Majesty (American Royals, #2)(16)
“I’ve always wondered if the stories about you are true.” Marshall caught her eye and grinned. “I’m starting to think they are.”
“No more or less true than the stories about you, I imagine.”
“Touché.” He reached for the bottle and lifted it in a salute.
They passed the wine back and forth for a while. Silence thickened around them, light leaching from the sky as night settled its folds around the capital. Sam felt her thoughts turning brutally, relentlessly, back to Beatrice and Teddy.
She would show them. She didn’t know how she’d show them, but she would do it—would prove just how little either of them mattered to her.
Next to her, Marshall rocked back on his heels. He was always moving, she realized: shifting his weight, leaning against the railing and then away again. Perhaps, like Sam, he felt constantly restless.
“Why are you hiding out here instead of enjoying the party?” she demanded, curious. “Are you avoiding a clingy ex-girlfriend or something?”
“Well, yeah. Kelsey’s in there.” When Sam didn’t react to the name, Marshall let out a breath. “Kelsey Brooke.”
“You’re dating her?”
Sam wrinkled her nose in disgust. Kelsey was one of those starlets who all looked the same, as if they’d been mass-produced by a factory line specializing in doe eyes and big boobs. Her fame had skyrocketed this year when she’d starred in a new show about witches on a college campus who used their powers to save the world—then made it back in time for sorority parties, where they fell into doomed romances with mortals. The whole concept sounded pretty dumb to Sam.
“I was dating her. She broke up with me last month,” Marshall replied, with an indifference that didn’t fool Sam.
He shifted, and the fading light gleamed on a pin affixed to his lapel. It reminded Sam of the American flag pin her dad always used to wear.
Following her gaze, Marshall explained, “It’s the official Orange state logo.” The pin depicted a bear, its teeth pulled back in a menacing growl.
“You have grizzly bears in Orange?”
“Not anymore, but they’re still our mascot.”
An old, familiar instinct stirred within Sam. Knowing that she was being difficult, and deliberately provocative, and a little flirtatious, she reached out to unfasten the pin from his jacket. “I’m borrowing this. It looks better on me anyway.”
Marshall watched as she pinned the bear to the bodice of her dress, perilously close to her cleavage. He seemed torn between indignation and amusement. “You should know, only the Dukes of Orange can wear that pin.”
“And you should know that I’m entitled to wear anything you can wear. I outrank you,” Sam shot back, then blinked at her own words. She’d said nearly the same thing to Teddy last year—I outrank you, and I command that you kiss me. And he had.
“I can’t argue with that logic,” Marshall replied, chuckling.
Sam’s pulse quickened. Her blood seemed to have turned to jet fuel, her entire body buzzing with recklessness. The pain of seeing Teddy with Beatrice felt muffled beneath this new, sharp emotion. “Let’s go back inside.”
Marshall set the bottle down with deliberate slowness; Sam noticed that it was nearly empty. “Right now?” he asked. “Why?”
Because it was fun, because she wanted to stir up trouble, because she needed to do something or she felt like she would implode.
“Think of how furious it’ll make Kelsey, seeing us together,” she offered, but something in her tone must have given her away.
Marshall’s eyes lit on hers in a long, searching look. “Which of your exes are you trying to make jealous?”
“He’s not my ex,” Sam replied, then immediately longed to bite back the words. “I mean, not technically.”
“I see.” Marshall nodded with maddening calm, which somehow made Sam even more defensive.
“Look, it’s none of your business, okay?”
“Of course not.”
Silence fell between them, more charged than before. Sam wondered if she’d revealed too much.
But Marshall just held out an arm. “Well then, Your Royal Highness, allow me the pleasure of being your distraction.”
As they headed back into the party, he let his hand slide with casual possessiveness to the small of her back. Sam tossed her head, her smile blazing, relishing the low hum of gossip that arose when people saw them together. She forced herself to look up at Marshall, to keep herself from searching the crowds for Teddy. She didn’t want him thinking that she’d spared him a moment’s consideration.
If she spent the rest of tonight with another future duke, Teddy would see just how little his rejection had hurt her—that he’d never really mattered to her at all.
Nina shifted on her stomach, turning the page of the book that lay open before her.
She and Rachel were out in the Henry Courtyard, the vast lawn around which most of the freshman dorms were clustered. Everyone seemed determined to take advantage of the sunshine: sprawling on picnic blankets, blasting music from portable speakers. A few yards away, Nina saw a group of students eating brownies straight out of the pan. She had a feeling that they contained a little more than sugar.
“Are you seriously trying to read right now?” Rachel demanded from her neighboring beach towel. “Jane Austen can wait.”