Page 10 of Protégé King

“Never again,” I assure him. “Where’s Gilda?”

“She’s meeting us wherever we go.”

“Grand,” I say and a few minutes later the three of us exit the campus only to come face-to-face with Damion, who looks about as good as I feel. His eyes are bloodshot, his dark brown hair a finger-rumpled mess. I wonder if the blonde did that to his hair. Maybe he fucked her all night and didn’t sleep.

“What are you doing here?” I demand, aware—oh, so aware—that if he found me now, he could have found me sooner.

“We need to talk,” he announces.

“We did that for seventeen years. I’m all talked out with you, Damion.”

Sally leans in and whispers, “Who’s this hottie?”

Damion ignores her. “Alana—”

“Talk to the blonde chick. She seemed interested in all kinds of conversation. I have nothing to say to you.”

Ted steps to my side from wherever he was before this and slides his arm around me and says, “Problem, babe?”

Damion’s spine straightens. “Babe?” he demands.

“She loves it,” Ted replies. “It gets her hot. Right, babe?”

Damion’s tongue flattens on the roof of his mouth. It’s a thing he does when he’s biting back words he should not speak. He shakes his head. “How fucking perfect,” he says before he rotates and starts walking away.

Forever.

It’s the end of us.

He’s never coming back.

Chapter Six

Alana

Nine months later

There are only one hundred coveted invitations each year to the New York City Future Leaders social.

Considering I still wasn’t accepted to a law school, let alone my dream law school of Yale, I’d expected to be shunned. So much so, that when the knock came on our door, and there was only one envelope with the courier, me and Sally were both quite certain the invite would be for her.

Except it wasn’t me that was shunned, but her.

Neither of us had understood it. She was accepted to Yale law school.

I was not.

Of course, no one really knows the process of picking the one hundred invited, though nominations by our professors are assumed. We really don’t know who’s who in the process, but many of the who’s who of our state will be at the social. Part of our reward for being picked is that we are offered the opportunity to socialize with the elite, the here and now success stories.

The people who can help us if we figure out how to help them.

Whatever the case, however it happened—that I was picked and Sally was not—Sally had been so upset, it seemed to actually affect our friendship, and when my acceptance to Yale had followed the next day, I hadn’t told her. I’d called my mother.

Of course, her reaction had been all that I’d hoped for. “Oh my God, honey! I’m so proud. I knew you could do it. Your father knew you could do it. Jeff!” she’d called out. “Come talk to your baby girl! She’s gonna be a lawyer!”

“My girl!” he’d declared, when he’d gotten on the phone. “I’m so proud.”

Later that night, Sally had hugged me and apologized. “I’m selfish. I should be happy for you. You work harder than me. We both know it. I let myself ride my name, and this is what I get in return. You deserve this. I do not.”

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