Page 61 of Spearcrest Prince

“Maybe.” Iakov pulls a box of cigarettes from his pocket and hands it to me. I shake my head, and he shrugs and starts on a second cigarette. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“The engagement?”

“The dinner.” Iakov’s mouth stretches in a grin—more a grimace than a smile. “Sev can be great company when he wants to be.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket and glances down at the screen. The grin vanishes from his lips. He stands. “I’m off.”

“Well… bye, I guess.”

“See ya.”

I follow Iakov with my eyes as he trudges away, disappearing amongst the trees. I like him. He’s the opposite of Séverin: calm and cold and unconcerned. Distant and untouchable—like Noël.

I’minthelibrarytyping an essay for my English class when I’m startled for the second time today by a figure swooping into my field of vision. I turn to see Séverin, still in his uniform, his collar open to reveal the necklaces sparkling on his chest. His cheeks are flushed from the cold, and a jet-black strand of hair falls over his eye.

He pulls out the seat next to mine and collapses into it with a sigh.

“What should we do, then?” he asks, as if we’ve just been in the middle of a conversation.

It’s a good thing I bumped into his friend earlier. “About the dinner?”

“Yeah.”

I sigh and push my laptop away. “You know my parents didn’t even tell me about it?”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

I pull my phone out and show him the notification. “They just added it to my calendar via my email. That’s it.”

“Wow.” For a moment, he just stares at my phone. Then he sits back and laughs out loud. His green eyes crinkle, and he throws his head back. Of course, he has to laugh in the most handsome way possible, as if he’s posing for a photoshoot. “Your parents are ice cold, trésor.”

I sigh. “You have no idea.”

“Well, you can tell me all about it over dinner.”

“We don’t have to go,” I say quickly. “We can ignore it if you want.”

“We could,” he says, “but I doubt that would get them off our case. Maybe we should go just to appease them. My parents got off my back for a few weeks after I sent them that picture.”

“What picture?”

“The one I took on the trip.” He raises his hand and pokes my cheek with his index finger. “Le p’tit bisou.”

“Really? That worked?”

“Yea. My mum was all moony-eyed about it at Christmas. She got it framed, look.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket and shows me a picture on his camera roll. A woman in an emerald-green velvet gown holding a picture frame next to his cheek and grinning from ear to ear. Inside the picture frame is the selfie Séverin took of us on our way to the Isle of Skye.

I take his phone in my hand to take a closer look at the woman in the picture. Her olive skin, the long, glossy length of her jet-black hair.

“Your mother might be the most beautiful woman in the world,” I tell Sev, handing him his phone back.

He takes it with a grin. “Yeah. Lucky I inherited her good looks, huh?”

I look at him. When he smiles, his beauty comes to life like the blossoming of flowers. It’s breathtaking and surreal. It makes me feel suddenly odd, as though a strange chemical reaction is happening in my chest, making my ribs feel tight. I look away.

“If you say so.”

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