AGE SEVENTEEN
Tension ripples through my veins and my heart thumps so loudly, I’m surprised no one hears the drums of dread besieging me.
I slip through the invitees, wearing my standard smile and acting on my best behavior. A hello here, a how are you? there.
Unfortunately, I register nothing of what they say. Not the chatter, the exchange of empty words, or the fake polite birthday congratulations.
I shuffle my huge tulle skirt that stops above my knees and check my sparkling glitter top to make sure every tiny crystal jewel is in place.
Everything needs to be perfect tonight.
Everything.
“Happy Birthday!” two female voices scream at the same time.
I squeal as I turn around and hug Cecily and Glyn, who are respectively one year older and the same age as me.
“Aw, thanks, sissies!” I pull away to be greeted by their companions. Glyn’s brothers, Lan and Bran—twins, who are four years our senior. They might share the same looks, but they couldn’t be more different. Bran dresses like the posh, elegant boy he is. Pressed khaki trousers, a polo shirt, and a sweater draped around his shoulders. His eyes are a warm blue, kind, and welcoming.
Lan, on the other hand, could rival a serial killer—one of those hot ones. He oozes dark, princely charm and he’s dressed in jeans and a designer blazer that gives him an edge.
Bran hugs me as if I’m his precious little sister, and I wish I had a brother like him in my life. Cecy and I always say Glyn is so lucky to share DNA with him.
“Congrats,” Lan says. “Can’t tell if you’re supposed to look like a princess or a wannabe grunge junkie.”
“You could’ve stopped at congrats, Lan.” Bran pinches his nose.
“Where’s the fun in that, little bro?”
I resist the urge to spar with him, mainly because I won’t allow anything to sour my mood today. I’m so going to end the night with a shattering bang and I have no time to engage with wankers.
“Thanks for the compliment, Lan.” I hug him and then step on his toe with my five-inch stilettos. He stifles a groan and I release him with a grin.
So yes, I might not fight with words, but I’m still as vengeful as a ghost.
“Ava!” My sister comes running, wearing a glittery black top, shorts, and fishnet stockings. Her dark hair is held in a tight ponytail that enhances her cat-eye makeup. “Look who I found!”
She’s dragging an uninterested Remi behind her. He’s tall, handsome, and reeks of aristocratic blood—part British, part French, as he likes to remind us. He’s around Lan and Bran’s age, already at uni, and thinks it’s beneath him to hang out with secondary school kids.
The only reason we get together is because our parents belong to a tight-knit community in London. We share the same tax bracket and luxurious holidays in different guarded properties around Europe.
It’s virtually impossible for us to avoid each other when our parents have been best friends since school, so we stick together. Ride or die of a sort.
“Let me go, peasant.” Remi pushes Ari away and wipes his hand on his shirt as if he touched something foul.
Soon, however, he smiles upon seeing Creighton lounging behind Lan and Bran, then wraps an arm around his shoulder. I honestly didn’t notice him until now. He’s been silent, seeming bored to death as he munches on some shrimp.
“Creigh!” I squeal, attacking him in a quick hug, and disengage before he hugs me back with his shrimp hand and ruins my dress.
He’s about Cecily’s age and, more importantly, he’s her cousin and Eli’s younger brother.
But they don’t share any physical traits. Where Eli mostly takes after his father, Creigh looks different. His skin is more tanned, his face shape is longer, and he’s handsome in a medieval prince kind of way.
Those who aren’t close to the family aren’t aware that Creigh is adopted. Probably because Aunt Elsa and Uncle Aiden don’t treat him any differently than Eli.
And because Eli is always pestering him for hugs, asking him to swim with him, and vying for his attention at every turn. But Creigh remains silent to a fault and barely speaks, even when poked.
Oh to be Creigh in Eli’s eyes.
But like a female version who’s not sibling material.
“Here.” Remi opens his arms. “I’ll let you hug my lordship since it’s your birthday. You can enjoy the honor while it lasts.”
I roll my eyes and hug him. “More like you are honored.”
“Don’t be blasphemous. It’s not a good start for your birthday.”
“Strange birthday, if you ask me.” Lan throws a look around, not bothering to hide his disdain for the entirety of the invitees. “What type of seventeen-year-old throws a party that includes parents? Trying to be a debutante in the sixteenth century or something? In that case, your clothes would be frowned upon and cause a scandal.”
“I thought it’d be fun to have them here and then we can leave. And my clothes are perfectly fine.”
So maybe my skirt stops way above my knees and is a bit too short. But I have beautiful long legs and I have to take every opportunity to show my assets. Especially today.
“Have Aunt Elsa and Uncle Aiden come around, Cray Cray?” I ask with a note of undisguised excitement.
“Just ask if Eli showed up and drop the act,” Remi says with a dramatic shake of his head.
“I’m not asking about…him.”
“But you’re well content to give him heart eyes whenever he’s around?” Lan supplies needlessly.
“I do…not.”
Glyn winces. “You actually do.”
“Glyn!” I interlink my arm with my best friend’s. “Cecy, tell them that’s not true.”
“Stop hiding facts when you’re shit at it. You’re totally going to confess to him like a lovesick idiot today,” Remi says.
“Which is why you invited the parents. You knew he wouldn’t come if his mum didn’t drag him along,” Lan says.
I stare at Cecy, my eyes nearly bulging out. “You…you told them?”
“I swear I didn’t.” She juts a finger in Remi’s direction. “He eavesdropped when we were in the south of France and blasted it all over their little group chat.”
My heart falls.
My skin crawls.
I think I’m going to throw up.
My voice sounds foreign when I speak. “The group chat with Eli in it?”
Bran offers me a sympathetic smile and nods once.
“Oh God.” I nearly faint against Cecily.
“You went too far, Remi.” She points at him again. “You had no business sharing that secret.”
“Bitch, puh-lease. At this point, everyone from the royal family to the local delivery office knows about her little crush.”
“Including Eli, if that doesn’t imply it,” Lan says with a wicked smile. “He just chooses to behave as if you’re a wallflower whose existence he couldn’t care less about.”
“Lan!” Bran chastises. “There’s no need to be mean.”
“He didn’t react in any shape or form to Remi’s text,” Creigh speaks for the first time.
“Or when Lan and Remi egged him on for days,” Bran adds. “So maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
I know Bran and Creigh are trying to make me feel better, but that’s no consolation at all. Maybe the reason he didn’t react is because he really doesn’t care. Indifference is worse than interest.
“Are you both high?” Lan huffs. “That’s the worst. It’s no different than him pretending she’s nothing more than a speck of dust on his shoe, more than he’s already been doing her entire life. You want my advice, don’t do whatever you’re planning, Ava. You’re the only one who’ll end up with a broken heart.”
“Leave her alone.” Cecy hugs me and strokes the tremors in my shoulders. “This is not your place and no one asked for your advice.”
“I’m trying to save her the waterfall tears and an impending visit to her therapist. But suit yourself. It’s not my fault no one listens to me when I’m always right.”
“Yeah, Ava.” Remi keeps his attention on me as he swats Ari’s hand off his bicep as if it’s a mosquito. “He’s twenty-three and gets more pussy than Casanova, but unlike that loser, he never actually works for it and doesn’t pay any attention to the women attached to it. He never sleeps with the same woman more than twice and doesn’t recall their names, even if he’s hit upside the head with it. Do you honestly want to be one of them?”
“No. I’ll be the exception.”
“What exception? He barely knows you exist.”
“That’s…because I was underage. He didn’t see me as a woman before.”
“News flash, he still doesn’t,” Lan says. “You and Ari are the same in his eyes.”
She’s almost fourteen. I’m way older and definitely past the age of consent in the UK. I’ve had a crush on Eli since I was twelve and started to develop hormones. I visited Aunt Elsa all the time just to get a glimpse of him, even if he barely acknowledged me. Even if he didn’t see me any differently than he did his cousin Glyn.
That was okay. I know the age difference didn’t work in my favor and an eighteen-year-old would’ve never looked at a twelve-year-old.
So I waited a whole five years to grow older and seem adult. I even stopped sleeping with stuffed animals to completely throw away the child phase.
“That’s not true!” I say.
“How does Eli treat you, Ari?” Remi asks her.
She grins like a little psycho because he’s finally looking at her for the first time. “He bought me a bucket of candy floss and told me to share it with my sister.”
“My point, ladies and gents.” Remi makes a motion of a mic drop.
“Adults eat candy floss,” Cecily says.
“Stop putting ludicrous ideas in her head and inflating an ego that would burst to smithereens the moment she talks to Eli.” Lan appears to be bored. “He’s my cousin, but he’s an emotionless prick who collects little girls’ broken hearts in a jar and then sacrifices them to his demons. Don’t be a heart in a jar, Ava.”
My mood takes a sharp dive for the worse for the rest of the party. I say hi to Aunt Elsa and Uncle Aiden, then leave before I spot or run into Eli.
I know he’s here. I can feel him in the air.
One thing about Eli is that he can make himself invisible if he chooses to. But usually, that doesn’t work on me. I’ve always been aware of him and the unbearable hold he has on me.
I intended to confess to him with a letter that I carefully wrote a month ago and have since learned by heart. I hid it in my Chanel bag for safekeeping, but now that I’ve heard what the guys said—even Bran and Creigh, who said in no uncertain terms that it’s not a good idea to confess—I feel like burning it.
With its dainty paper, metallic writing, and glitter hearts. All pink.
I’m being naive. I’m a little girl who’s not allowed to exist in his godly vicinity.
Maybe if I wait a couple more years, I’ll have a better chance…
My thoughts trail off when I catch a glimpse of him standing by the pool with Mama’s assistant for one of the charities. Kylie is a leggy brunette with tanned olive skin, bright-brown eyes, and a very mature figure and face.
Her hand is on his arm as he listens to her with his usual poker face.
Doesn’t matter what type of expression he wears. Eli has and always will be a god with sharp features, a jaw that could cut my heart in half, and eyes that enchant anyone who stares at them.
He’s wearing dark-gray slacks, Italian loafers, and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
His hair is buzz cut on the sides, and the middle is thrown back in a beautiful chaos I itch to run my fingers through.
Just once.
But he never lets me get close, let alone allows me the chance to touch him.
While I can’t pinpoint when exactly I started to like him this strongly, I know that I always felt a sense of intimidation when we were growing up. Mostly because he played rough and didn’t hesitate to pull on my hair or step on my princess lace dresses or dirty my sparkly shoes.
It wasn’t until I hit puberty that the dread turned into a heating of my cheeks whenever he was around.
My real infatuation with Eli started when I saw him play polo when I was around twelve. He looked absolutely majestic on top of the horse. Regal, handsome, and so attractive.
And then he saved me from a wayward ball and I kind of fell head over heels. I yearned to get close so he’d grant me access to his true self and what hid behind his winter-day eyes.
I wanted to be his exception.
But I was mostly invisible to him.
Even though I’ve been using my special relationship with Aunt Elsa to visit whenever possible, it’s pointless since he moved to a boarding uni with Lan, Bran, and Remi.
He’s allowing Kylie to touch him now, her coffin nails tracing a line on his forearm as she bats her lashes and probably speaks in that breathy tone that should be reserved for sexy times.
Maybe that’s what they’ll do later.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about that.
I chase away the image of him embracing, kissing, and fucking her out of my head. Like I’ve done a thousand times before.
It’s not our fault that we’re six years apart or that he hit puberty when I was arguing with Cecy about cartoons. In fact, it would’ve been entirely weird if he’d taken a liking to me when I was a kid.
It sucks that he thinks I’m still a child, but I don’t blame him for sleeping around.
My only consolation is that he’s never had a relationship and I haven’t seen him with the same woman three times. As Remi mentioned, he doesn’t sleep with the same girl more than twice.
What makes you think you wouldn’t be another statistic in his endless women’s adventures?
I used to think he’d just fall in love with me as easily as I fell in love with him, would see that I’m his best option and would cherish me forever.
Obviously, that’s the hopeless romantic in me.
Realistically, I know Eli is a cruel man who has no qualms about crushing people’s pride and aspirations. But that’s part of his charm.
Besides, he can be warm with a select few he considers his people—namely his parents, Creigh, and even Lan, Bran, and Glyn.
I just want to be added to the list.
Which is not a lot to ask.
I hide behind a pillar to watch him, creepily becoming aware of where Ari gets her stalkerish habits from.
Eli’s still speaking to Kylie, or she’s the one who’s doing the talking while he listens with little interest, polite nodding, and the absolute opposite of the signs she’s giving.
My eyes narrow on her hand on his forearm, the way she leans closer to whisper something in his ear. She pulls away with sensual laughter. His lips tug in a small smile.
Why is he smiling at her?
A lick of jealousy burns my skin, and my feelings burst at the seams.
You know what?
There’s no way in hell I’ll be able to wait until I’m a few years older and he finally sees me as a grown-up. I have to take my shot.
As Papa says, you’ll always fail if you never try.
Though he’d certainly break Eli’s neck if he knew about my fixation on the gray-eyed, mythically handsome prince.
Who’s six years older than me.
But age is just a number. I’ve known I liked him since I was young. In the beginning, I thought it was because he was so cool and handsome and the face of every fairy-tale prince I read about.
As I grew older, I began to compare every boy, actor, and musician crush to him.
They all failed miserably to hold a candle to my Eli, by the way.
It’s not a hopeless crush like Lan and Remi said, or an unhealthy obsession as Cecy likes to remind me.
It’s fate.
Otherwise, the universe wouldn’t have placed him in my path.
Pushing my shoulders back, I walk toward him and Kylie, who, if I didn’t know she was good at her job, I’d contemplate having her fired from Mama’s NGO.
I keep my eyes on him, and the closer I get, the more dazzling he becomes. I can hardly breathe because of how beautiful he is. Tall, dark, masculine, and smells like mysterious cloudy nights.
He’s very well-built—muscular, but not bulky. A prince through and through.
“Hi, sorry to interrupt,” I announce in my usual cheerful tone and touch Eli’s bicep, trying not to feel up the taut muscles. “Aunt Elsa is asking for you.”
It’s subtle, but he slips from underneath my hold, steps back, and offers Kylie a smile. “It’s been lovely talking to you.”
“Hopefully we can do it again soon?”
“Hopefully.”
She smiles at me, probably not seeing me as a threat, and I return it with a plastic one.
However, I have no capacity to focus on her, because Eli’s already walking away.
I jog, careful not to trip on my stilettos, and catch up with his long strides.
“She’s not by the pool,” I offer, knowing she’s with Mama and my other friends’ mums, probably sharing stories about their husbands.
His gaze strays to me, gray and mysterious, and it takes superhuman effort not to squirm.
Why is he able to effortlessly destabilize me? I seriously hope there’ll be a day when I’m not this affected by his attention. It’s both terrifyingly exciting and downright draining.
He raises an eyebrow. “Where is she, then?”
“Follow me.”
He says nothing, but he walks a few steps behind me as I lead him to the back garden. Some people are out here for a smoke and chatting. Many of them are my friends from secondary school.
“She’s just out there,” I say in my happy-go-lucky tone, waving at some of my classmates.
“Happy Birthday, pink princess!” Vance says and throws me a kiss.
I pretend to catch it and put it in my pocket. “Thanks, V!”
I steal a glance at Eli, but he doesn’t seem to have even heard the exchange.
My chest is pricked by a thorn of disappointment, but I ignore the sense of rejection. I still haven’t hit him with my secret weapon.
The chaos dies down behind us as we keep walking until we reach the small greenhouse Mama helped me decorate with pink flowers and roses.
I’ve spent late nights dreaming about bringing him to my secret spot and days making Cecily’s ears bleed with my plan for our future.
My and Eli’s, I mean.
Three children, two dogs, and three cats.
He strides over as if he anticipated the location, stops by a bed of colorful flowers, and stares at me as he slides his hands in his pockets.
A blur of heat sneaks beneath my skin as I catch my reflection in his pitch-black eyes.
When he speaks, his rough voice sets my goosebumps on edge. “What’s the purpose behind this?”
“You knew Aunt Elsa wasn’t here.”
“Partly because I saw her drinking with Aunt Kim on the way here.”
I wince but hide it with a smile. “Aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday?”
“Happy Birthday. Mum brought you whatever gift she thinks kids your age would like.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m seventeen.”
“The teen there proves you wrong.”
“Age of consent is sixteen.”
“Thanks for the info. If that’s why you brought me here…” He starts to sidestep me, but I stand in front of him and open my arms.
“I have something to say.”
“Not interested in hearing it.” His cold, dispassionate tone feels like a piece of glass wedging itself beneath my skin.
But I came this far. I can’t back down now.
“Just give me ten minutes.”
“No.”
“Five minutes. Just five.”
He looks at me for the first time, like really looks at me, instead of looking through me and categorizing me as invisible. His stare sears a hole through my heated skin and my breaths shatter and my lungs burn.
“The answer is no, Ava. Save yourself the hassle and go back to celebrate with kids your own age.”
I am not a kid.
Stop saying that I’m a kid.
Just stop it.
I lunge at him, ready to prove just how much I’m not a kid. His hard chest glues to mine as I grab his hair, run my fingers through it like I’ve always dreamed, and seal my lips to his.
My first kiss, which I always fantasized would be with him.
My first everything is his. Only his.
His lips taste of strong mint and a hint of alcohol. He tastes like my forever, the man who’ll make me forget I’m mentally damaged.
A fiery explosion starts where we connect and spreads all over my body, dipping to my stomach, shaking my fingers, lips—my entire being.
I can’t breathe, and for a fraction of a second, I don’t want to breathe.
At first, his lips don’t move, and I keep brushing my mouth against his, licking and stroking. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, but I let instinct guide me.
Despite watching videos and practicing on inanimate objects, nothing could’ve prepared me for the pure intensity that is this moment.
His lips finally move, and I can safely die here and now.
The caress of his lower lip is harsh, unforgiving, and leaves me heaving for air, but then it suddenly changes.
Pain bursts on my skin as he sinks his teeth into my lower lip and bites hard. A metallic taste explodes on my tongue as his hand slides up my nape, fists my hair in a rough grip, and he tugs me back.
I’m panting as blood coats my tongue, my lip throbs, and my scalp burns. But the pressure only lasts for a second before he releases me and wipes my blood from his lips like a gothic vampire.
“Why…?” I whisper.
“That’s what happens when you touch what you shouldn’t, Ava. You get hurt.”
I shake my head, my chin trembling. “I just…I just wanted to prove I’m not a kid. I…” I take a step toward him and then another, wearing my heart on my sleeve despite the dull pain. “I like you, Eli. I always have.”
“And I don’t.”
Three measly words nearly smash my entire world to smithereens. I struggle to remain standing, to look at him through my blurry vision as spikes grow in my naive heart. The heart that he blew life into—life that’s currently being sucked out.
“Because I’m a kid? I’ll be eighteen next year—”
“Because I couldn’t care less about you or your glittery, entirely idealistic feelings. Turn around and remove your distasteful presence from my sight, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear your embarrassing confessions.”
When I do no such thing, too busy searching for the pieces of my splintered pride, he steps around me.
“This is my first and final warning. If you attempt anything this foolish again, I’ll ruin you.”
And then he’s walking away, leaving me with a shattered dream, a broken heart, and a deep, crushing hatred for love.
And him.
