Chapter Twenty-nine
Alexandr Miroslav
“Sasha!” I was too busy crushing the cigarette under my shoes to lift my head in time and properly catch Paris as she barrels towards me, only a few feet away from the town car taking me and Wolf to the airport.
It was, if I hadn’t been too anxious to notice, very unlike Paris to be anything but graceful anywhere public.
It was close to dusk, and the campus resembled a haunted manor, most of the students having already taken their leave to enjoy a holiday free of looming deadlines.
I let out a rush of breath at the impact before righting us, thankful that her momentum hadn’t been enough to send us both down tumbling. Before I could lean back and ask what had compelled her to come at me with such force, the answer had found me on its own.
She pulled away and delivered a strong punch to my arm. The sudden action had been so, well, sudden that it took a moment for the pain to settle into my bones, but I was shouting before that, “Ow! What was that for?”
I stepped away and rubbed my arm, glaring, as she crossed her own, looking the least bit perturbed. “You arse! You were going to leave without so much as a goodbye?”
Ah.
I shuffled my feet, unfamiliar with the notion of farewells. “Oh.” I scratched a supposed itch at the back of my neck, muttering sheepishly, “I didn’t think–... Sorry.”
She huffed and waved me off. “You should be.”
“Yeah,” I replied, no excuse coming to mind.
I felt strangely off kilter. Like I’d been nudged somewhere I didn’t know was tender. It shouldn’t have mattered–her disappointment–but it did, in some crooked, unexplainable way I wasn’t equipped to name.
“So, you’ll be spending your break in the reserved Kingsley manor, eh? You know what they say, nothing goes in that ever comes out.”
I had half a mind to believe her if I didn’t already catch the amusement in her eyes. “Well then, I’ll be sure to have Wolf invite the lot of you.”
Paris quipped a brow and pursed her lips to suppress a smile. “Lot? Where’d you learn that?”
I leaned back against the car, Wolf’s driver most likely waiting for his last passenger with renewed impatience. “A girl I know taught it to me. She has the poshest accent and yet she speaks like she’s been raised in the projects.”
I was sure she didn’t know what the projects were, but she hummed nonetheless, using context clues. Her damned smile stretched wide and unguarded, utterly different from her practiced poise, and yet even more disarming.
Paris wasn’t someone I often encountered in her public persona, but this smile, as opposed to the others, was different. She was… doing something unconventional, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what.
She jutted out her chin and let her eyelids close in a slow blink. “Well, I hope she’s able to convert you to the English way of things.”
A disbelieving snort made its way out before I could stop it, not that I intended to, as I tilted my head to her. “You’re not English yourself.”
She lifted a shoulder ever so gracefully. “Semantics.”
There was a gentle silence that followed, which was filled with the scrape of the dry winter leaves on the pavement.
A weak gust of wind swept by, and partnered with the icy air, Paris tightened her coat around herself. I reached over and flicked the fur lining of her round hat. “So, are you going home yet?”
She nodded with a soft hum. “Later this evening. I have a few more important matters to attend to.”
I wouldn’t exactly call myself a caring person, but I was a nosy person. Strangely, more so in matters of Paris. “What’s so important?”
I raised a brow when she smiled, the one that hinted at evasion. “Ehh, you know how busy a child of the wealthy is.”
“Hmm,” I let out. “What are your plans for the break?”
Her eyes dimmed only slightly, but it was enough to notice. “Dinners. Family. Shopping.”
I rolled my eyes. “If you were talking to another idiot, sure.”
Paris gaped dramatically. “What–I’m not exactly lying.”
The corners of my lips curled unwittingly. “I’m sure you will be eating, seeing your family, and buying at least one more piece of attire. Let me rephrase, what will be the highlight of your break, Paris?”
She didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she watched me.
A look I wasn’t quite familiar with passed over her eyes before she seemed to remember herself.
“I… will be–” She cleared her throat. “I will be studying macroeconomics. Mr Rutherford recommended that I argue against a peer-reviewed thesis, and have my work published. Universities look kindly upon students who take academic risks, within certain guidelines, of course.”
I nodded, suddenly intrigued. “I never did ask what you wanted to accomplish in life.”
“I–well, I want to supersede my father’s banking empire but…” she shrugged her shoulders with an air of quiet defeat. “My father prefers to have my brother cover that.”
I nodded along, crossing my arms over my chest and feeling a sense of injustice in her place. “Does he have what it takes? Your brother?”
Paris scoffed, and I could almost taste the bitterness on her tongue. “It’ll be years before we know. He’s seven.”
I pulled my head back at the news. If Paris was older and clearly born for the role, why would her brother have anything covered? How could he, at his age?
My brows were close to meeting from how deeply they were furrowed. “I’m sorry, is your father in his right mind?”
Paris shrugged as if it were something she was used to hearing. “A little.” Another soft breeze passed, and she crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring my stance and standing taller. “Not to worry, Sasha. He will rue the day he overlooked me. You know I don’t take anything lying down.”
Her grin was downright sadistic, and I was glad of it. “That, I know.”
She let out a deep sigh. “Well, anyway, what will you be doing during this break?”
I hadn’t exactly thought of that. If I were to find the leisure among the murder mystery Wolf had asked me to join, I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill. I tilted my head towards the car holding me upright. “Maybe learn how to drive.”
Paris’s face contorted into one of confusion. “You never learned to drive?”
“Child of poverty, remember?” I asked.
She didn’t appear sympathetic. “Ah, it must have slipped my mind.”
“Besides, I wouldn’t know why you would learn to drive. You have chauffeurs.”
Paris shrugged with raised brows. “C’est la vie. Child of wealth but not one lacking.”
It was my turn to hum, and as I did, there, far down the path, I could make out Wolf’s figure approaching. He walked with his head down and his coat billowing around him like a creature of death.
It was awfully pretentious.
Paris seemed to catch where my gaze was fixated and turned to see the man of the hour. “There’s the golden boy.”
“Nothing golden about him.” The little rat couldn’t even bother paying for all the cigarettes he stole. Then again, he was inviting me into his home for an all-inclusive vacation. But if you really think hard about it, my playing his bodyguard was payment enough.
Oh god, Wolf Kingsley had bought me.
The thought made me cringe.
Paris let out a breathy laugh and reached over to pat my cheek, the touch sudden and yet not as surprising after having been around her so long. “I’m sure your brass armour attracts more fair maidens than his gold ever will, oh, honourable knight.”
Amused, I rolled my eyes and quipped, “You have such a way with words.”
Paris grinned and shrugged in a manner that didn’t convey the humbleness she tried to muster. “I try.”
And as she bid me farewell, walking away, a thought suddenly pierced through my mind. Or perhaps it had always been there, waiting for a single string to weave itself into my web.
Paris was beautiful.
Well, she’d always been beautiful. But never to me. Or at least, I never found her beauty something to ponder over, because… Well, there were plenty of pretty girls here at Castle Hill.
Not that she is ordinary, only that–
God.
When Wolf approached, I snapped at him for taking so long before slumping low in the backseat until we arrived at the private runway.
The only thought bouncing around my mind was how quickly I wanted the holidays to pass, to return to Castle Hill.