Chapter 3
Seraphina's POV
Everyone wanted to play a game.
Someone suggested it after the gift situation died down — probably to kill the awkward silence Kaston had left hanging there with that necklace still in his hand. Nadine jumped on it fast. The room rearranged itself. Violet drifted toward the center, laughing at something Rex said, her rose-and-copper scent spreading across the space with the easy confidence of someone who'd already decided this room was hers. I found the corner sofa and sat down with my juice.
Kaston followed me.
"You sent a fake." He sat down beside me, not close, but close enough that I could feel the tension radiating off him. "You embarrassed yourself in front of everyone, and you embarrassed me."
Three years. And this man still thought embarrassment was the problem.
I took a slow breath and told him to pull up the purchase record himself. He looked at me for a second — that flash of doubt he never liked to show — then took out his phone. The silence stretched. I watched Violet toss her hair across the room and say something that made the group laugh. I didn't look at Kaston. I didn't need to.
He went quiet. The kind of quiet that meant he'd found what he was looking for and didn't know what to do with it.
"I shouldn't have said that." His voice dropped. It wasn't much of an apology. It was the bare minimum, delivered like he was doing me a favor.
I didn't answer. I kept my eyes on the game.
He stayed beside me, but not because he wanted to. I knew the difference by now. His eyes kept drifting to Violet across the room — the way she laughed, the way the light caught her hair. He wasn't even trying to hide it. That used to hurt. Tonight it just felt like a fact.
Violet lost a round. Then another. Then a third.
The group closed in around her, loud and joking, the way they always got when they smelled blood. Someone pushed a drink toward her. She laughed and took it. Then another. Then another. By the fourth, Rex was already refilling before she'd finished. The noise covered everything — including the moment Kaston went rigid beside me.
He stood up. Crossed the room in four strides and took the glass right out of Violet's hand.
"She has a bad stomach." His voice was flat and hard. "Nobody gives her another drink. I mean it."
The room went silent. Not the polite kind — the held-breath kind, where everyone is very suddenly interested in their own shoes. Rex put the bottle down. Even Nadine stopped smiling.
Violet blinked up at him, surprised, and then she stood — reached for the glass, probably to argue — and miscalculated the step. She pitched forward, and Kaston caught her without thinking, one arm going around her waist, pulling her in, and for a second neither of them moved.
"Still this careless," he said, low and rough, the way you talk to someone when the words have been worn smooth by years of use. "After all this time."
Violet's face went pink. She stayed right where she was. The room started making noise again — Rex first, then Fenton, that particular brand of teasing that meant they were all watching and everyone knew it.
I was watching too. I was sitting in the corner with my juice and I was watching, and I felt something in my chest go very, very still.
Not heartbreak. I was past that. It was more like the last thread of something finally giving way — quiet, almost gentle, the way things end when they've been ending for a long time.
He never looked at me like that. Not once.
Fenton caught Kaston's eye and said something about switching games, something fairer, and the energy in the room shifted. Kaston let go of Violet and stepped back. I saw the exact moment he remembered I was there — his gaze found me across the room, and he went still in a different way than before. Not caught. Just — uncertain. Like he'd forgotten something important and couldn't figure out what.
I didn't look away. I didn't react. I just sat there with one hand resting on my glass, completely calm, and watched him try to read my face.
He couldn't. I could tell. It bothered him more than anything else I could have done.
Then Violet lost the next round.
She picked the dare card herself, laughing, and read it out loud — kiss someone in the room, your choice — and the whole group went quiet again, that particular silence where everyone is doing the same calculation at the same time. I saw the glances. Kaston. Me. Violet. Back to Kaston.
Violet looked at him for exactly one second. Then she turned and walked toward Rex.
I watched her put her hand on his shoulder. Watched her lean in. And I watched Kaston stand up so fast his chair scraped back, his voice coming out low and hard — "That's enough." — and then he had her by the arm and they were gone, out the door, into the hallway, and the room was left with the wreckage of that exit and nowhere to put it.
Rex rubbed the back of his neck. Fenton looked at the ceiling. A few people found their phones.
And then, slowly, everyone looked at me.
I took a sip of juice. "Why are you all staring? Keep playing."
My voice came out steady. Bored, even. I was genuinely a little impressed with myself.
Fenton suggested a new round. Someone dealt cards. The conversation crawled back to life, patchy and careful, and I sat in my corner and thought: that's the first time I've ever seen him lose it like that. Completely lose it. Three years, and I never got that from him. Not once.
That's not sad. That's just data.
I slipped out to the restroom a while later. I pushed into the nearest stall and stood there for a moment in the quiet, and that was when I heard them — two women at the mirrors, voices low and easy, the way people talk when they think no one's listening.
"Did you see Kaston just now? He basically threw the whole room over for her."
"What did you expect? Seraphina's just been keeping his bed warm. The real one's back now."
A pause. The sound of a compact clicking open.
"I almost feel bad. Three years, and she didn't even know she was the understudy."
"Oh, please. Kaston's not going to cut her loose completely. Why would he? She's convenient. He'll keep her around on the side."
I pushed the stall door open.
They saw me in the mirror at the same time. One of them made a sound. They were both gone before I'd crossed to the sink.
I turned on the tap. Washed my hands. Looked at myself in the mirror — amber eyes, steady hands, the faint white-tea scent I'd been wearing for years like a costume I'd forgotten I had on.
Not his understudy. Not his side option. Not his anything.
