was a slightly more vivid future, a bigger canvas to paint on. More possibilities than I was allowed to imagine.
I looked up and Sabrina’s brows pulled in. “Sabrina?”
“I know this trip is a sweet gesture…” She fussed with her mug, now looking at it while she turned it on the table. “But just remember, taking you to Paris and a Grand Prix doesn’t prove anything. And, for the record, I could have done both.”
I smiled. She’d already extended a similar warning, but Sabrina was protective, and I’d been waiting for another one—delivered in person this time.
“Sabrina Madeline Alders, you are swoonier than any man.” I put one hand up like I was taking an oath. “I promise.”
My eyes were wide open. I knew about Conrad’s reputation and I planned on enjoying it.
Because if anything, it gave me some solace.
We both fell squarely in the “people you screw” category for each other.
I wouldn’t fit in his world, and he couldn’t exist in mine.
This was the perfect setup, a way to have it all, for now.
She laughed. “I only mean, this is sort of different than your usual hookup, and I don’t want you falling for some guy who—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning for the future.”
It wasn’t like I could, even if I wanted to. And I told myself I didn’t want to.
The gorgeous, cavalier, lily white legacy with no real plans for the future was not what my parents had in mind for me. Maybe it was a fling, maybe it was a little more, but it would end. Just like everything else.
“Good.” Sabrina’s face fell a bit as she agreed. “You don’t have to be pessimistic though. Just vigilant.”
I shook my head, putting her at ease with a playful grin. “I’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t going to let it bother me, because I’d finally stolen a little freedom.
When the Winchester diploma landed in my hand at the end of my senior year, all of this would settle like sparkling grains at the bottom of my memory’s hourglass. I was going to enjoy them while they were at the top.