Page 37

EMORY

T he water is warm, and I’m up to my neck before Aiden’s even undressed.

“You looking?” he asks, pulling at his pants.

I’m staring, actually. I love the way he looks, all lean and strong and so much bigger than me in a way that makes my stomach jump.

“Definitely not.” I swim for the dark side of the pool, hyperaware of how the water skims over my nipples and swirls over my stomach.

He snorts, and then there’s a splash as he enters the water.

The voices come closer, and Aiden stalks to the other side, champagne bottle in the air. “My feet are touching the bottom,” he whispers. “Are yours?”

“Checking on me?” I settle onto the bench that runs along the wall of the pool. It keeps the water at a demure neck height.

He grins. “You have to admit, if you drowned, it would be highly inconvenient.” He reaches around me and sets the bottle down. I track the drops of water down his collarbones, over his shoulders. They trickle slowly, like they love touching him, then faster as they get to his stomach and arms.

I can’t blame them. I’d get greedy too if I were allowed to touch him there.

The voices fade, and Aiden hisses a breath.

“Thank god.” He pops the top of the champagne with a soft sound, twisting the cork and muffling it with his hands.

“My lady?” He passes it to me, and I swallow a mouthful.

It’s good. Crisp and cold, with fine bubbles that match the bubbles in my blood when I look at Aiden.

He’s not having social anxiety now.

He’s having fun. I think. It looks good on him.

“Here.” I hold the bottle out but snatch it back. “Right. You don’t drink. Sorry.”

He shakes his head before he settles next to me. The water laps at his chest. He can’t see a damn thing in this light, but I’ve never felt more exposed.

Wind trickles through the rushes on either side of our heads. The chirping of crickets fills the silence. It feels like we’re the only people at this whole party. Maybe even the only people in Hart’s Hill.

“Why don’t you drink?” I ask the question before I can think better of it, then wince. Asking people why they don’t drink is like asking how someone died—as much as you want to know, you still don’t say it out loud. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“It’s okay.” He tips his head back and looks at the sky.

“My dad.” I wait for the story to come, and right when I think two words is all I’ll get, he says, “We made whiskey together. Prince whiskey. We have a head distiller who’s worked with us all his life, but my dad loved making whiskey.

His mom taught him, and her mom taught her, so he taught me.

We always tasted it, right after it came out of the still, but just a drop, and then again each year as it aged.

” His voice is rough and low, his words halting.

“Even when you were a kid?”

“Yeah.” He pauses, as if weighing how much to give me.

“Whiskey is religion for us. Dad always said he rubbed it on our gums to get us to sleep. I was a good sleeper, but not Tristan or the twins. He used to let me have a taste, even at thirteen. Just a drop, at least until I was sixteen. Then I was allowed full sips from his glass, but n-never my own.” He swallows, and I swear even the wind holds its breath as it waits for his next words.

“Even as I got older, we always shared a glass,” he says quietly.

“And now, I’m not sure I can bear to pour my own. ”

“Aiden,” I whisper, my chest twisting.

“I know,” he says. He shuts his eyes briefly before he lets out a long, shuddering exhale.

“It’s why I need the land,” he adds. “Dad always made Old Kingdom. It’s our highest-priced whiskey, but it’s also our legacy.

I want to make it, and I want to make it cheaper.

I want everyone to have a piece of it. Something special to celebrate with like we always did. ”

His voice is quiet in the night, his words almost torn away by the wind. I’m silent, straining to catch his secrets. They feel precious.

“Grandfather doesn’t want me to make it. He dumped all the bottles to some unknown buyer and sold the stillhouse. And the land with the aquifer. I need that water to make Old Kingdom.” He sighs.

“Anyway,” he says. “That’s why I don’t drink.”

He sounds embarrassed, and I want to help him. I can practically hear Leo in my head, warning me to stop trying to fix people, to give them space to heal their own wounds instead of taking it on myself.

“Well, golden boy,” I drawl. “I’ve got some champagne right here. And I’m not using a glass, so no one’s pouring anything.”

He lets out a surprised sound, then a rough laugh. “Of course you’re drinking out of the bottle. I stole you a glass and everything.”

“Evil queens don’t use cups,” I tell him. “We also don’t get hangovers.”

“Yeah?” He sounds wistful.

I tip my head back against the ledge so I can see what he’s seeing. The stars are brighter than usual, winking down at us.

“Nope. No speeding tickets, either, no matter how fast we go. Our feet never hurt in high heels.”

He snorts. “Yeah, you were born with those on.”

“Been thinking about my feet, golden boy?”

“Day and night,” he responds. His voice has a husky texture that scrapes over my skin. I see his throat work in the dark, like he’s thinking about me right now.

“If I’d known you had a foot fetish, I probably wouldn’t have married you.” I take another long sip of champagne to cool my insides.

“I try to keep it hidden until the third date,” he says. I can hear the smile in his voice.

“Shoe stores hate to see him coming.”

“Actually, they love to see me… coming .”

It’s my turn to snort a laugh. “Oh god. That was bad.”

“I know.” His lips turn up in a bemused smile. “I think I might like to be an evil queen too,” he says.

I turn, pillowing my cheek on my arms and kicking my feet behind me. “You think you can just…sign up? We’re not recruiting.”

He grins at me, eyes glinting in the pool lights. “I’m a fast learner, I promise. Especially when I’m motivated.”

My stomach clenches at the look on his face. Cocky. Arrogant. I hate the little part of me that whispers that he has every right to be. That he deserves this.

“You’d make a terrible evil queen.” I kick my feet, and his gaze skates over my body, like he can see every curve under the water.

“Why do you think that?” His voice is low and soft, meant only for me.

“Because you’re so good .”

His lips quirk. “You think I’m good?”

“Annoyingly upstanding.”

There’s a flash of white teeth in the darkness. Amusement looks good on him. He deserves to feel this way tonight, and I want to keep playing with him. “Almost sounds like you like me.”

“Definitely not. We’re way too different.”

“Are we?” He cocks his head. “I seem to remember us being good at the same things.”

My stomach dips. That’s way too close to a truth I don’t want to think about. I wanted Aiden once because I thought he was my perfect match. “I was slightly better.”

“Sure,” he says easily, his eyes glinting. “Even so, we have lots in common. You liked school. I did too. You like reading, as I recall. I saw those books in your bedroom.” I wait for a disparaging comment, but instead, he looks thoughtful. “They look more interesting than what I read.”

I snort. “I remember what you liked to read. Books as big as a dictionary.”

“You remember?” There’s pleased surprise written on his face, like he thought about me but he can’t believe I thought about him.

I thought about him way too much. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that when there’s a peal of laughter, and the word pool in a woman’s excited voice.

Aiden’s gaze goes to the garden. “Looks like we have company.”

I sink farther into the water. I don’t particularly want to be exposed in front of these people. I need armor when I walk into a room with them. It makes me shallow as hell, but I spent hours getting ready for the party tonight, determined not to stick out.

“He already disappeared,” a man says.

“He hates parties,” a woman says flippantly.

“I still can’t believe he married her,” another woman says. “Come on, pool is back here.”

My face heats. Aiden scowls, looking like he’s about to say something.

I shake my head. It’s fine, I mouth.

It’s not fine. It’s so far from fine that fine isn’t even a possibility, but I’m not a permanent fixture in this world. I don’t need them to like me. I just need them to think we’re in love. They’ll respect me once they see what I’ve built.

There’s a squeal from one woman, then more laughter, then a thump and some cursing. “That marriage won’t last,” the man adds. “She’s a gold digger.”

Aiden tenses next to me. I sink further down into the water, hot shame roiling my stomach. I’ve heard this all before. It should roll off me like water on skin, but instead the words sink claws into me.

“And they have no chemistry,” a third woman says in a low voice. I recognize that voice. That’s Harrison’s sister, Julia. She hates me after everything that happened with Harrison. “He’s rich as hell, and he looks like a model. What a waste.” She sounds hammered.

Another woman giggles. I can see the tension in Aiden’s shoulders. His jaw muscles flex with every sentence.

“Can’t believe he didn’t marry you, Jules,” one of the guys says.

I roll my eyes.

“He’ll come around. My dad is talking to his grandfather about it. They think he’ll divorce her. Our families have been friends forever. It’s basically pre-destined. Come on, over here.”

Aiden’s face is a mask of anger, staring over my shoulder before he looks back at me with blazing eyes. I feel that same anger like a hot stone in my stomach. They’re still underestimating me a decade later.

“Fuck them,” I whisper.

“Fuck them,” he agrees. His fist unclenches and clenches on the edge of the pool. I flick a glance at the group on the edge, who are clearly watching us now. Reacting gives them power. Reactions are what they want.

“Want to show them chemistry?” Aiden’s eyes are flickering with rage when I look back at him.

I still in the water, pulse hammering. “We promised not to touch each other.”

“I’ll break the rules if you will.” His gaze is heated, and those moments outside the garden come rushing back—Aiden’s mouth on my pulse, his groans of approval, the way he worshipped me with quick flicks of his tongue.

“Suddenly, you’re a rule-breaker,” I say lightly. I flick another glance at the group. “But I guess we need it to look real.”

He spreads his arms wide on the ledge of the pool, like an offering. His chest muscles flex under glistening skin.

“Come break the rules with me, evil queen.” His voice is soft and coaxing.

There’s a shout and a splash as the group gets into the pool, and it jolts me into action.

I straddle Aiden, my knees on the stone, my stomach brushing his.

His chest rises and falls under my palms and his eyes glint in the dark.

I have to wonder if he’s hard underneath me, or if he’s totally unaffected.

His hand wraps around my braid. That little bite of pain sends sparks shooting through me. I dig my nails into his chest. He tugs my head back and grazes his teeth over my neck. “You want to show them, right?”

“Yes,” I hiss, letting him bare my neck.

There’s a flicker of animal pride inside of me. Sick pleasure at being the one he chose, even if it is fake. Emory of age eighteen would have given a year of her allowance to be picked by Prince Charming, to have him publicly claim her the way he is now.

“This isn’t real.” The words spill out of me, a boundary I desperately need to draw before I let teenage fantasies and hard reality blur.

“Of course not,” he murmurs. He sucks on the skin of my throat, making me whimper and swallow the sound. I refuse to give him that much power.

I’ve wanted him for so long. I never, ever want him to know how much.

His tongue dances over my collarbone, drawing my nipples to points, making me shift restlessly on his lap.

“Are they watching?” My words are gasped.

“Hmm?” Another soft bite at my throat, then his thumb on my stomach, winding its way up my body.

“Aiden,” I whisper. “Focus.”

“I’m very focused,” he murmurs, the words spoken into my other ear.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I pull back to glance down at him. His eyes are heavy lidded and his mouth parted. His shallow breaths make his chest rise and fall in rapid time with my heart.

“Are they watching us?”

His gaze goes over my shoulder. “They are.” He sounds like he hates it.

“That’s the point,” I say dryly.

His mouth is at my ear again, his teeth tugging on the lobe, his thumb teasing the edge of my breast. “If we were together for real, I’d never let them watch,” he says.

His rough voice rubs over my skin.

“We will never be together for real,” I whisper back.

“Sounds like a challenge, evil queen.”

There’s a smile pulling at his mouth when I look down at him.

I knew the words would fire him up and I said them anyway.

I like playing with him. With his eyes hot on mine and his hands on my skin, it feels like the whole word arrows down to this point.

All of my critics are gone, even the one inside my head.

All that exists is Aiden.

“If we were together for real, you couldn’t even make me finish,” I say softly. A smile plays on my lips.

His eyes gleam, his hand squeezes my hip. “There’s your first mistake.”

“What?” My pulse is trembling in my chest.

He grips my braid again, his teeth on my throat. “You should know better than to try and compete with me. It only turns me on.”

The group in the water moves away, and I clamber off of Aiden’s lap, feeling shaky and turned on and uncertain. I think I opened a can of worms tonight.

And worse, I think I like it.