Know Your Place (Harper's POV)
The light from my phone screen burned my eyes in the dim little cubicle of my dorm room. My thumb hovered over the keyboard while I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, burning through nearly ten minutes on a message I couldn't finish. I gave up, flipped the phone face-down against the bed board, and rolled over with a grunt of frustration, burying my face in the pillow.
Whatever needed dealing with could wait until tomorrow.
But Vaughn arrived before tomorrow did.
I heard the latch give and barely had time to lift my head before he reached in and hauled me out of the covers in one smooth motion. Pale moonlight seeped through the gap in the curtains and fell across his face, splitting it into light and shadow, a smile at the corner of his mouth that made my skin crawl.
"Still awake?"
His hand came up and brushed my lips. "Were you waiting for me?"
I answered by turning my face away.
"Young Master Vaughn, it's late. What do you want?"
He made a short, cold sound through his nose—dissatisfied with the dodge. "Free on Friday?"
I drew a slow breath. "No."
Vaughn neither stiffened nor smiled. He produced a silver mask from somewhere I hadn't noticed, holding it between two fingers with the easy certainty of someone who has never been told no and doesn't intend to start now. "Whether you're free doesn't matter. Sterling Manor is hosting a masquerade Friday night. You'll go as my dance partner."
My heart skipped a full beat.
Sterling Manor again?
'M' had just messaged me asking me to attend that same party. Now Vaughn was telling me to show up on his arm.
I set my jaw and held his gaze in the dark. "Vaughn. I'm male."
The man was out of his mind.
His fingers closed around my jaw, tilting my face up so I had nowhere to look but at him. "You think I'm negotiating with you?"
His voice dropped low. His lips grazed the shell of my ear, breath spilling warm and unbearable into the curve of it. "Harper. You should get very clear on what your position here is."
"Otherwise I don't mind taking you right now."
"Understood?"
His gaze dropped below my waist with unmistakable intent. He hooked a hand behind my head and pulled me into a kiss before I could pull back, and when I tried to break free he only tightened his grip.
A muffled sound escaped my throat.
His tongue forced its way past my lips, twisting against mine, biting and coaxing all at once. It went on long enough that I nearly forgot to breathe, my lungs burning toward the edge of blacking out, before he finally released me with a look of lazy amusement.
"I really want to know what it would feel like," he said, "to get inside you."
He pressed his palm against my crotch with a slow, deliberate squeeze, his expression the picture of smug satisfaction. Then he turned and walked out, leaving me sitting there with my heart hammering and my face gone cold.
I drifted through class the next day in a fog, my notes untouched while my mind churned over the same loop: the masquerade, Vaughn's ultimatum, 'M's message. One was pulling me from the left, the other from the right, and I couldn't see a way to slip free of either.
My phone buzzed several times in succession. Predictably, it was my mother.
Why aren't you answering M's messages. What exactly are you doing.
The texts that followed were a cascade of accusations and veiled threats. I watched my knuckles go white around the phone.
I typed back slowly and evenly: I know. I'll go to the masquerade.
Then, after a pause, I added: Mom—what kind of girl does Mr. M like?
She replied almost instantly. My show of apparent interest seemed to soften her; the edge in her tone eased by a few degrees.
Gentle. Obedient. Innocent and uncomplicated.
I read the words twice. If that was the type the heir preferred, then I would be the exact opposite—abrasive enough, off-putting enough, that he'd want out of the arrangement on his own terms. Once he broke off the engagement himself, I could move on to the second part of the plan: take his top ranking away from him and strip him of any claim to the inheritance entirely.
Two fronts at once. I refused to believe this engagement could survive both.
The only problem was that I still had no idea who M actually was.
That was fine. I had time.
The thought, once it surfaced, wouldn't stop growing.
The following morning, on my way to class, I came around the back of the main building and found three figures crowded around a fourth, shoving him back and forth between them.
I looked more carefully.
Ellis. Same scholarship track as me, same outsider status.
The next second, Ryan shoved him hard enough to send him sprawling, then drove a kick into his stomach. Ellis's cry of pain cut through the quiet.
"Hey!" I was already moving, pushing Ryan back by the shoulder and planting myself between them. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You can't just assault someone."
Ryan let out a short laugh and shoved me with one hand. I stumbled backward, caught off guard by the force of it. Ellis moved fast, steadying me before I hit the ground.
I straightened up, my hands balling at my sides, and kept my eyes on Ryan. "Three against one, Ryan. Does that not embarrass you at all?"
"You're a charity-case scholarship student," Ryan said, his lip curling. "Who gave you the nerve to talk to me like that?"
Ellis was already on his feet, tugging quietly at my sleeve. His voice had a faint tremor in it. "Harper—don't. I don't want to drag you into this."
I cut him off with a glance that I hoped read as reassurance. "It's fine. I've got you."
Ryan's group burst out laughing like I'd told them a joke. Then I caught the shift in Ryan's eyes—something harder and colder moving behind them—and instinct kicked in. I stepped back, keeping Ellis behind me, until the wall met my shoulders and we had nowhere left to go.
Ryan cracked his knuckles in front of my face, each joint popping in turn. "Harper. Let me show you what happens to people who get on my bad side."
"This is still school grounds," I said, keeping my voice steady. "You don't run things here."
Ryan ignored me and turned to the other two. "Teach him a lesson first. We'll deal with Ellis after."
I was bracing myself—running through the math of three against two, neither of us in great shape for it—when a voice came from somewhere behind Ryan's shoulder, flat and utterly unimpressed.
"What's going on here."
I knew that voice.
Derek and Vaughn stood at the corner of the building, a short distance away. Derek's face was expressionless, but the look he swept across Ryan and the others was the kind of cold that doesn't need volume to land. Ryan actually took a half step back without seeming to realize he'd done it.
Vaughn had his hands in his pockets, shoulder resting against the wall, watching the scene with the mild curiosity of someone who hasn't yet decided whether it's worth his time.
The moment I saw them, something in my chest quietly released.
Ryan wouldn't dare push this in front of Derek and Vaughn. He'd know better than that.
Which is exactly how it played out. Ryan looked at them, and the aggression in his posture collapsed like air going out of a balloon. "Derek—Vaughn—I was just—we were just messing around, you know how it is—"
"Get out," Vaughn said.
One word.
"We're gone, we're gone." Ryan grabbed the other two and they cleared out fast.
I let out a breath and looked toward Derek and Vaughn. "Thank you."
Derek gave me one brief, cold look and turned away without a word. Vaughn glanced back at me with an expression I couldn't quite read—somewhere between amusement and something else—then followed Derek around the corner.
I watched them go, then turned to Ellis.
He was crouched down gathering the books that had been knocked out of his hands. I bent down and helped him collect them, keeping my voice easy. "Ellis—if Ryan gives you trouble again, you should tell a teacher. You don't have to handle it alone."
Ellis looked up at me.
The expression on his face stopped me cold.
His eyes were dark. And underneath the darkness, unmistakably, was envy.
I stood there and stared at him.
That look—
