Chapter 7: Testing and Toying

Lyra's POV

I stopped in the Marlowes' entryway. "Don't trouble yourself. I'll call a car."

Then I turned and said goodnight to Mr. and Mrs. Marlowe, and didn't leave one extra word behind me.

I'd turned Xavier down because Vivian was standing right there. To the Marlowes I'm the cool one — the studious one — the roommate Vivian dragged home from school who doesn't know how to work a room. You don't go after a girl's cousin in her own family's house.

And the truth underneath all of it: Xavier unnerves me.

The picture had come up the second we shook hands, and I still wasn't sure what it was supposed to tell me.

Was Xavier going to have me and then throw me away?

Men with that kind of money and power do play sick games sometimes. The rich heir falls for the poor girl, waits until she's in love, then drops her — just to watch her come apart.

A low horn cut through it. My thoughts scattered — I flinched, head snapping toward the sound — and then Xavier's voice was at my ear.

"Miss Valente. Let me drive you. Back to St. Jude? I'm going that way anyway."

Xavier's window came down and the car drew level with me, slow. He turned his head and looked at me smiling.

Something smiled inside me too. The refusal had been a test — if he wanted anything, he'd follow. He'd followed. That bought me some footing.

On my face, I put hesitation and nothing else. "Wouldn't it be a bother? I'll just call a car."

He laughed, pushed his door open, walked around, and opened mine. "You won't find a car out here at this hour. Get in — I'm going that way regardless."

The reason was so complete that getting in was the only thing left that counted as polite.

I bent and slid in. He put a hand up to shield the top of the doorframe while I did. Small gesture. I gave it exactly the right amount of being startled by the kindness, no more — and my green little reaction clearly landed, because as he came back around the car, the lines in his face loosened.

I let my eyes move across the interior. Next to Vivian's convertible, Xavier's black sedan was understated almost to the point of being studied — not one detail in it explaining what it cost.

The car turned for the estate gate. The bar came up slowly.

"Ms. Valente. You and Vivian close?" he asked.

I came back up to the surface and lifted a smile. "Vivian and I get along. Just call me Lyra."

"After graduation — the art world, or finance at some firm?"

I shook my head and put a little trouble on my face. "Haven't decided. I added the finance minor back in sophomore year and I still can't say — the appraisal side, or institutional. I keep going back and forth."

I know how much men like to play mentor. Half of that hesitation was real.

He glanced over — the slight furrow, the pressed lips, that seriousness showing through the confusion. His hand tightened on the wheel, and he didn't take the opening to lecture me.

"No rush. You've still got your last semester. Take it slow. If there's anything I can help with, reach out whenever. Any friend of Vivian's is a friend of mine."

Well placed and close at the same time, with a faint flirtation threaded under it like warm mist filling the car.

I dropped my head and let my voice go soft. "Thank you."

A man at his level sorts people into two drawers: genuinely clean and innocent, or too ambitious and holding out for the best offer. He was moving me back and forth between them, taking his time about which one I'd end up in.

He tapped the wheel with two fingers, as if it had just occurred to him. "That girl Vivian. She hasn't given you too much trouble, has she?"

"Of course not." I turned my face to him and let the tone go soft and honest. "Vivian looks after me, actually."

He laughed low, nothing readable in it, and turned his head. "I've watched that temper since we were kids. Not many people can put up with her."

I lowered my lashes and smiled. "I've got a little brother at home. He's at the peak holy-terror age."

Meaning: Vivian's temper is nothing to me.

Then I brought my eyes up clear and put three parts mischief in my voice. "You, running Vivian down like that — I'm telling her."

He blinked, then laughed at the slyness of it, and whatever examination had been running dissolved into that half-true tattle.

The car slipped back into the flow, and he picked the thread up as if he hadn't been the one testing. "Then I'll have to bribe you properly. If Vivian hears about this, my ears won't know peace again. Go on. What do you want?"

I didn't answer straight away. Light came in the side window. His throat moved once. I moved my eyes back to the road and let the question hang in the car with us.

St. Jude came up quickly. He looked at the gate. "Drop you at your dorm?"

I shook my head, innocent about it. "The school doesn't let unfamiliar cars on campus."

An eyebrow went up. "That's easy enough."

I didn't doubt it for a second. The rule is real — the gatehouse keeps a sheet — and Vivian's car has been on that sheet since our first week. Still, I pushed the door open, bent toward him, and gave the car a bright smile.

"Thank you for the ride. I'll walk in. It's late — drive safe."

Before I crossed the gate I looked back once. His car hadn't moved. The lights were on, and he was sitting inside, watching the direction I'd gone.

The moment I turned, the smile came off my face.

I'd been in a hurry to get out at the gate because I didn't want Xavier coming around the car to open my door a second time.

I can't have the others seeing.

I walked to the dorm replaying it. Would it have gone better to pretend I hadn't caught the test at all? Answering it that completely made it read like I'd had the answer ready.

The dorm was empty. I washed up fast, got into bed, and felt how tired I was.

I picked my phone off the nightstand and opened the thread. His side was still blank. No message.

Out of politeness I ought to send something. Did you get home. A girl who was raised right would send it.

My thumb hovered over the box, and then I backed out and closed it.

---

First year at St. Jude it was student loans going out, and all I had left to solve was living expenses. Nora and I went looking for tutoring work together. The woman of the house took one look at the two of us and waved us off, polite, before we got a sentence out.

Nora's suggestion afterward was modeling — pays a lot more than tutoring.

I frowned at her. "Model" is already used up in that industry, and to most people it means about the same thing as "escort." I'd rather grind than have "St. Jude honors student modeling on the side" going around.

I can't read Xavier. Either way he's a windfall, and I'm not anxious — worst case, Philip Hale is the floor under everything.

That thought put the ground back under me.

Windfalls aren't plans, though. The plan has a name, and I've been carrying it since before St. Jude.

St. Jude lets a student with a clean record in the major start stacking evening, weekend, and summer credits early, in exchange for a minor or a second major. Art history with a finance minor is a common pairing, and the school runs separate sections for that group at night. I took the credits the day I got here, and by sophomore spring the minor was on my record.

That's the paperwork.

What the paperwork doesn't do is put the weight where a finance major's weight sits. I don't want a résumé that says "versatile."

So this year I went to the finance department in person and asked to audit the major's own core sequence. That request gets turned down for most people. Mine went through in four days.

Because my target in that department — the quarry I started planning before I had a plan — is Damian Quinn.

Quinn Group still carries his mother's name. Nobody has to teach me the rules of that circle; I learned them from the outside looking in, years ago. Where the power ends up is already decided. Of everyone currently within my reach, he sits highest.

And he's the lowest difficulty rating on the board.

Highest seat, easiest door. That isn't a contradiction. It's the whole reason he's the target.

Damian barely comes to campus, and he skips class whenever it suits him. But from what I've pieced together, there's one he actually shows up to: Professor Thorne's International Finance.

Which means a room I can find him in.