He didn’t care who he had to throw me to.
Earldom 101: selling out your children for arranged marriages like whores.
“Just a piece of advice,” Knox says.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fall in love with her.”
I laugh, tossing him the apple. “That will never happen.”
He catches the fruit above his head. “Good, because it’ll never be reciprocated. T doesn’t know how to feel.”
He says it with an edge of sadness, like it’s bothered him for a long time and he doesn’t want others to be caught in the same position.
Just then, she descends the stairs. This time, she’s accompanied by Agnus, Ethan’s partner or adviser or what-the-fuck-ever. She’s asking him about some of her stuff and he replies with curt, detailed descriptions of everything.
Then something happens, something that makes me grip the table so tightly I’m surprised my tendons don’t snap.
When they’re at the base of the stairs, she stares up at him, and her lips curve into a sensual smile — soft, warm, fucking angelic.
I know it’s honest because she can’t fake a smile to save her life. I know she means it because her entire body is angled in Agnus’ direction.
My type is at least fifteen years older, experienced, and doesn’t smile the entire time like a gigolo on crack. In short, not you.
Her words play at the back of my head in a loop.
My gaze snaps to the man she’s spent the last ten years with, the man she’s smiling up at.
Her fucking type.
It takes everything in me to plaster a smile on my face. I push off the table and stride towards them. Her smile falls and she shoots me a ‘stay away’ look.
Stay away? Stay fucking away?
I place a hand on the small of her back, and a slight shiver goes through her body as she remains completely still.
There. Much better.
“Agnus, right?” I grin at him, showing my teeth.
He gives me a curt nod, pretending, like I am, that it’s the first time we’ve met.
“If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to drive my fiancée to school now.”
“Agnus can do it.” She tries to wriggle away, but I dig my fingers into the tender skin of her waist, making her wince under her breath.
“I’m sure he’s a busy man.” I smile. “Right?”
“Yes, indeed.” He ruffles her hair, and she blushes so furiously her pale skin turns rosy. “Call me if you need a ride home.”
I grind my molars, but I speak through my usual smile. “No need. I’ll do it.”
And with that, I drag her with me outside. In just a few seconds, my mood has gone from grey to black. No, not black — red, and fucking murderous.
“I told you not to pick me up,” she protests.
“And I told you that’s not how it works.”
“Let me go, Ronan. I can’t keep up.”
I stare back at her as we reach the entrance. I’m clutching her by the wrist, and she stumbles on her own feet in her attempt to catch up to me.
Instead of letting her go, I slam her against the wall. She gasps as her back is flattened against the blunt surface. “You don’t need me to pick you up because you have Agnus?”
“Well, yes.” She stares up at me despite the tremor in her voice.
“Well, yes?” I laugh, but there’s no humour behind it. I know she sees it too, because she swallows, her black eyes filling with what resembles fear.
Fear is good. Fear means she knows her fucking place.
“So does that mean I’m ruining your daddy kink, Teal?”
“Screw you, okay? I won’t allow you to talk about Agnus that way.”
“And in what way should I talk about him? Is he the reason behind your fantasies, ma belle? Is that it?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
I grip her by the chin and force her neck into a bent angle so I’m glaring down at her. “Forget about him, starting right fucking now.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll make you regret it.”
Something sparks in her features, a challenge, a ‘game on’ of sorts before she puffs out her chest. “No.”
“Oh, Teal.” I caress her skin, my voice calm and touch gentle though my insides are on fire. “You’re fucked.”
16
Teal
In the past, when I used to walk through RES’s halls and see couples whispering to each other or kissing in corners, I’d breeze straight past them.
I made a decision to be around Elsa as little as possible when she’s with Aiden. He cares about no one when he starts tonguing her as if they’re in private. I even avoided Kim when she started going out with Xander because they gave off this soulmates vibe that I’ve read about in books and makes me roll my eyes so hard.
There’s no such thing as soulmates. It’s all a chemical reaction, a rush of dopamine, a high, and like any high, it’ll eventually wither away.
When I told Elsa and Kim those exact words, they laughed at me. They thought I didn’t understand. Well, they’re the ones who don’t understand, and with time, I’ll be able to say ‘I told you so.’
The downfall of that plan, and of my thoughts in general, is a moment like this one.
Ronan has his arm around my waist as we walk down the hall, and no matter how much I elbow him, he won’t budge.
If anything, he glues himself more tightly to my side, as if we were born attached at the hip. Even Knox and I weren’t.
His closeness is a dent in my plan. The way I keep inhaling his spicy scent and basking in his warmth is dangerously close to that addiction state. You know, the one that comes after the high I already established is beneath me.
Not only that, but since he cornered me at my house, he’s been acting as if nothing happened.
He’s still smiling at girls — and boys — and everyone who crosses our path, teachers and school staff included.
Despite his Death nickname, he’s loved here. Scratch that — he’s not only loved, he’s also worshipped, and like any god, he has a religion and an altar for sacrifices. He has followers — other than the ones on Instagram and Snapchat — and fanatics.
Said fanatics, mainly the female population, keep shooting me glares the more Ronan pulls me to his side, parading me around for the world, or rather the school, to see.
I don’t like attention, and it’s not because I prefer staying under the radar like Elsa, but because attention is kind of stupid. What do you do with attention? You can’t even eat it.
Also, people who thrive on attention like the arsehole who’s digging his fingers into the flesh of my hipbone are shady as fuck. You never know what they’re actually hiding.
I thought he was a gigolo, fake, shallow, but I learnt the hard way that Ronan Astor is more than what meets the eye. He’s the disaster you never see coming. He’s a monster hidden under the popularity and the picturesque smile and family.
His damn family.
The fact that he’s unpredictable has put me on edge since that encounter in his room with his mum on the other side of the door.