Jack’s head snapped up.
“Stellan told me, since he’s the only one who tells me anything anymore. I don’t care that you have a history with other girls, but I do care about you lying. After all this family member and the help stuff? And God.” I ran my hands through my newly short hair. “Lydia? She looks like me. She’s me, but a Saxon.”
Jack was shaking his head. “Which you’re not. That’s the whole point. I mean, you are, but not in the important ways. You two are nothing alike.”
I shoved the chair in hard enough that it almost toppled over. “But this whole time you’ve been saying we shouldn’t be together while you went behind my back to her.”
“To keep you safe! And you’ve been going behind my back talking to Stellan about things you should be asking me about.”
“That is not the same thing.” I heard footsteps cross the floor above us and tried to lower my voice. This was bad enough without Elodie and Colette listening. “This isn’t about Stellan.”
“It’s not? You haven’t been picking fights with me lately because of him?”
“If anything, you’re fighting with me because of him.” I felt like I could punch something. “Can we leave Stellan out of it? This is about you doing exactly what I asked you not to do. You were the only thing in the world I trusted. You had a choice. You could have chosen me.”
Jack stood, leaning across the table. “I did have a choice. Between doing what you wanted or keeping you alive. Do you know how many times I wished I could be selfish enough to choose us?” He pushed away, and the vase of peonies in the center of the table wobbled. “Remember what I told you on the balcony that night after the ball at the Dauphins’? It’s all been for you.”
My fingernails grated the back of the chair and I glimpsed myself in the endless mirrors. I looked crazed. “You should leave before the others find out whose side you’re really on.”
Jack shook his head. His hands were white-knuckled on the tabletop. “I am on your side, Avery! I made a different choice than you would have, because I care about you.”
“And I’m saying you shouldn’t.” I grabbed my bag and started out the front of the house. “You shouldn’t care about me anymore. Whatever it is we’ve been doing here—it’s over. We’re over.”
“Be careful,” Jack called from behind me after a second, his voice strained. “The hair doesn’t make you invisible. Stay hidden, and—”
I ground to a halt at the lacquered front door. “I told you to stop! Stop trying to protect me!”
Jack’s boots sounded on the tile, and then he turned the corner. “Avery! You can break up with me, but I can’t not care about you.”
“It’s not breaking up if we were never together in the first place,” I said, and slammed the door behind me.
• • •
I wasn’t crying. I was cried out. But my heart felt like it was about to explode, and I couldn’t sit still. I stomped down the residential street and sat at a bus stop, the cold metal of the lonely bench seeping through Colette’s dress and into my legs.
I was a mess. What was I doing? Even though it was getting dark, I put my sunglasses on and kept my head down, hoping I looked enough like a random punk kid that no one would give me a second glance. I was pretty sure I believed that Jack hadn’t told the Saxons we were here, but I couldn’t be certain. And the Circle had eyes everywhere.
I clutched at my bag in my lap like it was my last lifeline. For the first time in my life, I actually belonged somewhere, and yet I kept losing everyone I cared about. Mr. Emerson. My mom. Lydia and my father. Jack.
At least the Dauphins were upfront about it when they snatched me and tried to marry me off to Luc.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going back to the villa, but I had nowhere else to go. Without really thinking about it, I felt around in my bag for my phone.
I typed where are you and hit send.
I was already walking when the answer came back.
CHAPTER 27
At the bottom of the hill, a pedestrian walkway ran along the shore, dotted with cafes and restaurants and bars. I bypassed one that had dozens of cheerful yellow tables on the sidewalk and, glancing at my phone to confirm the address, pulled open a nondescript maroon door. Inside it was small and dark and warm and red—every bulb in the hanging chandeliers seemed to be crimson, and it gave the small bar the air of an elegant but dingy brothel.
I pushed my way between a couple laughing groups of kids a little older than me. Stellan was leaning at the other end of the bar, chatting to the bartender and another guy. I stomped up next to him and took whatever he was drinking out of his hand and took a big gulp, frowning when it turned out to be espresso.
“Hi?” he said, and I ignored the eyebrow raise at his companions, who quietly left us alone.
I put his cup back on the bar with more of a bang than I needed to. “What are you doing here?” I said.
“I wanted coffee.”
I looked around. “In a bar?”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “I thought you’d be glad I’d come here rather than having Colette make it for me.”
“I don’t care what you do with Colette. Why does everyone seem to think . . .” I almost said it out loud, but stopped myself in time. Why does everyone think you’re mine? I leaned on the bar, running my hands over my hair. Such a mess. I was such a mess. What was I even doing here?
Stellan looked over my shoulder toward the door. “Should I ask where your boyfriend-slash-bodyguard is?”
“I don’t care, as long as it’s not here.” I tried as hard as I could to make the not-caring part true.
Stellan raised an eyebrow.