Page 2 of Spearcrest Prince

Evan, athlete extraordinaire and all-American dreamboat, has never been the brightest bulb in the pack, no matter how golden his reputation is.

I roll my eyes at him. “No, people generally get engaged for shits and giggles.”

Evan frowns. “Who pissed in your cornflakes, man?”

“Nobody pissed in my cereal, asshole.”

“Then why are you in such a bad mood?” Zach asks, leaning against one of the marble pillars supporting the elegant arch that keeps the Old Manor stairs shielded from the rain.

“I’m not in a bad mood.”

Well, Iwasn’t. But that was before my engagement was unceremoniously brought up. In front of my closest friends and the first girl I was intending to fuck this year.

“Right,” Zachary says, his lip curling ever so slightly. “Sure. You’re perfectly calm and in excellent health and so on and so forth. Glad to hear you’re doing so well. So who’s your fiancée?”

“I don’t want to talk about her,” I snap, glaring at him. “She’s little more than some insignificant gold digger as far as I’m concerned.”

At my side, Maybe-Maisie is looking more concerned by the minute. I have nothing to prove to her—but I do have a reputation to uphold. A reputation as a carefree, fun-loving playboy—not an angry, emotional,engagedman.

From her gaze, I can tell she’s not happy with this, and when she opens her mouth to say something, I hurry to clarify things.

“As for the engagement,” I add quickly, “it means nothing at all. It’s not going to last.Ididn’t even choose her.”

“Your parents pulling your strings again?” Iakov asks.

Iakov “Knuckles” Kavinski, the enigmatic son of an obscure oligarch, sits the furthest away from us, near the bottom of the steps, smoking a cigarette. Although his buzz cut and bruises scream at you to keep away from him, Iakov is the most principled person I know, with a strict honour code only he seems to know but still follows stringently. Although he’s a man of few words, the empathy in his voice is clear.

Out of all of my friends, Iakov can relate the most to having to deal with controlling parents.

I sigh. “They arranged this whole thing and sprung the news at the end of the holidays. I’m engaged, it’s going to be a four-year engagement, and then we’re getting married after university—according to them.”

Maybe-Maisie finally cracks and pulls away. “You’reactuallyengaged?”

Her eyes are big and shiny. Although most girls I sleep with tend to understand and accept the unspoken arrangement between us, there are always exceptions. Girls who think they’ll be the one to capture my attention, to keep it. To make me a one-woman man, to make me commit to them.

But that’s never going to happen.

Especially not to Maybe-Maisie.

I give her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m sorry you found out this way, chérie, but this engagement isn’t my decision or my choice. But I do think you should probably be on your way now. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She opens her mouth, but I smile. “Be a good girl, now. Run along.”

With a tragic sigh, she stands and leaves, descending the steps while my friends watch her silently. I watch her stride away from the Old Manor with a twinge of guilt in my chest but say nothing.

“Why’s your family forcing you to marry this girl, then?” Evan asks, looking truly aghast at my situation. “That shit sounds mediaeval as fuck!”

I suppress the urge to make a tart reply. Evan, of all people, shouldn’t be judging anybody for their decisions. Not Evan: the guy who could have it all—so decided he wanted the one person he couldn’t have.

“The Montcroix house hasn’t finally run out of money, has it?” Zachary asks in a fake scandalised tone. “Mon dieux!”

Sometimes, I have the irresistible urge to slap the smug look off his face. But Zachary’s family are close-knit and powerful—they look after their own. If I touched so much as a hair on Zachary’s head, I’m pretty confident his parents would have me vanish off the face of the earth without a trace.

So I contain my annoyance as best I can, leaning back against the flat marble steps with a sigh. “No—far from. I’m an only child, so my parents think they can use me to make alliances, which is how I’ve ended up engaged to the daughter of the Nishiharas—”

“The Nishiharas?” Luca finally pipes up.

Luca Fletcher-Lowe is sitting with his back against a pillar and has been watching the conversation unfold without commentary. Luca is simultaneously at the centre of the Young Kings—he’s the one our group built around—and yet he’s the most aloof one in our group.

He’s also the scariest person I know. His father owns Novus, the biggest chem tech company in the world. Where I’m full of burning emotion, Luca is a cold void. He might look unearthly with his pale hair and grey eyes, but if you look into those eyes, you’ll see exactly what’s inside him: nothing at all.

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