Chapter 1 1

WREN-

I don't know how we ended up in this closet.

That's a lie. I know exactly how we ended up in this closet. Four glasses of champagne I definitely wasn't supposed to be drinking, stolen off a tray when nobody was looking, and Kai Ashworth-Vane's hand closing around my wrist in a hallway full of people too drunk themselves to notice either of us slipping away.

My head is swimming, everything soft and tilted at the edges the way it only gets when I've had far too much on an empty stomach, and Kai has me pressed back against a rack of his mother's furs with his mouth on my neck and every rational thought I own has evacuated the building along with most of my balance.

"You're shaking," he murmurs against my skin, low and wrecked, his hand splayed flat over my stomach like he has every right to be touching me at all, which he absolutely does not, which has never once in nine years been true.

He tastes like champagne too, sweet and sharp, and I can feel exactly how unsteady he is by the way he braces one hand against the wall behind me like he needs it to stay standing.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, except my voice comes out thin and slurred at the edges, nothing like the voice I use for anyone else, and somewhere downstairs I can hear the party still going, string quartet and clinking glasses and forty guests who have no idea the golden son of the house has his hand up my dress in a closet full of coats that probably cost more than my mother makes in a year and both of us are drunk enough that neither of us is going to remember this clearly by morning.

"Liar." His teeth graze my shoulder and my whole body arches without my permission, some traitor instinct overriding nine years of very good, very justified hatred. "Going to apologize for the help's daughter thing. With my mouth. If you'll let me."

"That's not how apologies work."

"It's how mine works when I've had this much champagne."

I laugh, actually laugh, tipsy and reckless in a way I never let myself be, and the sound gets swallowed by his mouth on mine before I can stop it. I should stop him. I have several excellent reasons to stop him, chief among them the fact that I have hated Kai Ashworth-Vane since we were kids, since he stood across a garden and asked the entire assembled staff why I smelled like the tube, since nine years of small cruelties taught me exactly what kind of person lives underneath that jaw and that laugh and those stupid, unfairly good hands currently sliding under the hem of my dress like he's done this a hundred times, like he's thought about doing this to me specifically more than once.

I don't stop him. God help me, I don't stop him at all.

"Kai." His name comes out of me like a question I don't actually want answered, and he makes a low sound against my throat that I feel in places that have absolutely no business being involved in this conversation.

"Say it again."

"Kai."

"Again." His voice has gone rough, almost desperate, nothing like the bored, cutting drawl he uses on me in front of other people, and some small, disbelieving part of my brain thinks, this isn't him, this can't be him, and an even smaller, more traitorous part thinks, what if it is, what if this has always been under there, what if I've spent nine years hating the wrong version of this boy, what if the champagne is just finally letting us both stop pretending.

"Kai, someone's going to hear."

"No one's coming up here." His mouth finds mine before I can finish the sentence, and it isn't gentle, isn't careful, it's the kind of kiss that feels like an argument neither of us is winning, teeth and want and nine years of pretending, all of it collapsing into the four inches of space between our mouths. I kiss him back like I'm furious about it, because I am furious about it, furious at my own body for wanting this, for wanting him, for every single humiliating year I spent hating him extra hard specifically to disguise the fact that some idiot part of me never stopped watching him across every room we were ever both standing in.

His hand slides higher and I gasp against his mouth, and somewhere very far away I register that I am definitely, embarrassingly wet, that the champagne has stripped away every single wall I've spent nine years building, that if he moves his hand two more inches I am going to make a sound loud enough for the entire party to hear.

"You're soaked," he breathes against my ear, sounding almost wrecked by the discovery, like it's undone something in him he wasn't braced for. "Christ, Wren."

"Don't," I gasp, mortified and desperate in equal measure, "don't say it like that." "Like what."

"Like you're surprised."

"I am surprised." His voice drops even lower, rougher, one hand fisting in the fabric of my dress. "Surprised it's this much. Surprised it's for me."

"You hate me," I writhe, when he finally lets me breathe, his forehead dropping to rest against mine, both of us breathing like we've run somewhere, both of us swaying slightly with champagne and want in equal measure.

"I know."

"You've hated me for almost a decade."

"I am very much aware of that, milady." His thumb traces along my jaw, achingly gentle for a boy who has never once in nine years been gentle with me about anything. "Doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about this since that ridiculous yellow dress you wore to my mother's spring thing years ago, when I had to leave the party for twenty minutes because I couldn't look at you without wanting to do something I had no business wanting."

"You called me a stray dog in that dress."

"I know," he says again, and there's something almost like shame in it now, buried under the want, "I'm going to spend a very long time apologizing for every single thing I've ever said to you, Wren, starting right now, starting with my mouth, if you'll let me."

The closet door rattles.

Both of us go rigid at the same instant, and somewhere on the other side of that door I hear voices, low, familiar, getting closer, and my heart slams so hard against my ribs I'm certain it's audible from the garden below.

"Someone's coming," I whisper.

“Hmmmm." His hands don't stop moving. If anything they move faster, more urgent, like he's decided the sound of approaching footsteps is a countdown rather than a warning, and some reckless, stupid part of me matches his urgency instead of pulling away like any sane person would.

"This is insane," I breathe against his mouth. "This is the single worst idea either of us has ever had."

"Probably," he agrees, not stopping. "Ask me if I care."

"Do you care."

"Not even slightly."

The voices outside grow louder, and I recognize one of them now, sharp and unmistakable, Rhys, laughing at something, footsteps drawing closer to the closet door with the particular carelessness of someone who has no idea what he's about to walk in on. My whole body seizes with panic and want in equal measure, an impossible, dizzying combination, and Kai's mouth finds my ear.

"If he opens that door," he murmurs, "I'm telling him you attacked me. Nine years of pent-up violence, finally coming out sideways."

"You're unbelievably disgusting."

"You're the one with your hand in my shirt, Sokolov."

I yank my hand back like I've been burned, mortified to discover he's entirely correct, and Kai laughs, low and delighted, the sound doing something unfair and complicated to my chest, again for one millionth absurd, suspended second, standing in a closet with my hair a mess and my dress definitely not sitting where it's supposed to sit and champagne still humming warm through both our veins, I forget to hate him at all.

Rhys's voice fades back down the hallway, mercifully, and the panic in my chest loosens just enough for me to actually breathe.

"That was close," I say.

"Too close." He doesn't sound remotely bothered by it. If anything he looks more energized, something reckless and pleased moving behind his eyes, like the risk of getting caught was half the appeal all along. "Worth it, though."

"You're going to get us both killed."

"Good way to go."

I want to hate how much that answer does to me. I want, desperately, to summon back even a fraction of all my years of careful, practiced hatred I've spent building against exactly this boy, and instead I find myself reaching for him again, both of us laughing quietly against each other's mouths, half delirious with adrenaline and champagne, half something else entirely that I refuse, even now, even in whatever version of reality this currently is, to name properly.

"Tell me this is a terrible idea," I say, my hands finding the front of his shirt again despite every single functioning brain cell I still possess screaming at me to stop. "Tell me to leave right now."

"Leave, then." His mouth trails along my jaw, unhurried now, almost lazy, like he already knows I'm not going anywhere. "Door's right there, Sokolov. Nobody's stopping you."

"You're impossible."

"You're still here, wishing I had sneaked you out of the party earlier."

I hate that he's right. I hate, even more, how much I don't actually want to correct him, standing there in a closet that smells like cedar and old money and champagne with my heart doing something violent and unfamiliar against my ribs, nine years of very good reasons to despise this boy dissolving into something I have absolutely no name for and no intention of examining too closely while his hands are still on me.

"This changes nothing," I tell him, mostly to convince myself. "Tomorrow I still hate you."

"Wouldn't want it any other way," he murmurs, and there's something almost fond buried under the arrogance, something that catches me off guard enough that I nearly forget to be annoyed by it. "Hate me all you want in daylight. Just make sure you also do this again first."

"Do what."

He doesn't answer with words. His lips, once again caught my very hungry ones.

I don't know how long we stay in that closet.

Honestly, time has stopped meaning anything reliable, everything blurring soft and warm and champagne-slow at the edges. I only know that eventually the door does open, light flooding in exactly like I feared it would, and I brace myself for Rhys's face, for the scandal, for years of careful invisibility collapsing in one single, catastrophic instant.

Except the face in the doorway isn't Rhys at all.

It's Zara, backlit and furious, hands on her hips, entirely too knowing.

What the…

"Wren. Wake up, we're literally about to land, you're going to miss the descent."

My eyes snapped open to fluorescent cabin lighting and Zara's face three inches from mine, thoroughly unimpressed, one hand still gripping my shoulder where she'd apparently been shaking me for some unknown but clearly excessive length of time.

I lay there for one full, disoriented second, heart still hammering, skin still humming, absolutely certain, with a conviction that made no logical sense whatsoever, that I could still feel his mouth on my throat, still taste champagne I hadn't actually had a drop of tonight.

"You were making a very concerning noise," Zara said, settling back into her own seat with the particular smugness of someone who fully intended to bring this up at every available opportunity for the rest of both our lives. "Should I ask, or should I not ask."

I opened my mouth to answer her.

And that was when I noticed the date on the seatback screen in front of me, glowing softly in the dim cabin light, and felt every single drop of blood in my body turn to ice water.

Because the last thing I remembered clearly, before the dream, before the closet, before any of it, was boarding this exact flight two years ago.

Not today.

But two years ago.