by Becker Gray
“And if I don’t want to?”
Mom didn’t say anything for a second. “Keaton, don’t make me compel you.”
“With money?” That was, after all, my parents’ go-to move.
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. I had a trust fund and a monthly allowance that would balance the budgets of most Midwestern states—but both of those could be fucked with. By her. The first wave of trust fund money would be released once I graduated—and it would be enough to see me through college until I could get my own job . . . if I didn’t choose a career in rugby, that was. If I chose rugby, I’d need fuck-all from the family.
But again, I couldn’t start playing pro until after graduation at the soonest.
“You’re telling me that if I don’t keep dating Clara, you’re going to starve me out financially?”
“Don’t be gauche,” she said. She disliked overt money talk. “I’m just reminding you that the benefits of this family are tied to service to this family.”
“Does it matter to you that Clara doesn’t love me? Never mind how I feel?”
“This isn’t about love, sweetheart, this is about a merger of the families. Something better and stronger. You’ll see.”
I ground my teeth together. My gaze went outside my window again.
To Iris.
My skin was too hot and too prickly as I remembered the slide of her tongue over mine, that sound she made at the back of her throat, the way her ass fit my hands when I lifted her against me.
And fantastic. I had to stop. Fuck. Why that girl? I didn’t have time for that shit.
“Keaton? Are you listening to me?”
I dragged my attention back to my conversation. “Sorry, I was paying attention to a project I need to focus on. What did you say?”
“I told you, nurture that relationship. Please don’t disappoint me. The Blairs are some of my closest friends and could be our strongest allies.”
“Whatever you say. Are we done here? Can I go?”
“Keaton,” Mom said, and then paused. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler. “I’m trying to raise you as your father would have wanted. I’m trying to steer this family the way your father would have wanted. That’s all.”
My heart stuttered at the mention of Dad, at the giant Lane-Constantine-shaped hole in all of our lives.
“Okay,” I said finally.
“Okay. I love you, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, love you too,” I choked out and hung up the phone. I swallowed the pain as my eyes stayed fixed on Little Miss Perfect’s ass.
I hadn’t focused on my anger. It was her. She was near. Why would I even be thinking about breaking up with Clara? That kiss wouldn’t have happened. I could have just skated through senior year with no waves made, my mom none the wiser about me and Clara. Then I’d be the hell out of here and could do what I wanted.
But Iris was the reason for this. She was the reason I was thinking about what life would be like if we were different, and it had to stop. Which meant, I wasn’t going near her again. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Okay, if that’s what you want to tell yourself.
5
Iris
“You,” a low voice said near my ear, “have been avoiding me.”
Chills rushed down my spine as I turned my head to see Keaton standing behind me. The library was quiet and tomblike at this time of day, but I still hadn’t heard him approach my table. To be fair, I hadn’t really been listening—I’d thought I was safe in the very back, surrounded by the high wood shelves and out of sight from the entrance.
I’d thought wrong.
Keaton threw his big body into the chair next to me, and I was about to tell him to go away when he grabbed my chair and effortlessly dragged it around so that we were face to face. He planted his dress shoes on the outsides of my Mary Janes and his muscular thighs splayed on either side of my legs. I was trapped by his big, dumb body.
I ignored the traitorous shiver that induced in me.
“Keaton, what—”
“Listen here, Big Red,” he said, leaning in and bracing his hands on the sides of my seat. I could feel the heat of his hands on my thighs through my uniform skirt. “I need this project to go well, and I can’t afford to have it messed up, all right? So if you don’t want to see me, that’s perfectly fine. You just leave the project to me—”
“No. Way.” Anger simmered in my veins as I leaned right into him. Right until I could feel his breath on my lips. “Photography is what I live for. And I am not having some rugby jock screw over the one thing I love in order to screw me over.”
His eyebrows lifted. That one stray lock of hair he could never seem to tame brushed over his forehead as he did. “Oh, so it’s all about you now? Screwing you over is all I could possibly care about?”
“What other reason could you have for caring about art?” I scoffed. “And design? Give me a break.”
An expression I couldn’t decipher chased itself across his face, and he broke our stare, leaning back and looking at a bookshelf while a muscle in his jaw jumped. When he met my eyes again, his gaze was cold. So very cold.
“If you care so much, then we can do this together,” he said icily. “But I’m calling the shots.”
“No fucking way.”
“Starting now,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “No more avoiding me. We meet every Friday night to work on this, and we meet on Saturdays too if we have to. You might be Daddy’s golden girl, but the rest of us have to worry about our grades.”
My jaw dropped open. The nerve of him—and the completely incorrect nerve! First, Isabelle was Daddy’s golden girl, and that was a fact I could never escape, because he’d never stop reminding me of it.
Secondly, my father would never punch up my grades. Not because he cared about the ethics of it all—oh no. But because he knew how political private schools could get, and if the wrong teacher talked, his reputation would be trashed.
And thirdly: “Like you have to worry about GPA, Keaton Constantine, rugby captain? With your family business? With the team? Please. Your entire life is cushioned by your last name and your genetic predisposition for leg muscles. You are a walking, talking rich jock stereotype.”
“And you,” he seethed, “my uptight good-girl, are a pain in my ass. But here we are.”
For a long moment, we just glared at each other, neither of us willing to surrender.
But then Keaton’s eyes drifted down to my braid, which had slid over my shoulder to hang down over my chest.
His pupils dilated the tiniest amount, and then his eyes narrowed. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, genuinely confused by his change of mood.
“Hide your hair in that braid.”
I was even more confused now. “I’m hardly hiding it. I just like it out of my face while I’m working.”
“It makes it feel like a secret. Like I’m the only one who—”
With an abrupt jerk, he was off his chair and grabbing his leather satchel.
I was totally lost. “Keaton?”
He didn’t look at me as he shouldered his bag. “Friday. Four o’clock in the photography lab. Be there, Iris.”
And then he stalked away as fast as he had after our kiss.
We were a few weeks into the semester now, and Pembroke seemed determined to punish all its students simply for existing. I had three papers to write, half a Molière play to translate, more calc problems than I could possibly ever do, and at least three AP physics problems to do a night.
Which didn’t sound like a lot, admittedly, until I started doing the physics problems and realized that each problem took an hour.
Not to mention that I was still trying to build a photography portfolio for myself, and so I was spending every spare moment outside snapping pictures and then inside the darkroom developing them. I preferred the freedom of digital, but I’d need to show in my portfolio that I could do film too, so I neede
d plenty of analog samples to show off.
Not for the first time, I wished I lived in a dorm, where I could study and complain and gossip with friends while I worked. Sometimes I hung out in Serafina and Sloane’s room, and sometimes in Aurora’s, but Sloane refused to talk when she was studying, Serafina always had random visitors dropping by, and Aurora’s security person had to sit in the room while I was there since I hadn’t been properly vetted by the Liechtensteiner government yet.
So home it was.
Home where my father could remind me how hard Isabelle had studied, and how easily homework came to her. Home where my mother could hide from all our family conflict like it was a spider on the wall that would eventually crawl away. Home where I could sit in my bedroom and stare out the window at the boys’ dormitory across the lush, green grounds.
Where I could stare at that century-old brick building and wonder what Keaton was doing inside it.
Was he with his girlfriend? With the Hellfire Club?
Was he alone?
Was he thinking of me?
Don’t be stupid, Iris.
I kept hoping Friday would never come. I hoped there would be a fire or a storm or a flood. Because I didn’t know if I could face him again. I didn’t know if I could survive that feeling like I wanted to scratch him and kiss him and growl insults at him while he pinned me against another bookshelf.
I’d never had a crush like this, never liked a boy like this, never felt about anybody the way I felt about Keaton. Like he had crawled under my skin. I hated him.
And . . .
I thought of him constantly.
And when the books were closed and the lights were off, I thought of our kiss. Of how good it felt to have him wedged up against me, his hands in my hair and his mouth consuming mine. Of how tight my belly had been, how I’d ached and ached between my legs as he ground himself against me.
I wanted it again, and I despised myself for my weakness. What girl was stupid enough to want a boy like him? A boy with a girlfriend? A boy who detested her?
Not me.
Friday started out with a bang—almost literally. I was sitting in my English classroom alone, about ten minutes before the bell, when a trio of beautiful girls crashed through the classroom door and strode in like leggy soldiers. They were sleek and slim, makeup perfect, their eyes full of murder.
“Are you Iris Briggs?” the one in front asked. She had dark brown hair and pale skin, muted pink lipstick and a diamond tennis bracelet. Her features were the sort of bland but forgettably pretty that came from generations of New England money.
“Um,” I said. “Yes?”
The girl leaned down, bracing her hands on my desk. “Stay the fuck away from my boyfriend.”
“Um—”
A blonde girl stepped forward too, her lips painted scarlet and a fresh hickey visible just above her shirt collar. “Don’t play dumb, Briggs. McKenna told Bella who told Carlee who finally told me that she saw you kissing Keaton in the library during the first week.”
Heat rushed through me—a mix of defensiveness and unease. You didn’t do anything wrong, I reminded myself. If they were going to be angry with anyone, they should be angry with Keaton! He was the one with the girlfriend!
“You must be Clara,” I said, looking back to the brunette. “Look. If you’ve got a problem with Keaton kissing someone else, I suggest you take it up with Keaton. He’s the one who kissed me. It’s not very feminist of you to scold me instead of the boy who’s actually made promises to you.”
Clara scowled. “I don’t care about feminism right now, Briggs. I can’t afford for Keaton to be seen chasing someone else. Got it?”
“It wasn’t like that—”
“I don’t care what it was like,” Clara hissed. “Don’t let it happen again. Or I will hurt you. Understood?”
“She means we’ll kick your ass,” the blonde supplied. I managed to dredge up her name from Serafina’s lunchtime commentary a few days ago. Samantha Morgan: notorious party girl and wild child. I was very certain she was the kind of girl who would kick the shit out of me if given the chance and enough tequila.
“If you’re scared or angry or whatever this is, you need to bring it to Keaton,” I said as coldly as I could manage, glaring at all of them. Students began to file in for class, in pairs and trios, and I saw the moment Clara realized this was over. For now, at least.
“Keaton is mine,” Clara said in a low, but clear voice as she straightened up. “And I plan to keep him at any cost—I can’t afford not to, which makes me very, very dangerous to you. And I hope you remember that next time you’re with him.”
6
Iris
The rest of the day was an anxious blur. I’d already been feeling weird and twisty about working with Keaton today, and now this Clara thing . . .
What if she found out about the project? Misunderstood the time we’d be spending together? I didn’t think she and Samantha would physically hurt me—surely they had more sense than to go after the headmaster’s daughter—but I also wasn’t certain they wouldn’t hurt me either. I knew Serafina would say not to worry, that she and Sloane and Aurora had my back, but still.
I didn’t like it.
Photography seminar was in the lab rather than the classroom today, as we practiced with the illustration and design tools in Photoshop, which meant I didn’t have to talk to Keaton or listen to him or even look at him. I kept my eyes firmly on my screen, even when I felt his gaze hot on my neck, and pretended he didn’t exist.
But eventually four o’clock came, and with it, time to meet him. I strode from Aurora’s room where she’d been bitching about Phineas Yates—a Hellfire boy and total manwhore—and steeled myself as I walked into the lab.
Okay. Game plan.
Lady bits, listen up.
I wasn’t going to let Clara’s words scare me, but I also wasn’t going to kiss him or even think about kissing him. I was going to hold my ground, and I wasn’t going to let him railroad me into something stupid for this project, because I wouldn’t hear back from my safety schools until December at the earliest, and I needed my high school CV to be immaculate until then, just in case the Sorbonne fell through.
Which meant this project needed to be stunning and original enough to impress an admissions team. And that was not going to happen with a ball-playing bully like Keaton mucking it up.
You can do this.
Don’t piss off Clara.
Don’t take his shit.
Don’t get distracted by his eyes.
Pembroke’s photo lab was made of two parts: the digital lab where we worked on Photoshop today and the wet lab, or darkroom. I walked into the digital lab with its long rows of tables studded with giant, gleaming Macs and found Keaton sprawled in a chair, lazily clicking through something on one of the computers.
With some horror, I realized it was my computer. And he was clicking through my images, my photographs. The ones I’d scanned in earlier today to play with in Photoshop.
“You really should remember to log out of a school computer when you’re done,” Keaton said in a bored voice. Click click went his finger on the mouse. Each click felt like a gunshot in the air—echoing and final.
I’d known he would have to see my work eventually, but—but not like this. Not without my permission. Not without my preparation.
As I came closer, I could make out the individual images he was scrolling through. A picture of a leaf fading from green to gold. A shot of Isabelle in the middle of Hyde Park, looking down at her phone with a frown while the wind whipped her copper-colored hair around her face. Another one of Isabelle standing by the window in her empty London flat, her hand clenched tight around her new house key.
“Who is she?” Keaton asked.
God, of course he wanted to know about her. Everyone did. She was brilliant and beautiful and always did everything right—except picking the right boys to date. She’d always been very bad at that, for how smart and p
retty she was.
I wouldn’t answer. I shouldn’t answer.
“My sister, Isabelle,” I answered, dropping my bag on the table. Some bitterness crept into my voice. “She’s single if you’re interested, but she is older than us. And she’s in London right now for school, so you’ll have to borrow your mommy’s jet to go see her.”
Keaton looked at me appraisingly. “You’re jealous of her.”
“I’m not,” I said huffily, crossing my arms.
“You are,” he said. “Trust me, I know when someone is jealous of a sibling they feel like they can never live up to.”
“Oh, really.”
He shrugged, not bothered by my sarcasm and also not elaborating either. “And I wasn’t asking because I thought she was hot. I was asking because she clearly means something to you. You show how lonely she is, how tense she is, and you make sure the viewer feels her loneliness too. The framing of both, the empty space around her . . . it’s really well done.”
My lips parted as shock poured through me. The fact that he could perceive that—perceive that I did really love Isabelle despite our differences—and he actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about left me stunned. Never in a hundred years would I have thought that Keaton Constantine could assess emotion in art.
And also . . .
“Are you complimenting me, Keaton?”
“I give compliments when they’re warranted, Big Red. And these images warrant them.”
It was almost patronizing. Almost. And I wanted to be mad about it. But when our eyes met, there was nothing but honesty and reluctant admiration in his face.
He’d meant what he said.
“Here, I want to show you something,” he said, getting to his feet. He’d left his bag up by the teacher’s table at the front, and he paced over to it, pulling off his blazer when he did. Which was unfortunate for me, because it meant there was now nothing disguising the firm swells of muscle under his white button-down. There was nothing hiding how his broad, hewn chest led into a flat stomach or how his waist tapered into lean and narrow hips.