Page 9 of A Heart of Bluestone

He only smiles tightly in response.

I tug out the elastic from my lopsided bun. The weight of the fall is instant. Hair draping into place. It’s not nicely done today, so it’s kinked in some spots by the elastic, and curls in the wrong direction, but whatever, I have no desire to impress the gazes of the Sinclairs.

Letting my hair shift into place, I drop to one knee and fasten up the laces, tight. Then, as I rise, I spread my arms in a mocking ‘happy now’ before I turn my back on Mr Younge.

I stalk up the steps, my boots clopping and scuffing all the way to the doors.

They open from the inside.

I spare no glances on the servants who hold them for me—my gaze is fast stolen by the crowd gathered in the middle of the foyer.

I have a role to play, as we all do. Some roles are better than others, and easier to play.

The pained smile that stretches across my face is quick to ache my cheeks.

Oliver, my asshole twin brother, sighs at the sight of me, as though to make a point in drawing attention to me—drawing all attention to the fact that they have all been standing around waiting for me to come home.

Olivia and Oliver. Yes, I know. The sort of tacky that’s charming among the aristos but mocked among the commoners.

“Finally, she arrives,” Oliver drones, dull, and the chestnut brown of his hair looks darker under the crisp gel that has it combed properly into place. A richer shade of brown than my faded brown.

The smile is forced, but it keeps pinned to my face as I advance on the party. “There was traffic.” I draw closer to Father who reaches out his hand for me. “And you told me dinner wasn’t until seven—”

“Olivia,” Father firms his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure there was a misunderstanding,” he says, a pitiful half-assed attempt to ease the tension between Oliver and I—tension thathestarted. “But we are all here now.”

I linger my steady gaze over Oliver for another heartbeat.

I would shoot him a scathing look if I didn’t have such an audience. He knows it, too. The glint in his sharp emerald eyesdaresme to. But there’s only so far we can take this battle of ours with our parents around.

At Bluestone, I have learned, there are no such limitations.

More so with Dray Sinclair.

And as my gaze finds him, standing beside Oliver, hands in his pockets, head tilted as he looks down on me, my stomach drops to my bum.

Father’s hand still rests on my shoulder, but the hold is slight as he calls for the cars to be prepared.

I narrow my eyes on Dray.

Still, he looks down at me.

The ghosts of the foyer’s fireplace shadow his face, deepening the summer hues of his complexion.

Blond hair, the muted, deep shade of sand and sawdust, is a stark contrast to the darker brown of his brows. But even more contradictory is the inhuman sharpness of his eyes, a blue so pale that it isn’t unlike the faintest hues of a diamond. But most of the time—like right now, as he looks down his nose at me—his eyes are blue tinted swords.

“It’s a pleasure to see you, Olivia,” he drawls, and how he lies through his perfect white teeth.

Once upon a time, he meant those words.

Now, they are just niceties that we throw around in company, but in the shadows of dark corridors at Bluestone, he’s wretched.

His mother, Amelia Sinclair, reaches out her dainty hand for a crooked stand of my hair. “You have been missed in our visits.”

I land my gaze on the polished floor, away from the pallor of her marble skin, the piercing glint of glass-like eyes that Dray inherited.

I’ve been in hiding.

Every time I caught a mere whiff of the Sinclairs coming to Elcott Abbey, I got my ass out of here.

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