Her Royal Highness (Royals #2) - Rachel Hawkins Page 0,13
the desks, and for some reason, I decide to go ahead and claim that side of the room. That might endear me to my roommate, right? Picking the crappy side?
Pulling my suitcase all the way into the room, I sit on the little bed with its scratchy white sheets and green wool blanket.
I’ve done it. I’ve come to Scotland, and I’m here for the next year.
Before the enormity of what I’ve done can fully sink in, I whip out my phone, pulling up FaceTime to call Dad.
He answers almost immediately, and I grin with relief to see him there in the living room.
“You made it!” he enthuses, dark eyes crinkling at the corners, and I nod, spinning my phone around so he can see my room.
“Living it up in the lap of luxury, obviously,” I say, and Anna pops her head in.
“Oh my god, it’s so . . . quaint,” she says, raising her eyebrows, and I wave at her.
“If quaint means a little creepy and small, then yes!”
She frowns slightly, leaning closer to Dad’s phone. “Millie, if this isn’t—” she starts to say, but then the door to my room flies open again, thumping hard against my desk.
“No,” a voice insists. “This is not what was agreed to.”
A girl steps into the room followed by a man in a dark suit, and just for a second, my family and my phone are totally forgotten.
It’s not cool to stare, I know that, but this is literally the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.
She’s taller than I am, and her hair is gold. Like. Literally gold, like dark honey. It’s held back from her face with a thin headband, and that face . . .
I realize while looking at her that beauty is more than just the way your face is structured, the weird quirks of DNA and societal norms that make us say, “This nose is the best nose,” or “This is why I like this mouth,” or whatever. This girl has clearly won a genetic lottery, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not just that—it’s that she seems to glow. Her skin is so smooth and luminous I want to stroke her face like some kind of weirdo. I’m not sure she would even know what the word “pore” means. Does she follow one of those intense ten-step skin routines? Has she found magical sheet masks made of pearls?
Maybe this is just what being rich does to your face.
Because there’s no doubt this girl is also very, very rich. Her clothes are simple—a sweater and jeans tucked into high leather boots—but they practically smell like money. She smells like money.
Also, only rich people can curl their lips the way she’s currently doing at the guy in the suit who followed her in. Her dad? He looks a little young, plus it’s hard to imagine that a guy with heavy jowls and pockmarked skin could possibly be related to this actual angel of a girl, standing there with a Louis Vuitton bag in the crook of her elbow.
“Your mother—” the man starts, and she throws up her hands.
“Call her, then.”
“Pardon?” the man asks, his heavy brow wrinkling.
“Call my mother,” she repeats, her voice carrying just the softest Scottish burr. Her chin is lifted, and I can actually feel tension vibrating off her.
“We were told—” the man says on a sigh, but she’s not giving in.
“Call my mother.”
On my phone, Dad scowls. “Everything okay?” he asks, and I glance back at my new roommate, still imperiously repeating “Call my mother” every time the man tries to speak. And now I realize he’s pulled his phone out, I assume to call her mother, and she’s still saying it, over and over again, like a toddler.
“Call my mother. Call my mother. Call. My. Mother.”
Maybe it’s jet lag. Maybe it’s the weird, weightless feeling in my stomach that started the moment I walked into the school and the massive change I’d made has fully sunk in.
But I turn to look over at her, and before I can think better of it, I hear myself say, “Hey. Veruca Salt.”
Her lips part slightly, eyebrows going up as she stares at me. “Pardon?”
I’ve never wanted to pull words back into my mouth so badly. Lee was right about me not liking confrontation—it’s pretty much my least favorite thing, right there underneath mayonnaise and jazz music. But something about how this girl is talking just . . . bugged me.