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“I won’t need to pay models to date me,” he says, “because I’ll have the most perfect wife in the world.”

“You’re going to marry Zachary Blackwood’s girlfriend?”

My joke rings hollow, the guilt clinging to me like mud. I try to push him off but he keeps me firmly pinned, forcing me to look at him. Or rather, tonotlook away.

“I’ll never find anyone I want to marry more than you,” he says, voice low and so earnest it sends a tremor through me.

Does he know I’m leaving tomorrow?

The question flashes up, then fades away as his thumb brushes over my cheekbone. “You know that, don’t you?”

I should tell him, I know I should. Iwantto tell him.

But Evan would fight it. He would fight it, like he’s been fighting all along.

And I barely even have the strength to fightmyself.

I shrug. “I don’t believe in marriage.”

“You’re lying to me,” Evan says in a breath.

The air from his lungs mists against my lips, the tingle of spearmint. I look right up into his eyes, my heart a fist clenched tight, and I say nothing at all.

Until finally, he has no choice but to step away with a sigh and let me go.

I’m a poor conversationalistfor the rest of the day, throughout dinner at a beautiful restaurant on the waterfront, and all the way back to the house.

Evan asks me if I like the food, the evening, the necklace he insisted on buying me in the end. He talks enthusiastically about the fall, how he’ll be working in his father’s office in New York, how it’ll only be a few hours away from Harvard, how often we’ll get to see each other.

“I don’tthink I’ll have much free time,” I interrupt. “The programme’s pretty intense.”

He frowns. “What programme?”

Shit.

“The one I told you about, Direct Admissions for Remarkable Talent.” A lie—I know full well I never told him. I gesture vaguely. “Harvard Law’s accelerated thing for, you know, academic masochists like me.”

Evan looks at me for a long moment, eyes shadowed in the low light of the car. I wait for his reaction, an unpleasant sensation tightening my muscles. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.

And then his whole face transforms, eyes softening, mouth parting in a beaming smile.

“That’s incredible, Sophie. Look at you—Remarkable Talent, huh? You might have hated Spearcrest, but it’s definitely paid off.”

The world lurches around me as if it’s been suddenly ripped off its axis. A wave of nausea curls cold in my stomach.

It’s definitely paid off.

Like Spearcrest didn’t almost destroy me. Like it wasn’t a war I fought tooth and nail, on my own, day after day. Likehewasn’t part of the reason I had to fight at all.

Evan leans over to nudge me playfully, oblivious to the ice crystallising inside me, leaving me utterly cold and unfeeling.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“There’s not much to tell, really.” I turn away, already detached from the moment. “I guess I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to enjoy the summer while it lasted.”

If he’s hurt that I never mentioned the programme before, he doesn’t show it. He rains down an enthusiastic flurry ofquestions—he’s not realised his comment about Spearcrest has pierced me straight through. How could he?

He doesn’t understand.