Page 30 of The Bargain

“I’m not throwing,” she says, but her gaze falls out from under mine. “You are.”

“I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to do,” I tell her. “I’m putting on a show.”

11

Parting Bite

Elias

Desdemona, it turns out, couldn’t fake love if her life depended on it.

Her friends are all pressing in, trying to find out how this all started. Desdemona and me. I just watched her waste time maneuvering, feinting and equivocating her way out of questions.

I do no such thing.

“I’ve fancied her for years,” I tell my rabid audience of popular girls—girls who, before tonight, wouldn’t throw me a second look unless they needed me to steal something from their ex-boyfriends or piss off their rich controlling dads. “Pretty much from the first moment I met her. She didn’t even notice me—but I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

At my side, Desdemona twitches, squirming with unease.

What’s bothering her so much? That I’m saying those things, or that I’m lying?

“That’s so romantic,” Mira Rajahn sighs, palm in her hand. Her eyes, lined with fans of black lashes and gold eyeliner, are dreamy, slow blinking. “Nobody’s ever said that about me.”

“Don’t confuse flattery for real love,” Desdemona says shortly, breaking away from the group in a sudden restless motion.

Dimitri, who is slowly getting himself so drunk he can barely string a sentence together, lets out a bark of laughter. But Emerald throws Desdemona a sharp frown, and even Mira looks surprised. Both of them glance from Desdemona to me.

Maybe that’s when Desdemona realises she’s sabotaging us.

“Let’s go dance,” she snaps, grabbing hold of my wrist without looking at me.

She leads me away, through the press of fragrant dancing bodies, into a corner of the dance floor that’s velvety, pulsating with embracing bodies and pounding bass.

Desdemona spins around, gripping a handful of my shirt and yanking me to her.

“This isn’t working,” she snaps.

“How can it?” I reply. “You’re not letting it.”

“You’re throwing me off!”

“How?”

She gestures with an elegant hand, pearl bracelets catching the flashing pink and blue lights.

“You’re laying it on too thick. The compliments. The stories. The kiss.”

“What kiss?” I step forward, crowding her into a corner, away from the couples craning their necks to catch a glance at her.

“You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she says, and even through the music, there’s genuine anger in her tone.

“I didn’t kiss you, though.” I tilt my head, peering at her face in the changing lights, the dapple from the antique disco balls outlining her cheekbones, her lips. There’s colour in her cheeks that could just be all those shots Blaise made everyone drink…

Or something else

“I didn’t kiss you,” I repeat, and step forward again, because she keeps stepping away, but I want to look at her face. “Is that why you’re angry, love?”

“Don’t try to manipulate me,” she snaps.