Brutal Blueblood

in from outside, and his face had been set in its familiar expression of icy boredom. Next to him was his brother and his brother’s friend Chad—both handsome in that lacrosse-y sort of way. Felix already had his tie loosened and an easy grin on his face—the complete opposite of Owen who was colder than the frigid December night outside.
Oh, but his lips hadn’t been cold. Not at all.
I could still feel his kiss and the sure, demanding stroke of his tongue. I could still viscerally recall the firm heat of his mouth over mine, still smell his citrus and spice cologne mingling with the scent of the city in winter—concrete and metal and the sugary scents coming from the hot chocolate stand.
I hated myself for it—for loving his kiss, for wanting more. I knew how heartless he was, I knew precisely how few fucks he gave. I knew his total knowledge of me was that I couldn’t afford hot chocolate on my own and that I melted for his kisses.
And that you beat him to the fellowship.
That was interesting. As was the flare of respect in his voice when he mentioned reading my work.
But no. No.
I was a smart girl, and I didn’t get my better-than-perfect GPA because I ignored the obvious. I’d been beneath Owen’s notice for years, and I’d only caught his attention at all because he was horny and bored on a boat once. That was definitely not the foundation to anything worth building, and definitely not the way for me to drill into an early and glittering career in the world of magazines and media.
But the taste of his mouth . . .
No. I couldn’t let his kisses taste better than my own goddamned pride.
So I’d fled upstairs before Owen could see me, before he could hurt me again with his superiority and his pity. Now I was standing in a room full of inebriated strangers talking about so-and-so’s scandalous nanny or what’s her name’s coked-up son instead of with my friends, but it was a price worth paying.
Anyway, I was used to it. Even when Sera and Aurora and Sloane were with me, I preferred the outskirts of Pembroke’s social scene. Everything was all so fake and pointless—who cared about a bonfire party when there was a whole city that never slept? Who cared about rugby games when we were months away from a world where ideas, thoughts, essays, and art were discovered and passed around faster than a leather ball?
I drained the rest of my champagne and decided to go up to my room. There would be no chance of seeing Owen in there at all, which made it the safest course of action, the smartest path. Just like the path I took this semester by accepting the fellowship that night on Sera’s yacht.
Because fuck Owen Montgomery.
Fuck Owen Montgomery was my new vision statement.
Buoyed by my newfound determination, I turned and stepped into the hallway, only to run smack into Sera and Aurora who crossed their arms and arched their eyebrows at me like the party police.
“Why aren’t you downstairs with us?” Aurora asked. She was wearing her jet-black hair in an updo that set off the ivory of her skin and made her look like she was on the prowl to sexily exsanguinate someone . . . probably Phin. Though none of us actually knew what had happened between the two of them last summer, whatever had happened had been bad enough that the two were irrevocably combustible.
“Is this about Owen?” Sera asked. “Because that’s deeply stupid if so. I hope you know how stupid that is. Do you know how stupid that is?”
“Owen Montgomery is like if the Night King in Game of Thrones were hot and wore designer suits,” Aurora said. “He would kill you without thinking twice. With, like, an ice-knife or something.”
“Metaphorically kill,” Sera cut in. “Let’s not get carried away; he’s not Rhys.”
“But his mother, on the other hand . . .” Both Aurora and Sera shuddered in unison.
“What about his mother?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low so no one else would hear, but it hardly mattered. The guests were too busy boozing, flirting, and networking to notice a clump of whispering teenage girls.
“She’s a shark, Tanith,” Sera said, giving me a duh look, like I should already know this. “Like a five-rows-of-teeth, no bones, wants-to-eat-surfers shark.”
“I heard that she once made an intern cry after only twenty seconds in an elevator together,” Aurora said.
“I heard she fired a personal assistant for bringing her the wrong kind of sandwich.”
“She once declined an award because she found their award logo tacky.”
“And the award committee apologized to her about it!”
“Wow,” I murmured, but I wasn’t thinking about personal assistants or award logos. I was thinking about that night months ago on the yacht. About Owen’s quiet words in the dark.
I don’t get much special treatment either.
“Anyway, Owen comes by it naturally,” Aurora said.
“Very naturally,” Sera said. “It’s a shame, though, because Felix seems so normal, if a little fuckboy-ish.”
“And fun! Chad is fun too.”
“Hard disagree,” Sera said. “Nothing good comes from a name like Chad.”
“I think he’s nice,” Aurora protested. “Nicer than Owen, anyway.”
“Rory, everyone’s nicer than Owen.”
Somehow, Aurora and Sera had successfully shepherded me from the sitting room while I was under the spell of their gossip, and now I was at the top of the stairs, totally against my will.
I balked, planting my feet.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “I’m not going back down there.”
“Why?” Aurora demanded. “Granted, you’ll have to see my brother and Sloane practically having sex by the fireplace, but that’s nothing new.” She paused. “I mean, it’s disgusting. But nothing new.”
“Don’t forget about Iris and Keaton,” Sera added with a grin.
Aurora shook her head. “They’ve already left. Your grandmother walked in on them in the guest bathroom. In flagrante delicto, if you must know. She told them to get a room, and I guess they took her suggestion literally.”
“Grandmamma is nothing if not sensible when it comes to public boinking. And look,”