Page 6

I shake my head, a lump in my throat preventing me from answering again.
“So what’s the problem?”
There shouldn’t be one. It’s just unfair that my entire life has been planned for me already.
Being promised to Mason is like having a chain attached to my leg. I can’t think of my future without considering him. I can’t have a career. I can’t care about college or a degree, knowing I’ll never use it. I can’t fall in love without knowing it will never lead to anything.
My destiny has already been written as the wife of a man propped up by a trust fund.
I’ll be a jewel.
An ornament.
A pet to be pampered and nothing else.
That’s who I am.
I can’t have secret trysts with dangerous men. Can’t fantasize about darker desires that are too scandalous to discuss in polite society.
And Ezra is everything the good little girls are warned about.
“We’re just having fun,” he reminds me, his finger twisting a loose strand of my hair that hangs down by my face. “I already told you that.”
Just fun.
Nothing serious.
The bell rings, and I shove away from him to grab my bag.
“I have to go.”
Ezra threads his fingers with mine when I try to step away, his eyes shimmering with humor.
“You can’t run far. I know you want this.”
Yanking my hand from his, I duck my head and leave the bathroom without answering.
Because how can I answer?
Especially when he’s not wrong.
Emily
A knock at my door barely grabs my attention. It’s a gentle rap of knuckles that does little to breach the ground-shaking thump of bass in my room, a quick tap that I wouldn’t have heard if I wasn’t standing next to the door when it happens.
Blowing out a heavy breath because I can’t find the shoes I want in the pile haphazardly tossed on one side of my closet, I slam my hand on the knob of the door, twist and yank it open.
My mother’s blue-green eyes stare back at me, her face so pale I swear I can trace the line of small veins beneath her skin. I get my coloring from her. My red hair, alabaster complexion and turquoise gaze, but beyond that, we’re nothing alike.
She’s meek and mild, never stepping out of line, while I have a fiery temper that nobody guesses about until I’m angry enough for it to explode.
Like now.
I have places to be, and I’m already late. Plus, my mother never comes into the children’s wing except to check on my eight-year-old brother, and even then, it’s only for a few minutes until she leaves him with the nannies again to go wait hand and foot on my father.
“What?”
She winces at the snap in my voice, but regains her composure, her hands fluttering like butterflies, her lips stretching into a thin line.