Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
We were sitting in a small room now. The walls were all stone, of course. The decorations were ornate, with beautiful dark red drapes around small windows, pulled back to reveal breathtaking views of the lands and villages below. The chairs we sat on were soft burgundy leather, framed in some expensive-looking dark wood.
The room was dark other than the pure light coming in from the window at our side.
Nobody could have looked as haunting just eating a slice of tangerine as Sebastian did. I had forgotten how much his presence changed a room—back in the day, he seemed to make any place quieter and more peaceful, but today…
Today everything felt charged. Like Sebastian knew how much power he had, and he wasn’t afraid of it like he used to be.
“So is this why you made me get in the car?” I said.
He lifted an eyebrow.
“So I would sit here and watch you eat orange slices?” I continued. “You must be even lonelier than I thought, Sebastian.”
He eyed me, and I swore I saw him trying to hold back a smile. “I knew you’d still be the same, Henry.”
“You don’t know me at all,” I said quickly, my voice rising a little despite my best efforts to seem unperturbed.
I curled in on myself. It was cold in the castle to begin with, but this little room was drafty, and I couldn’t stop feeling like Sebastian himself was radiating ice.
“They’re Temple tangerines,” he said. “Not oranges. There is only one place within hundreds of miles where Temples are available, and they deliver to us every other day.”
“Sorry about the mistake, Prince.”
He puffed out a sharp breath. “I’d rather you excoriate me like you were doing in the car than call me that,” he said.
“Doesn’t everyone call you that now?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Sounds different when it’s you,” he said. “So how was life in the mountainous wilderness, Henry? Did you fulfill your dreams?”
“Life in the mountains was just peachy,” I said. “My favorite part was being shipped to boarding school against my will.”
“You didn’t enjoy boarding school?”
I stared at him. “No, Sebastian, I can’t say I did. And I’m not in the mood to relive the past right now.”
“It was an all-boys school. I’m sure you made some good friends. Maybe even got your first boyfriend?”
My teeth clenched. “So that’s why you brought me up here? To ask me if I dated people in boarding school?”
“I asked you to the castle because I was bored, Henry. Don’t read too much into things,” he said, eyes cast down as he picked up another slice of tangerine.
“Yes, I was the resident gay slut of Yves Boarding School for Boys. There wasn’t any guy I didn’t sleep with in my dorm.”
He glanced up at me. “Really?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I was angry every moment of every day. Not only did I not have a boyfriend, I didn’t have a friend, period.”
His expression softened, just for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. He pulled in a slow breath, letting out in a long sigh of relief. “Well, at least I wasn’t around to screw up your life any longer.”
“At the beginning, I sure wished you had been around,” I muttered.
“Very funny.”
“Not a joke,” I said.
“You hated me,” he said, furrowing his brow.
“Are you nuts, Sebastian?” I said. The leather chair had been comfortable at first but now felt stiff as a board under me. “Just because I hate you now doesn’t mean I hated you then.”
“Not sure if I buy that,” he said, clicking his tongue.
“No, I loved you, and I was ripped away from you forever,” I said, heat rising inside me. “No chance of even talking to you. No chance of trying to sneak my way up to the castle after I was shipped off thousands of miles away to boarding school.”
“You’d always said you wanted to go to boarding school, anyway,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I’d always said I wanted to go to boarding school with you.”
Sebastian’s face was like stone. “I’m sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy it,” he said softly.
“The school was fine,” I muttered, shaking my head. “But I wasn’t. Not for a long time.”
He was quiet for a moment. A lock of his hair had fallen down over his forehead, and he didn’t bother pushing it back up. He picked up a slice of tangerine and then put it back down on the small plate in front of him.
“You don’t have to stay for dinner if you don’t want to,” he said. “It’s going to be filet mignon, truffled scalloped potatoes, asparagus with bearnaise sauce. Oh, and escarole salad before, with a chocoflan dessert after.”
“You can’t win me over with food.”
“Always used to be able to.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I said, relenting even though I didn’t want to.