"You know I can't sleep without your dad cuddled up beside me."

Brooke manages to make it down the steps without tripping. She comes up to us, and I sigh when I glimpse her alcohol-glazed eyes. Callum is a pro when it comes to drinking, but this is the first time I've seen Brooke drunk.

"Where's Callum?" I reach a hand out to steady her.

"He went to the office," she whines. "On Sunday night. He said there was an emergency he had to handle."

I can't help but feel a pang of sympathy. It's so obvious that Callum is not at all invested in his relationship with Brooke, and equally obvious that she wants so badly for him to love her. I feel bad for her.

"I didn't realize banging your secretary was considered an emergency," Reed says mockingly.

Her eyes laser toward Reed. I take a protective step toward him. "Let me take you inside," I tell Brooke. "To the living room. I'll get you a blanket and-"

She jerks out of my grip. "Are you the lady of the house now?" Her voice is reaching shrilly levels. "Because you're a fool if you think that you'll be anything to these Royals. And you-" she turns with a wild light in her eyes toward Reed, "-you'd better stop talking to me like that."

The retort that I was sure Reed would spit back never comes. I cast a questioning glance toward him, but he's gone. His expression is closed down, almost vacant.

"I'm going to be your mother someday. You should learn to be nicer to me." Brooke takes an unsteady step forward and strokes her manicured nails down his cheek.

He flinches and then pries Brooke's hand off him. "I'll be dead first."

He shoves past her and heads for the French doors. I hurry after him, leaving Callum's girlfriend on the patio.

This time I'm the one calling after him. "Reed."

He stops in front of the stairs in the kitchen. "What?"

"What...what were you going to say before Brooke interrupted us?"

His head turns. Blue eyes hard with malice peer back at me. "Nothing," he mutters. "Absolutely nothing."

Behind me I hear a crash. I want nothing more than to chase after Reed, but Brooke can't be left alone, drunk by the pool.

I hurry back to her side, where I find her staggering precariously close to the edge of the water. "Come on, Brooke." I tug on her arm. This time she follows docilely, leaning her slight weight against me.

"They're all terrible," she weeps. "You need to stay away from them, just to protect yourself."

"It's going to be okay. Do you want to go upstairs or is the living room all right?"

"With the ghost of Maria staring at me?" Brooke shudders. "She's here. Always here. When I'm in charge, we're moving. We're razing this house to the ground and eradicating Maria."

That sounds unlikely. I lead her, half carrying, half dragging her into the living room where, yep, there's a portrait of Maria over the fireplace. Brooke holds her fingers up in the sign of the cross as we pass in front of it.

I have to swallow a laugh at the ridiculousness of this. The living room is actually a long room that runs along the front of the house. There are two seating areas so I pull Brooke to the second set that is closer to the window and farther away from the portrait of Maria.

She gratefully sinks onto the sofa, bending her knees and tucking her hands under her cheek. Her tears have smeared her makeup and she looks like a tragic doll, like one of the strippers who's so sure that the rich man who gives her the hundred-dollar tip is going to return and sweep her away. Of course, he doesn't. He's just using her.

"Brooke, if being with Callum hurts you like this, why do you stay?"

"Do you really think there's any man out there who won't hurt you? That's what men do, Ella. They hurt you." Her hand shoots out to grip my wrist. "You should get away from here. These Royals will ruin you."

"Maybe I want to be ruined," I say lightly.

She lets me go, pulling her hand back, retreating inside herself. "No one wants to be ruined. We all want to be saved."

"There has to be at least one decent guy out there."

That makes her laugh. Hysterically. And the laughter just keeps going and going.

I leave her to it, heading upstairs with the sound of her giggles tickling my back, this woman who honestly doesn't believe she can find a man who doesn't hurt her.

Why that conviction feels like she scraped a knife down my spine, I don't know.

21.

Reed doesn't drive me to work the next morning. He's already left for football practice when I step out of the house, and I'm not surprised. I'm pretty sure that the last thing he expected to get from me last night was a truce offering. Which means he's probably on his way to school right now, obsessing about whether or not my apology was just another trick.

It wasn't, though. I'm sticking to the decision I made yesterday. I'm done antagonizing the Royals.

I take the bus to the bakery and work alongside Lucy for the next three hours, then walk over to school and duck into the bathroom to change into my uniform.

When I exit the ladies' room, I bump into the girl Easton was supposedly dating before. Claire, I think.

The second she sees me, her mouth pinches in a tight line. Then she brushes past me, leaving one hiss of a word in her wake.

"Slut."

That single syllable is like a fist to the stomach. I falter, wondering if I'd misheard her, but as I walk down the hall and every junior girl I pass glowers at me, I realize something's up. From the guys, I get grins and smirks. It's painfully obvious that for some reason, I'm a hot topic today.

It isn't until Valerie finds me at my locker that I'm brought into the loop.

"Why didn't you tell me you made out with Easton Royal?" she demands in a hushed voice.

My calculus book almost slips from my fingers. Wait, this is about Easton? But we were in my bedroom when we kissed, and there's no way Reed would have blabbed about that. So how the heck does everyone know- The club. Crap. The memory whizzes into my head at the same time Valerie starts to laugh.

"I knew I should've kept a closer eye on you that night," she teases. "But we weren't even drinking! That means you made out with him sober! Do I need to hold an intervention for you?"

I sigh. "Maybe?"

The girls Val had introduced me to at Jordan's party-The Pastels, she'd called them-walk by. All three of them turn to look at me and whisper amongst themselves.

"It was a stupid move," I admit. "I didn't really think it through." No, all I was thinking about that night was Reed and the way he looked at me when I was in the cage. "Does everybody know, then?"

She grins. "Oh, they know. It's all anyone's been talking about this morning, and the first bell hasn't even gone off. Claire is pissed."

I bet she is. And if Claire's mad, I can only imagine what Jordan will have to say about it. A "casual" like me putting my grubby hands all over one of her precious Royals? She's probably freaking out right now.

"What about you?" I ask the only person who matters. "Are you pissed?"

Valerie snickers. "Because you stuck your tongue down Easton's throat? Why would I care about that?"

It's the answer I'd hoped for, and I cling to it as we part ways in the hallway and go off to our morning classes. It doesn't matter that everyone is whispering, or that chicks glare daggers at me whenever I enter a classroom. Valerie's opinion is the only one that matters to me.

Still, by the time lunch rolls around, I'm ready to pull my hair out. Every girl that passes me in the hall looks ready to murder me. Easton makes it worse by going out of his way to pay a visit to my locker and give me a prolonged full-body hug. He pretends not to notice all the stares we're getting, but I'm excruciatingly aware of them.

"You're Ella, right?"

I've just shoved my textbooks in my locker when a guy with spiky blond hair and a striped rugby shirt approaches.

His question is ridiculous, because he damn well knows who I am. These kids have all gone to school together since kindergarten probably, and there isn't a single soul at Astor Park Prep who doesn't know about the new "Royal."

"Yeah." I paste on an indifferent look. "And you are?"

"Daniel Delacorte." He sticks out his hand, then awkwardly lowers it to his side when I don't shake it. "I've wanted to introduce myself for a while, but..." He shrugs.

I roll my eyes. "But it was against Reed's rules?"

He nods sheepishly.

God, these people are the worst. "So why are you introducing yourself now?"

That earns me another shrug. "A couple friends of mine were at the club on Saturday night. They said they saw you with Easton."

"So?" I anticipate some kind of insult, but I don't get one.

"So the rules have changed. Nobody was allowed to ask you out before because of Reed. But you were with Easton the other night, so things are different now."

Wait, he's asking me out?

I narrow my eyes at him. "What, you're not going to call me a slut for making out with Easton at a club?"

His lips twitch with humor. "If I called every girl who's made out with Easton a slut, there'd be no one left in the school."

I can't help but laugh.

"I'm serious," Daniel insists. "Drunken make-outs with Easton Royal are like a rite of passage at Astor Park."

"Are you speaking from personal experience?" I ask politely.

He flashes a grin. The guy's cute, I'll give him that. "Luckily, no. Anyway, I just came over to ask if you wanted to go out for dinner sometime."

A jolt of suspicion travels through me, and Daniel must sense it because he quickly says, "It doesn't have to be a date. We could make it a friend thing if that makes you more comfortable. I just want to get to know the girl who's got all the Royal panties in a twist."

I'm still hesitating, so he lets out a hasty breath. "Can I see your phone?"

Although I'm not sure why, I stick my hand in my back pocket and pull out my phone, passing it over to him.

His fingers move briskly over the touchpad. "There. You've got my number now. So how about this? Think it over, and if you decide you want to do dinner, shoot me a text."

"Um. Okay. Sure."

Daniel smiles again and gives me a little salute before striding off. I watch him go, my gaze focusing on his cute butt. He's got the toned body of an athlete, and I suddenly wonder if he's on the football team. I hope not, because that means Reed will probably hear about Daniel asking me out when they're at their afternoon practice.

But I underestimated the grapevine at this school. The news of Daniel's invitation comes out literally five minutes after he issued it. I'm two steps from the cafeteria when I get a text message from Valerie.

Daniel Delacorte asked u out????

I respond with yeah.

Did u say yes?

I said I'd think about it.

Don't think 2 hard. He's one of the nicer ones.

Another text quickly pops up. Captain of the lacrosse team. She adds this as if that makes a difference to me.

Rolling my eyes, I enter the cafeteria and track Val down at our usual table in the corner. She grins the moment she sees me, tucks her phone away, and says, "Okay. Tell me everything. Did he get down on one knee? Did he give you flowers?"

For the next hour, she barrages me with questions about a guy I only spoke to for two minutes. Truthfully, it's a nice distraction from this morning's whisper fest, and it stops me from obsessing over what Reed will have to say when he finds out.

22.

I don't see Reed until after school, and when I do, he's not racing over to demand that I stay away from Daniel. Instead, he's bracing himself against the driver's side door talking to Abby. And the soft blonde is leaning against Reed's Rover with one hand on his hip. The whole scene makes me want to gag.

"They look cozy."

I turn to see Savannah next to me. We haven't spoken at all since the day she gave me a tour of the campus, so I'm surprised to find her there. "I guess."

"Heard Daniel Delacorte asked you out today." She smooths a hand over her stick-straight hair.

"Apparently it's a slow news day at school," I joke. "But yes."