Evan
weekend—which is good because I’m really not in the mood for fake insouciance and forced socialising. Instead, my friends and I head off campus and into London for a night of hard drinking in one of Soho’s most exclusive bars.
Luca’s personal chauffeur drives us from Spearcrest in a black limousine, and we start drinking the moment the limousine door closes on us. From the looks of things, I’m not the only one whose sorely in need of drowning my problems: Sev looks restless and irritated, shadows gathering under his eyes, Iakov’s knuckles are red raw with bruising—really living up to his nickname “Knuckles”—and there’s a brand new cut in his eyebrow, and Zachary, normally the most measured and mature one of us all, is moody and monosyllabic.
Only Luca appears amused and relaxed—but that’s probably because Luca is a psychopath incapable of real human emotion.
“What a glum assortment you all make tonight,” he sneers, leaning back against the white leather seats. “Not girl problems, surely?”
None of us reply. We all sip our drinks and wince—we made a deal tonight was going to be a liquor night, and the burn is real.
Luca laughs.
“Really? All of you?” He raises his cup towards Zachary. “Even the Bishop?”
“I don’t want to talk about Theodora,” Zach snaps.
There’s a moment of silence in the limousine. Finally, my bad mood cracks. I grin at Zach. “I hate to tell you this, Zach, but nobody mentioned Theodora.”
Iakov bursts out laughing, startling everyone.
“Fucking hell,” he says in his deep voice, rubbing his hand across his buzzcut. “Zach is turning into you, Sev. Bringing up his girl at every opportunity he can.”
“She’s not my girl,” Sev immediately retorts, glaring at Iakov. “And I didn’t start it—Evan’s been going on about Sophie non-stop for the past five years.”
“Except that at least you’re engaged to your girl,” Luca cackles like the fucking cartoon villain he is. “Evan couldn’t get Sophie if he was the last man on earth and her only chance at survival was to get fucked.”
I glare at him, but bite down on a retort.
In spite of Sophie’s assumption that I would immediately run back to my friends to tell them about my so-called conquest, I’ve not told a single one of them. Not even Zach—not even about the kiss at the party.
Because no matter what Sophie thinks, this isn’t a conquest—a win, as she put it.
And whatever is between us is just between us, and that’s exactly how I want to keep it.
So I keep my mouth shut, and spend the rest of the trip into London listening to others rant about their problems. By the time we get to the club, we’re all a little bit fucked—apart from Luca, but that’s because it’s actually pretty hard to tell the difference between drunk Luca and sober Luca, since he’s a cold-blooded serpent regardless.
We settle in a private booth with a bottle of the most expensive liquor in the house—on the house, of course, courtesy of Luca’s dad.
Sev’s already a mess, his pale cheeks flushed, his black hair falling over his eyes like some anguished prince. He’s gesturing wildly with his glass in his hand, amber liquor splashing over his fingers, forcing us to come up with a plan to make his own fiancée (the fiancée he allegedly hates) jealous.
I’m not sure exactly what his end goal is, or what he’s hoping to achieve, but French logic seems to be quite different to normal person logic, so I don’t question it.
Then, Sev says something that makes me perk up in my seat.
“She doesn’t get to just fucking sweep away my existence. I’m a Young fucking King of Spearcrest—it’s time to remind her she’s nothing more than a subject. She’ll fucking bow down to me even if I have to force her to.”
He might be talking about his little French fiancée, but there’s truth in his words.
Somehow, in the coldness of Sophie’s disdain and in the heat of fucking her, I’ve forgotten who I am. Not some lovesick puppy, not some nobody to be swept aside in favour of some other guy.
I’m Evan Knight—a Young fucking King.
And Sophie Sutton is nothing more than a subject.
whole week to finally get her alone again. I’m leaving Mr Houghton’s office after begging him for a deadline extension when I spot her.
My entire body goes into alert, vividly aware, as if a bolt of electricity has just zapped through me. I freeze, watching as she peers through the window into an empty classroom before going in.
I follow her, closing the door quietly behind me, pressing my back to the wooden pane. She’s in her immaculate uniform, her hair loose on her shoulders, brown and glossy as chocolate pudding. She rifles through the bookshelves at the back of the room, gathering an armful of books. Then she turns around and jumps, dropping two books. Her eyes go wide and her cheeks go red so quickly it’s almost endearing enough to pacify me.
Almost.
“You haven’t been coming to our tutoring sessions.”
She frowns. “I thought we had a deal.”
I raise an eyebrow. “We had a deal. I’ve changed my mind.”
Now the blush darkens. It’s easy to tell the difference between Sophie’s blush of embarrassment and her blush of anger, because her blush of anger is redder, and her eyes have a fierce spark in them that make her look a bit feral, and her hands clench into fists.
“You don’t get to just change your mind.”
“I get everything I want.”
It’s the truth.
Almost.
“You’ll have to learn sooner or later that this isn’t the way the world works,” she says coldly. “You get whatever money buys you, but it doesn’t mean you get whatever you want.”
“In this case it does.”
Her nostrils flare as she inhales sharply. “Haven’t you already gotten what you want?”
Her anger is almost a presence in the room, a monster rearing itself—but the monster of my jealousy and desire is far more powerful.
“I want you to resume tutoring me. Starting this week.”
“I’m not coming to your house,” she bites out.
“Why? Because you’re afraid you’re going to have to run away from it if you kiss me by accident again? Because you’re going to beg me to fuck you and then pretend you did it because you hate me?”
She can’t quite stop her shock and embarrassment at my words from registering, but she recovers quickly, straightening herself up. “I’ve already apologised for what happened on Christmas Eve.”
So she wants to pretend yesterday didn’t happen? I shouldn’t even be surprised. She really is a fucking coward.
“I don’t give a shit. I neither want nor need your apologies.”
She glares at me. “Then what do you need?”
“I need you to get over what happened and just do what you’re supposed to do, which is tutor me.”
“You don’t need tutoring sessions!” she exclaims, her hoarse voice even hoarser in her anger. “You don’t even want tutoring sessions!”
“Mr Houghton says that he was impressed with my effort in the exam and that the sessions are clearly helping. I have an essay already overdue and more mock exams coming up next month. So yes, I do need those sessions, and even if I didn’t, I still want them.”
Even I can hear the arrogance in my voice. But the way she thinks so low of me makes me want to double down on everything she hates about me. No matter how little she thinks of me, I can always be worse. If she treats me like a dog then I’ll become a wolf. If she treats me like I’m evil then I’ll become the devil himself.
Her eyes glitter as she glares at me. She’s breathing hard, her cheeks are flushed with fury—she looks in her anger almost exactly the same way she looks when she’s turned on.
Blood rushes to my cock.
“Why are you doing this?” She speaks lower now, not just angry, but strangled with frustration. “You know I need this job.”
I know only too well. The memory of that cupcake, her laughter, her gaze lingering after that stupid goddamn guy has been playing in an infuriating loop in my head since last Tuesday.
“Fuck your job. I’ll pay you for the sessions if that’s what you want.”
She recoils. “I don’t want your money.”
Her voice is icy, and pure hatred is on her face. I know I’ve offended her, possibly hurt her. But at this point, it doesn’t feel like I’m attacking her. It just feels like I’m retaliating.
“Isn’t that the reason you need that stupid job?’ I sneer. ‘For the money? Because that’s the one thing your nice uniform and clever brains can never get you? Well, I have money, I can pay you. I can pay you far more than you make at that place, too. It can be our new deal. You need the money, so I help you with that, and I need to pass the class, so you teach me.”
We stare at each other across the room. She’s completely silent for a moment, and I can’t help but wonder what’s going through her mind. Is she tempted? I’m sure she would be tempted if her job was only for the money. But I’m not making her choose between her job and me.
I’m making her choose between that guy and me.
“Let me tell you something,” she says finally, her voice deathly quiet.
She picks up the books she dropped earlier, holding the pile closer to her chest, and crosses the room to stand in front of me. She gathers herself up with unshakable dignity and looks me straight in the eyes.
“I would rather jump from the top of the clock tower than ever take a penny from you.”
I shrug. “This is exactly why poor people stay poor: they don’t know a good deal when they see one. So since you won’t tutor me for money, Sutton, then I guess you’re just going to tutor me for free.”
Her nostrils flare and her jaw twitches. Her anger and hatred are palpable, like waves of liquid heat pulsing out of her and brushing against me. Now she’s closer, I can smell that addictive fragrance, the sweetness of warm caramel. I clench my fists, glad my hands are in my pockets so she can’t see how much she’s affecting me.
She’s close enough to touch, but I don’t want to just touch her. I want to grab her, pin her to the door and fuck her until she’s filling the room with the raspy, breathless sound of her moans.
The adrenaline pumping through me, mixed with her magnetic proximity and the intensity of my desire, makes my blood burn and my cock achingly hard. But Sophie’s eyes are fixed on mine, and the heat of my desire melts away against the ice of her gaze.
“Read my lips, Evan. No. No, I’m not going to tutor you for free, or for money. No, I’m not going to tutor you at all. It’s a strange little word, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve never heard it before. Well, let it be the last thing I teach you. No. It means this time, you don’t get what you want. Now move. I’m late for my next lesson.”
She tries to storm past me, but I catch her by her arm, stopping her. I take her face in my hand, forcing her to look up at me—the same way I did when I fucked her. She meets my gaze with defiance, like she’s not afraid.
“Let me clarify something for you, Sutton.” I speak slowly, enunciating every word. “While you and I are in Spearcrest, you belong to me. You have from the moment you stepped foot here—and you will until the day you leave. You can fight me, you can fuck me—you can do whatever you please. But no matter what you choose to do, you remain mine.”
She pulls away from me with a sneer. “You don’t own me, Evan. You might be a so-called fucking king of Spearcrest, but if you grow up and look around you, you’ll realise that means nothing at all. You have no power over me.”
I hold her gaze, but she doesn’t look away, doesn’t relent. I can tell she means it; she’s not going to break this time. She’s putting up a fight, just as I thought she would.
But that’s fine. Two can play this game.
“We’ll fucking see, Sutton.”
I move aside and let her leave. And then I go straight to the office of Mr Shawcross, our Head of Year, and officially report Sophie for having a job.
