Page 223 of Holding On To Good

“Verity.”

That was it. One word. No less belligerent than his no had been, but a hundred, a thousand times more powerful in that gruff, ticked-off tone.

Not princess.

Her name.

It was the first time he’d said it.

The sound of it, of those three little syllables heard for the first time in his low, rough voice, rubbed against her skin like a touch.

Made her helpless and foolish and unable to do anything other than jerk her gaze up to his obnoxiously pretty face.

“Let’s dance,” he muttered, jerking his head toward the dance floor.

She frowned. Okay, there was no way he’d just said what she thought he’d just said. “Excuse me?”

He glared at her, irritated at her good manners—or maybe he blamed her for him standing there instead of remaining safely ensconced in his seat on the other side of the room. Who knew? As always, he wasn’t giving her much to go on here. “Dance with me.”

Huh. She had heard him correctly. Which begged the question: What kind of sick, twisted mind games was he playing? The last time they spoke, the boy had told her in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t the least bit interested in her.

I don’t want this, he’d said.

You’re not worth it. Not to me.

He’d hurt her. Worse, he’d humiliated her. Made her feel small and stupid and completely alone in her feelings for him.

And now he had the utter gall, the sheer audacity to ask her to dance?

If she wasn’t scared it’d cause a scene—and if she didn’t firmly believe that violence solved nothing, a fact her brothers proved with every scuffle they had—she’d kick him in the shin.

Instead, she settled for giving him a cool, dismissive glance. “No.”

Then she turned her back to him.

And how did he respond to her very clear, very rude response?

He made a sound, a cross between a sigh and a growl of frustration, then crouched next to her chair, settling one hand on the back of her chair, the other on the table. “Will you dance with me?” he ground out. Paused. Then, as if it went against every fiber of his being, added a resentful, clipped, “Please.”

She snorted. “Not interested.”

Miles took a step forward. “She said no, Walsh. Twice. Move along.”

“Ah,” Toby said, steepling his fingers together under his chin, a man suddenly enlightened to the goings-on of the world around him. “So this is Walsh.”

A flush suffused her and she felt Reed studying her. Great. Now he was going to think she’d been talking about him to her family. That she was infatuated with him or something.

What was next? Locusts? The Plague?

“Walsh,” Miles said threateningly when instead of moving along, Reed shifted closer to her.

“Dance with me,” Reed demanded, back to gruff and growly, no please in sight.

How quickly males reverted back to their neanderthal ways.

Crossing her arms, she glared at him. “Go. Away.”

And went breathlessly still when he leaned close and whispered near her ear, “You still owe me.”

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