“The lad’s on the doorstep,” she explains, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “You didn’t tell me what a looker he is.”
I stare at her, my protective instinct going from zero to sixty in nothing flat. “You didn’t let him in, did you?”
“Of course not. That’s up to you to do that—or not, if you don’t want to.” Mum comes over and presses a kiss on the top of my head. I can feel my family’s nosy eyes on my back as I cross thekitchen and step into the hallway. I feel numb as I walk to the door.
James is on the front steps. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in such casual clothes. His dark jeans and white T-shirt make him look like a perfectly ordinary boy. If I’d bumped into him on the street, I probably wouldn’t even have recognized him.
Hanging over his arm is a large black protective cover with the Beaufort’s logo on it. I stare at the swirly “B” for a second, suddenly filled with unbearable rage.
He shouldn’t be here. I don’t want him anywhere near my family. My life here has nothing to do with my life at Maxton Hall, and I can’t deal with the fact that he’s standing here in front of me, erasing the boundary I drew years ago, just like that—least of all after Saturday.
The moment I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, he takes his eyes off our rosebushes and spots me in the doorway. An emotion I can’t interpret flickers in his eyes—I never can manage to read him—and then he takes a step up, making our eyes level. He clears his throat and eventually holds the bag out to me.
“I wanted to bring the dress round for you. Tristan has altered it. It should fit you perfectly now.”
I make no moves to take it from him. “And you had to come to my house for that?”
He takes a deep breath and exhales violently, then rubs the back of his head with his hand. “I wanted to speak to you about Saturday too. I acted like an arse, and I’m sorry.”
For a moment, all I can do is stare at him.
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say anything like that, and I can’t help wondering how often in his life he’s apologized. When I think of every liberty he’s taken at school in the last fewyears, his moral boundaries must generally be set considerably lower than mine.
But now he looks truly sorry.
“I don’t understand why you did that,” I say quietly.
Especially not after he held my hand and we definitely had a moment. I saw exactly how warm his gaze was, and I clearly felt the chemistry between us. I wasn’t just imagining it.
He gulps hard. He doesn’t speak for a whole minute, just looks at me with inscrutable eyes. Then he mumbles so quietly that I can barely hear his words: “I don’t understand myself sometimes, Ruby Bell.”
I open my mouth to reply but shut it again. I get the feeling that he’s being honest with me for the first time, and I don’t want to ruin it by throwing his apology back in his face. So I say nothing. I’m quiet for so long that with anyone else, it would have got awkward, but I sense that James and I could look at each other in silence for hours—each of us just trying to get a glimpse behind the other one’s façade.
“Why did you really come?” I ask finally.
“What you said this afternoon…” He hesitates. “What if I don’t want to go back to the old days?”
I laugh tonelessly. “You threw me out. And before that, you embarrassed me in front of your parents. You acted like I wasn’t good enough to be introduced to them.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I see him rock back and forward ever so slightly on his feet. It’s almost like he’s nervous. “It was fun on Saturday. Until…my parents turned up.” He clears his throat. “I think it would be a shame if we suddenly acted like we don’t know each other. You’renot invisible to me anymore. And I don’t want to pretend that you are.”
Although the bitter aftertaste of the weekend is still there, his words make something contract inside me in tingling excitement. “I don’t know what you expect from me now, James,” I say quietly.
“I don’t expect anything from you. I just don’t want to go back to how things were before. Can’t we just…know each other from now on?”
I stare speechlessly at him.
He’s not being serious. The thought flashes through my head. Hecan’tbe being serious. I’m not stupid. I know that James can’t stand me—even though we genuinely did have a nice time together on Saturday. I’m the reason he got barred from lacrosse, and I know one of his sister’s biggest secrets, which makes me a risk to him and his family. I bet he just wants to keep an eye on me.
“If this is just another of your schemes—” I begin skeptically, but James interrupts me.
“It’s not,” he says, coming up the last step.
I can’t believe his words; I know that perfectly well. I can’t get a handle on him—I doubt that anyone can. But at this moment, there’s something in his eyes, something honest and remorseful, that takes my breath away for a second.
How has this happened? How did we go, in less than a month, from total strangers to bribery to hatred to here?