Page 21 of Reckless
“You did falsely claim me.”
“And hand you the social debris?”
Her nostrils flared.She looked away first this time.“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her head snapped back.“That is a wild amount of confidence.”
“I own a company.Confidence is in the job description.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She laughed once, disbelieving.“You think because you noticed me feeling weird at dinner, you know anything.”
I let that sit there.
I shrugged and said, “You think because Britney doesn’t like me, I’m automatically your worst option.”
Her expression changed before she controlled it.
“Britney doesn’t like a lot of people,” she said too quickly.
“Britney likes most people.”I tilted my head.“Britney distrusts me.”
Kelly folded her arms tighter.“Maybe she has excellent judgment.”
“Maybe.”
“Mostly by you.”
The wind picked up again, cooler now, lifting the hem of her dress against her thighs.My attention went there and came back.
She drew in a breath that changed the line of her chest.
“I am not fake-dating you,” she said.
The words landed cleanly between us.
I didn’t react right away.Mostly because I was busy considering the shape of her logic.My family believed what I’d said and the room had already shifted around it.
Adrien’s graduation was next weekend.The whole family would be here.Her friends too.Kelly would rather die than let herself look rejected in this house now.
I knew it.
She saw the thought move through me and narrowed her eyes.“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Think whatever manipulative thing you are thinking and how you are some chess master and me a pawn.”
“I wasn’t.”Then I shrugged.“Okay, possibly.”
She made a strangled sound.“I swear to God.”
I looked at her.Barefoot on my mother’s terrace.enough to shake.Too proud to retreat.And the most potent woman in my immediate vicinity.
