9. Unexpected Complication
Unexpected Complication
Elias
Desdemona Sutton-Knight is a creature of habit. She always wears her uniform in the same way, ties her hair in the same sapphire-blue ribbon, plays tennis on the same days every week.
So when she smiles at me and agrees to sit on my lap in the middle of the Spearcrest dining hall, I’m the one, for once, who’s totally taken aback.
I catch myself quickly; I can’t let anyone at this table sense my surprise, my hesitation.
I drop down into my seat, folding my long legs, and pat my thigh with a slight smirk.
Desdemona perches herself on my lap in the same way she knelt to pick up her money off my floor: with supreme grace, considering.
I brace myself for the surge of triumph to rush through me, but instead, a hot shiver snakes up my spine.
I have to stop myself from reaching for the long strands of her hair, from savouring that fragrant, sun-kissed silkiness.
She’s surprisingly pliant, on my lap, her thighs warm against mine.
Wrapping my arm around her and brushing a playful kiss along the side of her neck would feel so very natural.
Remember what you’re doing this for, I tell myself firmly. Remember what you’re here to achieve.
This isn’t about having a beautiful rich girl on my lap; this is about getting out from under Pearson’s boot. It would be easy enough to forget, but the article I was interviewed for comes out later this month.
That will be the reminder I need.
“What’s all this, then?” Blaise says, eyes on Desdemona. “Making new friends, D?”
Desdemona shrugs. “It’s not illegal, is it?”
She sets her plate next to mine, pours us both a drink, hands me mine. I take the glass from her, our fingers brushing, almost accidental.
“Illegal, no,” Blaise says. “Unexpected, rather.”
“I’m Mira.” One of Desdemona’s friends reaches over to give me her hand.
She doesn’t need to introduce herself: Mira Rajahn is the queen bee of Spearcrest. Everyone here either wants to be around her, with her, or be her. She’s the opposite of Desdemona—slight and sweet and soft, with dark, liquid eyes, impossibly long eyelashes.
“Enchanted,” I say, shaking her hand like I was taught to do years ago by my social workers. “Elias.”
When I let go, I settle my palm, without meaning to, on the low of Desdemona’s back, and I feel her stiffening. A tiny, almost imperceptible reaction that tells me she’s not so indifferent to my touch as she thinks she is.
Interesting.
“I know who you are,” Mira is saying, eyes sparkling warmly.
“Everyone knows who he is,” mutters Desdemona’s other friend. She also needs no introduction: the rust-red hair and sneering eyes tell me this is Emerald Carver—when the United Kingdom gets its next female prime minister, it’s going to be her.
A scary thought, if you ask me.
“And yet I don’t think we’ve ever met,” I say, meeting her gaze. “Emily, is it?”
“Emerald,” she says, but even as she rolls her eyes, she’s trying to suppress a smirk of amusement.
“I don’t get it,” Mira says, glancing from me to Desdemona. “Are you two an item?”
Desdemona’s eyelashes flutter ever so slightly, but she continues to eat calmly.
She does so neatly and generously: she neither skips the meat, nor the vegetables, nor the gravy.
But she slices all her food into tidy bites, cuts off gristle from the steak, leaves behind the pointy edges of bean stalks.
Delicate little princess, I think—but I stare a little too long at the way her fork is spotlessly clean every time it leaves her mouth.
“He’s not her type,” Emerald tells Mira in a dry tone.
That brings my attention back into focus.
“No?” I say, keeping my tone open and curious. “What is her type?”
“She likes them pretty, rich and dumb,” Blaise interjects in a mischievous tone. “Isn’t that right, Julian?”
Desdemona throws him a sharp look. He shrugs. Blaise is the future Lord Blackwood, so he’s someone I could do with having on my side, too, but I keep my eyes on Emerald.
A hunter is more likely to catch rabbits if he hunts them one at a time, rather than all at once—right?
“You think I’m like him?” I ask her, without naming Julian or looking at him.
I don’t need to; we can all feel the red dot of his glare like an angry sniper trying to decide who to shoot first. Me, presumably.
“You’re neither pretty, nor rich, not dumb,” says Emerald.
And from the glance she throws Julian, I immediately realise she doesn’t like him.
An unexpected complication in this little plan of mine. I always assumed Desdemona’s boyfriends rose to popularity because her friends liked them—not despite the fact they didn’t.
“You’re nothing like Julian.”
I look up, surprised. So far, Desdemona’s maintained her stoic silence, letting the conversation happen around her like a queen being carried through a noisy crowd in a gold palanquin. Now, her eyes meet mine, that intriguing brown, warm and glacial all at once.
“No?” I say softly, fingers dipping underneath the hem of her blazer, touching her back through her school shirt. The fabric is hot from her skin, which I suddenly wish I were touching. “Must mean you actually like me, then.”
She holds my gaze for a moment, then huffs out a low breath of annoyed laughter.
It’s reluctant as hell, but for a split second, I feel something between us that’s almost real.
Before I can put my finger on what it is, though—before I can rationalise it—Julian bursts into a theatrically loud laugh.
Everyone’s heads swing to look at him, which I’m sure is exactly what he intended.
“Thought you were smarter than that, Noxie,” he says, his tone artificially friendly, the same way it was the first time I met him—when he tried to get me to buy drugs for him and his rich mates. “Aren’t you too old to believe in fairy tales?”
I glance at him. His eyes are fixed on me, his lips slightly curled like there’s a bad smell but he’s too polite to say anything.
“You see, in fairy tales, princesses marry paupers,” Julian continues smugly. “In real life, though, princesses don’t marry paupers—they experiment with them.”
I’ve kissed enough rich girls to know this is the truth. Maybe if Desdemona and I were actually together, his words would hurt. But to my surprise, it’s Desdemona who stiffens. I press my fingers into her spine, a silent reassurance.
“Wouldn’t mind being your experiment, love,” I say to her, low and intimate enough that Julian can’t hear. His face goes red, and his jaw clenches, and I can practically see him repress the urge to crane closer, to hear what we’re saying.
Desdemona squirms on my lap, her discomfort palpable only in her body. “That’s not what I’m doing,” she says, as though stung.
“But you could,” I murmur. “If you fancied.” I smile warmly up at her. “Why not?”
I let my hand drop to her waist, pressing her slightly closer. And maybe it’s a show, part for her, and part for Julian, but it also feels good, to have her close. Not quite pretend. It feels even better to see the sudden hitching of her breath, sharp rise of her chest, messy flush in her cheeks.
Is she considering it?
Julian’s self-control finally snaps; he plays his trump card.
“Can’t wait to hear all about how you two met, Dessie,” he says, loud and cheerful. “At the Cyprian.”
This time, it’s my turn to stiffen ever so slightly. I hate to let Julian land a blow, but I can’t help the sinking feeling in my chest. Fuck. The Cyprian.
Every thirteenth Friday, the crème de la crème of Spearcrest’s elites sneak off campus and pile into limousines to go to London, where they get up to all sorts of decadence at the exclusive club.
I’m not one for decadence—but if there’s anything I’ve learned in Spearcrest, it’s that real networking doesn’t happen in classrooms and boardrooms. It happens in smoky VIP booths with thousand-pound bottles of champagne sweating in a bucket and a girl sucking CBV lollipops on someone’s lap.
The exact kind of place I couldn’t hope to access in a million years.
At the mere sound of the word, the entire table comes alive.
“That’s tomorrow?” Mira says, startled, sitting upright. “Already?”
“Don’t you dare say you don’t have anything to wear,” Emerald snaps.
“I don’t!”
“Dimitri’s going to get so fucking drunk,” Blaise says, shaking his head. Natalya stiffens at his side, but he doesn’t notice. “Such a waste of good champagne.”
Voices overlap around me. I sit still, silent, shovelling food into my mouth with a completely blank expression on my face, letting the conversation wash over me. This isn’t a reminder of how little I exist to these people, I tell myself. This is just a reminder of how far I’ve got left to climb.
I’m not giving up.
“Elias is coming.” Desdemona’s voice, composed and calm as usual, cuts right through the noise.
There’s a moment of total silence. Even I’m taken aback. I stare up at her, blinking. She’s staring straight at Julian, whose expression is one of mingled shock and derision. In response, Desdemona throws an arm around my shoulder.
“As my date,” she adds pointedly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Julian says with a short, sharp laugh. “Noxie? At the Cyprian? He wouldn’t even have a fucking clue what to wear.”
Laughter ripples across the length of the table. And even though Desdemona doesn’t deign to respond, I can see the delicate flush of pink in her cheeks. She doesn’t have to say anything for me—and everybody else at this table—to know exactly what she’s feeling.