In the Arms of the Elite (Rich Boys of Burberry Prep #4) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,101
rules to live by to make yourself feel better, and Tristan might find them cute, but to be quite frank, I don’t give a fuck. You can thank me later—I left the queen bee and her bitch for you to squash.”
Myron drags Lizzie toward the door and then pauses, glancing back at us.
I have a feeling I know what he’s going to say before he says it.
“Don’t come after her. I’m serious as a heart attack. I will fuck you up.”
“I won’t,” I promise, and I mean that.
I don’t need to go after Lizzie.
I have Tristan, the only thing she’s ever wanted. There’s nothing more to be done. But frankly, I’d rather not see her ever again.
Myron steers her out the door, and I wonder if he’ll relentlessly pursue her the way she did Tristan, drive her up the wall with his crazy. I hate to say it, but … I almost hope so? Is that bad karma?
“I didn’t want you to hit her or anything and get punched,” Miranda starts, trying way too hard to explain herself. I stop her by giving her a kiss on the cheek, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the high table for breakfast.
It takes me a minute to fully realize what Myron just said.
“Wait. Where are Abigail and Valentina?”
Abigail and Valentina do not come back to the academy after that day.
I don’t even have enough time to figure out what happened to them before Valentine’s Day rolls around. The boys do the rose thing like usual, but they also give me a necklace, one that I’m sure is obscenely expensive. I’d have turned it down if it didn’t come with its own story.
“It’s called the Idol’s Eye,” Creed tells me, and I notice that the center of the round necklace is a jewel that’s the same color as his eyes. It’s surrounded by small, clear diamonds and hanging on a delicate chain. “It’s been owned by presidents and princes, and it once disappeared for over three hundred years.”
“Bullshit,” I whisper, but you know me, I’m a history buff and I’m intrigued as hell. “He’s lying.” I look up and find Zack shaking his head.
“Not this time. The diamond is really that old. The last time it was ever in the public eye was in the eighties. It went missing after that. If you look it up online, it’s treated like an unsolvable mystery. The only thing that really happened is that the Infinity Club got ahold of it.”
“How did you guys get it?” I ask as Windsor takes the chain and unhooks it, carefully putting it around my neck and teasing my skin with his fingers as he hooks the clasp. He leans down to whisper against my ear.
“We won it in a bet, what else?” He stands up then as I finger the jewel and look between Zayd and Tristan. It’s been weeks since that horrible day in his apartment, when I found Lizzie in a blue bathrobe, and I swear, it’s like now that we’ve all been unlocked to each other, there’s an accelerant in the air.
Every day that passes, I want them more.
Every day that passes, I know that choosing just one of them would kill me.
I’m not going to be able to choose, am I? I think as we head outside to the garden party, and take up residence in one of the alcoves behind the hedges. Zack and Zayd fetch us all refreshments, and we stay there in the warm evening air until it gets dark and all the torches are lit.
Soft music filters over to us from the courtyard, and I experiment with what it’s like to kiss one boy after the other, a single kiss on the lips as a Valentine’s Day present. And when I say single kiss, I do mean like tongue and everything.
It’s exhilarating, to be quite honest. Makes me feel greedy, wanting them all like that. And yet, at the same time, I’m not ashamed by it either.
Not one bit.
“He did, what?” I’m sitting at the harp in the music room, my fingers poised over the strings as Tristan, Zack, and Creed stand in a half-circle around me. I feel so queasy, I might have to excuse myself to the bathroom.
“He beat the shit out of them both,” Creed says, his face tight. “And I don’t mean he just hit them. When he said he liked blood, he meant it. They both ended up with broken bones. That, and he burned