Chapter 6 The Ride In

Gigi's POV

I raised my hand as the white car approached. Not a frantic wave. I wasn't about to chase one expensive car because another had declined to stop. I stepped clear of the curb, held up my campus folder, and let the driver decide whether he wanted to run over a transfer student's morning.

The white car slowed beside me, its paint clean enough to suggest someone else's daily responsibility. A rear window lowered to reveal light-brown curls and blue eyes that would have been unfair even without the smile beginning beneath them.

“St. Jude's?” he asked.

“Please tell me the uniform gave it away.”

His gaze dropped to my folder, then returned to my face. “Are you stranded?”

“Temporarily between chauffeurs.”

His mouth curved. I liked the smile enough to distrust it immediately. “Get in,” he said. “We're going the same way.”

The driver unlocked the rear door. I slid inside, keeping my bag and breakfast on my lap.

“Thank you.”

“Cyril.” He held out his hand. “Winslow.”

“Gigi Wayne.”

His grip was warm and brief. There was a small smudge of blue paint near his wrist. Even the script's artist had apparently failed to invent stain-proof skin. I settled back as the car moved. Julian's vehicle had disappeared. I wished it excellent luck finding something else to ignore.

“First day?” Cyril asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“You look as though you haven't learned to hate the place yet.”

“Give me until lunch.”

His laugh was low and easy, the sort that might persuade you to sit beside him at a party when everyone else had become unbearable. I pictured staying after the others left, taking off his jacket myself, and discovering whether touching him changed that voice. His smile made the idea particularly attractive, though I had no intention of treating it as a character reference.

The script gave me several excellent reasons not to trust him. None of them made him less pretty. I'd seen his photograph in Omega's character file, along with enough of his story to keep me from mistaking a pleasant face for a reference check. There was something else in that file too.

The file identified his stepfather, Thomas Winslow, as Georgiana's biological father: a man who'd built a new life while the daughter he didn't acknowledge grew up elsewhere. That made the attractive boy beside me my stepbrother, younger than this body despite appearances, with neither shared blood nor a shared childhood to complicate the fact. According to the script, he didn't know about the connection.

I let the name settle. Thomas Winslow had managed a new family, a new house, and a missing daughter all at once. Eventually, I meant to ask him how that arrangement was working out. For now, his stepson sat beside me in the back seat, smiling as though we'd met somewhere considerably more pleasant than his father's secrets. I moved my breakfast bag between us and made myself comfortable.

“You were staying at the Ashcrofts',” he said.

“Is that a question?”

“An observation. I recognized the gate.”

“Then yes.”

“And you walked?”

“I was enjoying my breakfast.”

His eyes dropped to the bag. “Is that what we're calling it?”

“It was a very good sandwich.”

“I meant—”

“I know.”

He smiled again, but more slowly this time. I took a sip of coffee.

“You're not what I expected,” he said.

“You expected me?”

“The new coordinator at Pinnacle House. There was an email.”

“My job comes with an announcement? I should have negotiated a ribbon-cutting.”

“You're moving in today?”

“After classes. Apparently, the room is almost ready.”

“Then we'll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“So I've been warned.”

He seemed amused by my answer, and I turned toward the window before he could ask who'd warned me. Beyond the glass, houses gave way to stone walls and old trees, then towers rising over lawns maintained with a seriousness usually reserved for national monuments.

“You really grew up where the email said?”

I looked back. “Where did it say?”

He named the neighborhood.

“Yes.”

His gaze lingered on my face. “I wouldn't have guessed.”

“Why?”

“You have a very particular look.”

“A face?”

He laughed under his breath. “That's not what I meant.”

“I hope not. Plenty of people back home have those.”

His eyes flicked toward the driver. The man kept his gaze on the road.

“Have I made a terrible first impression?” Cyril asked.

“Not terrible. You stopped the car. That's carrying a lot of weight.”

“Good to know where the standard is.”

“You can raise it any time.”

He looked at my breakfast bag. “And Julian?”

“He offered me the view from the sidewalk.”

Cyril laughed, then covered it with a hand. I watched the blue paint mark disappear against his mouth.

“You shouldn't laugh at your friends,” I said.

“You made it difficult not to.”

“People keep accusing me of that.”

The smile paused. I let him sit in it for a second, then took pity on him.

“Genetics, Cyril. Terribly unreliable. You never know what kind of cheekbones will turn up in an apartment without central air.”

He leaned back, studying me openly now. “That sounded worse than I intended.”

“Yes.”

“I'm sorry.”

I looked at him over the rim of my cup. An apology. Julian should attend the workshop.

“Accepted,” I said.

We entered the campus approach behind a line of SUVs. Students crossed with luggage, coffee, and the confidence of people who assumed traffic would accommodate them. The driver stopped near the administration building.

“Do you always ask this many questions?” I asked Cyril.

“Only when I'm interested.”

“Then think of a better one before tonight.”

He looked at me for a beat, then smiled without answering. I liked that beat. I took my time collecting my bag. Cyril got out first and held my door. I stepped onto the pavement with my bag over one shoulder.

“Thank you for the rescue.”

“Hardly a rescue.”

“Don't undersell yourself. There was coffee at risk.”

A motorcycle cut across the lot and stopped two spaces away. Its rider removed his helmet, revealing dark hair with a red streak and a silver ring in his lower lip, then looked from Cyril's car to Cyril and finally to me. I recognized his face before Omega could label it.

“Max,” Cyril said. “Excellent timing. Meet Gigi, our new house coordinator.”

Max Harrington's gaze traveled over my uniform and stopped at the paper bag. “Great,” he said. “Does she come with breakfast?”

“Only for people who say please.”

Cyril's mouth twitched. Max looked at me properly for the first time. Then he hung his helmet from the handlebars.

“I got the email.”

“You read it?” Cyril asked.

“No.”

“A promising start to university life,” I said.

Max shut the motorcycle compartment a little harder than necessary. I adjusted my bag.

“Lovely meeting you both. I have to persuade someone to issue me an ID.”

Cyril nodded toward the building. “Through those doors. Left at reception.”

“Useful and handsome. Dangerous combination.”

He smiled. Max made a noise that might have been a laugh if someone had removed all the joy from it. I left them there.

• • •

Registration involved a folder, a campus card, and three explanations of where my first class met, only one of which included a room number. I trusted that one. While the department evaluated my old coursework, my transfer schedule fitted me into the available sections; the course portal, meanwhile, wanted a password longer than my patience. I supplied one without expressing my opinion of the process.

At reception, a girl had asked which section I was in. When I told her, she'd checked the name on my new ID against a picture on her phone and stopped smiling. Apparently, my reputation had arrived before my transcript. My phone buzzed while I crossed the quad.

I'd joined the campus discussion board during registration. Its most active thread now contained a picture of me getting out of Cyril's car.

[Post] Ashcroft estate all weekend. Winslow's car this morning. Efficient girl.

Underneath:

[Comment] Isn't she the new maid?

[Comment] Coordinator. Please respect the gold-digging profession.

I stopped beside a bench and finished the apple from my breakfast bag.

You should be upset, Omega said cautiously.

Should I?

The original heroine was.

Then the role's already been played.

I saved the post. Whoever had photographed me had known which girl to point a phone at before I'd attended a single class. Useful to remember. Then I put the apple core in a trash can and found the building.

The classroom sat at the end of a second-floor corridor. Voices leaked through the partly closed door, followed by a quick hush as my steps approached. A thin line caught the light above the handle, bringing me to a stop just as something gray shifted at the top of the frame. I looked through the narrow gap. A bucket hung just inside, tilted toward the entrance. Oh.

They'd prepared refreshments.