Through His Veins

By Deanna Morgado

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To the naked eye, Addi Clara lives the privileged life. A big house and a prestigious city to live in, a promised seat at her mother and father's company after she graduates and goes to college, and a circle of friends that have the looks and money to make things happen . The high life served to her. But she wants and sees none of it. Instead, Addi sees a best friend who doesn't quite understand, an ex-boyfriend whom she can't trust, and her parents who are forcing her to give up her passion and dedication for painting and go to a college she has no interest in after leaving high school so she can take part in their medical company. Addi is about a road with blinders on until her world is flipped upside down when she not so politely encounters a rather handsome boy named Dean in French class. Not only does his shockingly beautiful green eyes send Addi into a state of awe, but they hide a malicious past that Dean's kept secret to everyone outside his family for years. And despite his tries, Dean can't stay away from her. And Addi can't hide the love that slowly emerges. Soon what the two have becomes inescapable and Dean can no longer conceal his secrets from Addi. But with the secret on her tongue and Dean's love in her heart, Addi becomes vulnerable to certain death neither she or Dean saw coming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 8, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452075556

Deanna Morgado

At sixteen, Deanna never thought she'd be publishing her first novel. But here you are, reading her words. One of the things she wants most is to have the power to make her words enjoyable and addicting. Perhaps this is your first dosage, hopefully not the last. Deanna lives in Benicia, CA.

Book preview

© 2009 Deanna Morgado. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 6/1/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4389-5560-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-7555-6 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Dedicated to a person who shall remain anonymous; for if it wasn’t for that said person’s cruel and rash words, this story may have never been written.

Acknowledgments

To most people in my life the writing of this book went on in secrecy. However, that doesn’t erase the loads of thanks I owe to a lot of wonderful beings. To the two people who actually had a hint and went with me through some of the mess of this book, Camille and Molly— my two very best friends, you guys did so much for me from being the first souls to know about the completion of the first chapter down to helping me choose a binding size. And to Emily, who also got a sneak peek since I made the mistake of leaving your laptop open and gave you free range of my work. My parents, in the end I did this to make you guys proud. To the super awesome band that goes by OneRepublic who, without even knowing it, gifted me so much inspiration. And I must give thanks to everyone who enjoys this story.

Contents

Acknowledgments

One: To Change Forever

Two: The Silent Figure

Three: When in French

Four: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Five: Strength of Suspicions

Six: Shallow Miseries

Seven: In Love and War

Eight: Waiting For the Rain

Nine: Dangerous Attempts

Ten: Sharpened Awareness

Eleven: The Lake

Twelve: Strumming Secrets

Thirteen: Scary Stories

Fourteen: Blueberry Oatmeal Surprise

Fifteen: Cautious Greetings

Sixteen: Shopping Spree

Seventeen: Interrogations

Eighteen: The Surprise

Nineteen: Unwelcomed

Twenty: Painted Confessions

Twenty One: Restless

Twenty Two: Disturbed

Twenty Three: Truth or Dare

Twenty Four: Curiosity

Twenty Five: Room 204

Twenty Six: Marcy vs. Mercy

Twenty Seven: Forewarning

Twenty Eight: Tower of Secrets

Twenty Nine: Fire Breathing Damsel

Thirty: Creature in the Hall

Thirty One: Childs Play

Thirty Two: Unforgettable Amnesia

Thirty Three: The Curly Haired Girl in the Red Dress

Thirty Four: Reminiscent Merry-Go-Round

Epilogue: Locked Acceptance

Prologue

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

WILLIAM SHAKESPERE, OTHELLO

It was her who was left for last. Not so much intentionally, but her arrival was delayed and her warning earlier had came all but too late. The woman’s knees buckled and her ankles shook with exhausted fear. She held out her hand as she slowly tried to back away. What are you doing? Put it down, she cried helplessly. Please, put it down. Where she inched next on the hard floor she slipped slightly. Although already knowing what was beneath her feet, she just couldn’t help but tilt her head down at the spilt blood that’d made its way across the floor. The desire to double over and vomit from the sight and chaos pulled at her stomach, but the longing to go and see if there was any chance she’d feel a pulse was almost impossible to bear. Devastation, however, kept her feet wading in the pool. She looked back up and the rest of her heart shattered at what she saw. What’s happened to you? she asked, the choking tears made her sad voice sound limp. But she knew it was hopeless.

And the trigger was pulled for the second time.

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His eyes shoot open, pupils wide and dilated. The reminiscent sound of the shot echoes in his ears and head as he wakes from the dream. His unveiled body shivers, covered in a cold sweat.

One: To Change Forever

Ugh! I curse under my breath. Not that anyone can hear me, everyone’s too busy honking and screaming at me. C’mon baby. Start! My voice starts to rise. My 1978 Toyota pickup has broken down yet again on the highway to my high school, at the same time blocking most of the fast lane and its drivers on their way to work. In the Northern Californian city of which I live in, we the population definitely are not the most tolerable of others who get in the way of the making of their money. Not that anyone who can afford to live here has a problem with their finances and incomes. But they would have a problem with the one person who gets in the way of their progress. And this morning, that person just so happens to be me. We don’t even have a mile left to go, I whine to my truck.  —Yeah! Sorry, mister! I scream after a barreling BMW honks, screeches, and swerves out of the way of me.

You need some help, Adeline? an aged masculine voice asks above all the chaos. When I turn my head to the voice, I see it’s my father’s co-worker from his office, Mr. Something-or-other.  He pulls beside me in his shiny silver Maserati that glistens through the peeping morning sunlight. I met him about three years ago; I could only remember him now because of his brown, now beginning to gray goatee that looks like a muskrat nested on his mouth. But who is noticing?

No, thank you. I think she’s about ready to start, is my shy reply. Even though I honestly have no idea when my poor truck will start again. With only a slight nod and smile, Mr. Whatever speeds off. More honks and screams (and a few fingers) continue. 

The first bell rang three minutes ago already. I only have two minutes before I get yet another tardy by my French 3 teacher, Madame Cappette, or Mrs. C. She never has liked me.

One more tardy, Miss Adeline Clara, and I will fail you, Mrs. C. had once said. I thought it was a little hasty, it’s only December and I’ve only been tardy about eight times…or perhaps nine.

Finally, with only about thirty seconds till the final bell, my truck roars and moans to life. Smiling triumphantly to myself, I pull into the slow lane which continues to the exit to the school, coughing up a trail of murky exhaust smoke as my trail. 

It takes my truck pushing as fast as she is able to go (about 50, 55 maybe), me sprinting up to the red bricked school, and then knocking down some girl’s books after running into her, but I get into French 3 with Mrs. C, non-tardy. See Mrs. C. mark me tardy now! Ha! I’m smug all the way to the back of the classroom where I find my seat. That’s where I also find my best friend, Rayne, in the desk beside mine.

That was close, I half-whisper to her, taking my seat. My breath is ragged and I try to catch it. Ya think? What happened this time? Rayne asks, waiting for my excuse this morning.

My truck broke down on the highway.

Again?  Rayne rolls her eyes. She’s right though, this wasn’t the first time it was my truck’s fault I was late to school, and home, and basically anywhere else I was driving her to….

Yeah. But you wouldn’t believe the jerks who were yelling at me! I try to keep my voice low since class has already started.

I really think it’s time that you get a new car, Addi, Rayne pushes.

"No way, I could never give up my truck. I don’t need anything, especially a car." Cars just aren’t me. I like big ol’ 4x4 trucks. That’s pretty different with all the new Ferraris, Maseratis, BMWs, and every other fancy-pant-unnecessarily-fast car around here. Nope. My truck is staying with me where she belongs.

Are you sure? You know your dad would buy you a new anything probably if you just get rid of your pickup. It’s true. Nobody shares my love for my truck like I do, especially my parents. They don’t really share any of my loves.

I’m sure, I promise. No fancy new cars for me. My truck will be all right, she always has been.

She…, Rayne mutters before returning to her work. 

That’s the end of our new car conversation. It’s on to French now, what it should have been since I entered the class. It isn’t that I don’t try at French, really I do. But how can you be expected to practically be fluent in a language that doesn’t even use the alphabet the same way? I can’t fit two different sounding alphabets in my head! I have other classes too, like algebra 2, history, oceanography, English, (which is after lunch) and finally art class—all to fit in my head. Every class, everyday including today, is always a blur. All classes but art, which is really the only reason I ever show up for school. I love art, well painting mostly. Give me a canvas and paint and I am the happiest I can be. But I figure it wouldn’t really be accepted by my friends or family so I keep my art to myself.

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Once the day ends and I make it back to the parking lot, I decide to check under the hood of my truck. A semester sophomore year in auto-shop should have taught me something, right? Two years couldn’t make me forget everything I learned. Right? Wrong. I close the hood just as soon as it’s opened. Where the thick gross soot stops and the actual parts start I can’t even tell. Well, there goes that option. I climb into the driver’s seat.

I make it home without a breakdown or any type of glitch on my truck’s side. After I cut the engine, but before I climb out, I look long and hard at the house I have lived in the past sixteen, almost seventeen years. It looks just like all the other houses on this street: big, two stories, longer width wise than height, painted a white with faded blue trim; just another house. The building never really screamed home like most people would think of their own. Inside, it shows me nothing but empty, lonely, and bleakness; only filled with high priced furniture and wall hangings of people with hollow smiles.

My books landing on the dining table echoes through the downstairs as I head for the kitchen. With almost no walls after the entryway in the house, you can see basically everything on the ground floor. Everything is open, which, I have to admit, is a little more welcoming. That’s what I have always and only liked of this house. But the hard and way-too-well-kept wooden floors and bland or icy colors on the walls makes the house give off a cold shoulder ambiance. It doesn’t want me here anymore than I want to be. Having a big beautiful house isn’t my issue here. But what happens between the people inside the house.

After grabbing a bottle of water and a Lays mini bag, I make it back to the table and start my homework.

I am always home alone in the morning before school, until about six o’clock in the evening. Around that time is when both my parents come home.  I’m sketching my latest painting idea at the same table when I hear them come in. 

Bill and Meredith Clara: my parents. Married for who knows how long, and from how they look now, unhappy for most of those some odd years. They’ve never acted like two people in love; they’ve acted as business partners from what I’ve seen. That’s what they are anyway, business partners. My father owns a wide chain of emergency hospitals all around the California coast. Both my father and mother inherited the company from my father’s father after his death. I believe that after my parents graduated from medical school and got married a few years later they both worked at one of the hospitals, not as regular doctors at first, but right behind my grandfather as part of the head team in charge of the well-being of every hospital in the chain. Their exact tasks at work, I have no clue. But now my father is the owner and my mother works right below him. Both make the basic amount of money and do basically the same thing. But they’re not partners in marriage or partners in raising three children, just in business. 

Hello, dear, my mother says absently as she rushes upstairs.

Adeline, is my father’s only acknowledgment to me as he makes his way to the fridge. I wish he’d call me Addi like everyone else, even Meredith does from time to time.

Hey, Dad, are you and Mom going out tonight? It’s a routine question I have asked every evening for five or six years since I was eleven. Even though Bill and Meredith were off work at six, they still have business parties or get-togethers, or had to plan business parties or get-togethers. Since it is only Monday and they just had a party on Saturday I guess they are only planning tonight.

Yes, we are helping some colleagues with a business gathering they are having this Friday. Ding! Ding! Twenty points for me.

You can handle dinner on your own tonight can’t you, Adeline? Meredith asks, coming down the spiral stair case in the far left of the rooms. That was yet another routine question asked by one or the other parent almost every night, but since I was thirteen instead, after I learned how to cook.

Yeah, Mom, I’ll be fine, I say, matching her absent tone as I return back to my sketch.

Well, what’s this? Bill comes up behind me and catches my sketch before I quickly flip to a blank page.

Nothing. I fiddle with other papers to hide the sketch book. Just an assignment for art class, I add lamely.

For art class? My father has always thought of art as a useless skill and an even more useless career.

Yes, for art class. I’m barely whispering when I say, I like art, Dad.

Now you don’t need art, Adeline, you need to get your head in those school books. He points to the ones closed and spread out across the table.  Have you looked into anymore medical schools? You shouldn’t wait till the last minute, he scolds.

Not today.

Well, you better start. My youngest daughter will not be the only one in the family that doesn’t go to college and get a medical degree. 

I am going to college, Dad, I tell him, getting rather agitated. I’m just not sure if I want to study medicine…. 

What? He’s ready to start a firm half yelling, half dictating lecture; which is fully annoying.

I meant that I’m not sure what I want to study, I lie. I know what I wanted to study, art. But that’s a debate I am not prepared to give.

Well, you better get sure, now. Your mother, your brother, your sister, and I all went to school to work at your grandfather’s association. We all know our own path. You better get on yours. He has a very intimidating look in his muddy eyes. His jaw is tight, lips a hard line.

Okay, I squeak. Standing up to my father is no easy task, and me being a big fat chicken is no help either.

Shall we go, Bill? I don’t want to be home too late, Meredith finally intervenes. That would have been helpful just three minutes ago, Meri! We’ll be back later, Addi, she adds.

I make no reply. Once they’ve left and the sound of Meri’s Porsche is not to be heard, I rise from the table. That was the first time I have actually slightly disagreed with my father about school. Only slightly disagreeing made him that upset? Sure, even my two older siblings Seth and Alissa went to medical school. They also have the lives I most certainly do not want. Both are out of school, wealthy with some help from Bill and Meri, and both with dysfunctional marriages. They are two clones of our parents’ lives. And I cannot let that happen to me. It isn’t just the career all four of them have chosen, it’s their marriages too. Seth is married to a much younger girl than his thirty-three years named Rhonda, and he never shows it publicly but I’ve heard him get so infuriated with her that he wouldn’t come back to her until the wee hours of the morning. How can he be married to someone he is just plain annoyed with all the time? As for Alissa, she married quite young, about twenty-two or three, not something my parents completely approve of. Shawn isn’t that bad, except the fact that he has cheated on Alissa all the four years they were together and Alissa highly suspects he still is. Alissa may not be as romantic as a female version of Rico Suave but she doesn’t deserve a cheating slime ball like Shawn. The Clara family is cursed with bad marriages. And I do not want to fall into that curse. 

I’m still standing beside my chair when a shrilling ringing makes me jump. It is my cell phone ringing and vibrating across the table, the very few times I actually have it. I pick it up and read the caller ID: Ryan.

What does my supposed boyfriend want? I haven’t talked to him since he told me about his so called innocent encounter with the school’s boyfriend stealer, Hailey Ronden. Supposedly, Hailey threw a party about two weekends ago and invited Ryan, but not me. If Ryan had told me I never would have thought anything of it and let Ryan go by himself, (I had trust in the scum bag at the time.)  But, it had just so happened that it was a party for two, and the party was happening in their pants, and Ryan just couldn’t help himself. The hell he couldn’t! He didn’t even have the guts to tell me until a week later. And he hasn’t spoken to me until now, a whole other week later! To keep myself from throwing my phone out the window, I have to answer it. Indifference, I tell myself, act indifferent.

Hello? I’m a little too excited to hear his voice.

Addi! I am so glad that you answered, baby.

Yeah? This encouraging is not indifference!

Of course. When you didn’t call me a few days after our…discussion about what happened a few weeks ago I decided to give you some time to cool off.

Oh, well that was very sensitive of you. No! No! No! It certainly was not.

I know. Even on the phone he can sound haughty. Look, he continues. I don’t want whatever happened between me and Hailey to ruin what we had. What we had was great, Addi.

Yes, it was. No it wasn’t.

Yeah, well I was hoping we could start over?

Psh, in your dreams. I think that’d be okay. Huh?! Who was saying that? Not me.

Great. I’ll see you tomorrow at school then, baby.

Yeah, okay. Stop it! Stop! Stop! He’s scum! I will not see him tomorrow! Stop him. Wait.

Yeah?

Phew. Okay, I just have to explain it to him slowly and clearly that I can’t, and it’s over. But how do I do that? I’ve never dumped anyone before. Ryan was my first boyfriend. I just have to tell him how I feel. I feel…I feel…

Addi? Ryan asks. Oops, I’ve been thinking too long. Okay, here it goes.

I can’t, Ryan. That was a start.

Can’t what?

I can’t see you tomorrow, or ever. And I do not want to start over. Yes!

But why?  He is truly confused. He never has been the brightest boy. Being the star baseball player at our high school, he spends all his thinking time about baseball, baseball, and baseball. 

Because you cheated on me! I blurt out.

There’s a sound of deep sighing and then Ryan mutters, I thought we worked through this.

No. We haven’t. The blood is rushing to my cheeks from the anger. I get more confident by the second, I can do this. Ryan, we can’t start over because we’ll end up going through this whole thing again. I am sure of that.

We won’t, Addi, I promise, please, he begs.

No.

But… he begins.

No, I’m going now. Goodbye, Ryan.

I’ll talk to you in a little while to see how you’re feeling, he slips in rapidly and hangs up before I’m able to protest.

Ugh! I yell aloud, slamming my phone back down to the table. How could he be the one to come out on top when I was dumping him?! A new level of anger in me creates my body to tremble. I need to paint. Painting is something that always helps with my mood.

I stomp up the spiraling stairs and down the hall, through the farthest door to the right, and into the room that is called mine. Underneath my bed there’s a drawer. In the light drawer are hard, white muslin surfaces I use to paint on, and beneath those are a few different colored paints and brushes. I never know what I will paint. It depends on my emotion felt at the time. And I feel a lot of red and black scattered abstractly across the hard surface right now. Up and down the black merges and collides with the pulsing red. The muslin takes the color and shoots its vibrancy back to me. The collision of colors scratches the surface and gives the picture a rough, textured look. I continue this pattern, concentrating hard on the strokes and the colors; I do this until I can’t hold my eyelids up long enough to see.

Two: The Silent Figure

Staying up late is never good for me. I get too tired the next day and I always forget to turn my alarm on for school at seven o’clock. This morning I wake up slouched over my red and black painting, and at seven forty eight. This is bad; it takes me at least a half hour to shower, dress, and get everything else together, and it takes me another fifteen minutes to get to school. Eleven minutes is all I have now until I get my next tardy in French, which would be the tardy that will convince Mrs. C. to fail me.

I get into my truck dressed, with teeth and hair brushed at seven fifty five. I really have to push my truck today, and I pray as hard as I can that we won’t have another breakdown. Not this morning.

Five minutes, I tell myself as I pull away from the curb and slam my foot onto the gas. My truck whines all the way down the streets, probably waking anybody who’s still been sleeping warmly. When merging onto the highway, the bottom of my right foot is nearly touching the ground through the gas pedal; my truck grunts with even more objection. Two minutes. 

Come on, don’t do this! I yell through my teeth to my truck. Some might say that my talking to my truck isn’t normal, but who can be normal when they’re on their way to failing their French class? Finally, the highway exit to my school comes to sight. I don’t even have a minute.

Waking up late sends me running down the same halls, and I think almost running into the same girl as I did the previous day. But this time, the final bell rings right before I have my fingertips on the door handle; however, the fact that I’ve just been sprinting harder than I have before in my life, I can’t bring my feet to a halt right away.

I’m here! I exclaim breathlessly as I trip and almost fall straight into Mrs. C’s classroom’s faded brown carpet.

Well, isn’t that nice, Miss Clara, Mrs. C. replies coldly over the groggy laughs and giggles that fly throughout the class. You’re late. I told you that you’d receive only one more tardy, Adeline.

What? But I woke up late…and I…you…you can’t fail me. Please! I stammer, gasping for the lost air in my lungs.

Take your seat, Adeline. Mrs. C.’s face is firm and still as stone. We’ll discuss this later, she mutters to me as I pass. 

With just a bow of my head, I obey. There’s just one problem, I notice as I am making my way to the back of the classroom. Someone is already sitting at my desk.

Um…you’re kind of in my seat…, I hint politely to the bowed perfectly tousled haired someone. But wait, that isn’t just a someone, I notice as he raises his head to face the person who was addressing him. He is a someone, a good-looking someone too. I can’t help but gape as he raises his head and looks up at me square in the face. My mouth slightly pops open in wowed astonishment and I have to fight to keep it closed as he continues to stare at me. His light emerald green eyes that are faintly shadowed by his sandy hair burns into my own brown with the intensity of a gunshot. He’s just a little bit paler than I, his thinly pink lips slightly part as if he’s going to say something but if he is, he’s cut off.

Oh yes, Adeline, I hear Mrs. C.’s voice come from a distant cloud somewhere. When I thought you wouldn’t be in today I just gave Monsieur Dean here, a new student, your seat. But since you are here. She finally approaches us and breaks my fixed stare. My teacher’s eyes are on Monsieur Dean. I guess you can just move one back, Monsieur. Monsieur Dean says nothing, and with a quick glance pass me, he gets up and moves to the empty desk behind mine, as graceful as a dancing swan. With a quick deep and staggered breath to recollect myself, I sit down. Not so fast, Addi, Mrs. C. continues. Did you do the homework last night? It’s supposed to be a question, but the expression on my teacher’s face says there’s only one right answer.

Homework? I repeat, a bit dazed.

Yes. The ten sentences describing whatever you’d like, it was very simple, even you should have been able to do it, she jabs acidly.

Oh. Right. I did. It’s not really completely lying, I have three done. The sentences being in proper French is what I might have to lie about.

Then you wouldn’t mind presenting about five of them to the class would you?

Can’t I just present two or three instead? I gripe.

Five, Mrs. C. repeats firmly.

With a heavy sigh, I get out my paper that is now crinkled and a little torn around the edges from me shoving it and everything else into my book bag this morning. The light paper with my poor scribbles on it shakes in my hands as I stand by my desk, look around the room, except behind me, and begin.

"La semaine…dernière…je…suis allé…au magasin d’alimentation. Translation: I went to the grocery store. A little choppy and stumbled but so far so good. I continue to the next sentence. Je n’a pas eu de le…um…milk…dans ma…house. Uh-oh. Smiles and quiet snickers start coming from across the room. With a nervous laugh to Mrs. C., I continue on to my last written sentence. Cela…is why…j’eu à…had to go…au…store." Shoot. I’ve just sent one of the most beautiful languages through the guillotine. It takes me a minute to actually look at Mrs. C.’s face. It doesn’t look so good.

Is that all you wrote? she asks calmly.

Yes. I reposition my eyes at my shoes.

Monsieur Dean. Mrs. C directs her attention to the silent figure behind me. He must have only looked up because I hear no sound come from behind my frozen body. I have decided to make the project I assigned you earlier to help you catch up with the rest of the class, a partner project. Miss Clara. She’s talking to me now. If you would please discuss with Monsieur Dean what the project I have given is sometime during the day, I am sure he will help you catch up, but for now take your seat so I can get to the rest of my class.

I nod slightly and quietly sit down. What has just happened? Was I really just partnered with Monsieur Dean? Whoever he is.

Wow that was brutal, Rayne giggles to me as Mrs. C. turns her back to the board and begins talking. I don’t reply right away. Addi?

Yeah, definitely, I say after I’ve gathered any dignity that’s left back up. You’ll never guess who called me last night. I try changing the subject.

Who? She’s distracted well enough now. I give her a look indicating You-should-know-who.

Ryan? Ryan called you? What did he say? Rayne leans in closely.

He wanted to ‘start over,’ I start, rolling my eyes at the memory.

So you two are back together. A smile spreads across Rayne’s face along with her assumption.

No, I reply curtly. I dumped him; at least I think I did, I add thoughtfully.

What do you mean, ‘I think’? Rayne doesn’t see being cheated on a very good reason to break up with Ryan, who, in her and just about every other girl’s opinion is the hottest and wealthiest guy in the city. And that last part is basically true; Ryan’s family owns some odd number of lawyer firms around the western U.S. and that definitely assures Ryan and the rest of his family the title of Wealthiest and Most Good Looking Family Ever.

I mean I will be dumping him if he didn’t get the message last night, I clarify grimly.

Rayne’s jaw drops. Why would you want to do that?

He cheated on me, I whisper. Is that not reason enough?

But he said he was sorry and wanted you back, right?

Yeah, but―

Isn’t that reason enough to take him back then? she retorts, pleased with her argument. He has taken care of you for the past like month. He was sweet and caring…. She’s pushing it. And she would have gone on about how good Ryan was if not for an interruption from the back.

…and he cheated on her. Both Rayne and I turn our heads to the till now, unspoken figure in the desk behind me.

Rayne is the first to speak. Excuse me? This stranger’s face seems to have my eyes locked in so I don’t see Rayne’s face, but she sounds highly offended. No one interrupts Rayne Beceau. As for the face I am looking at, Monsieur Dean’s is highly serene while staring down in Rayne’s direction.

Well, he cheated on you, right? He directs his green eyes at me. I lean away slightly from their glowing intensity. My brain feels like it’s melting as I watch them dance while he speaks. If it was me, with a girlfriend of course, he quickly adds. I wouldn’t take it and end it before they could do it again.

And who asked you to interfere? Rayne’s snappiness makes both Monsieur Dean and I turn to her.

It really isn’t that important, I mend. He laughs and shakes his head to himself. 

That catches my attention and makes me curious. What?

Nothing. He chuckles again.

What are you laughing at? I push.

You’re going to go back to him. It wasn’t a question.

And what makes you so sure? I challenge.

I know your type of girl, he says as if to assure me.

It doesn’t. Well, it really isn’t any of your damn business, I snap. Who is he to tell me what I’ll do?

You’re right, he agrees. It is none of my business, but I think I have a right to interfere when the conversation at hand is getting too predictable. My face becomes warm from my cheeks filling with color as I stare at his still wonderfully composed face. I have the strongest urge to just stick my tongue out at