Page 41 of Wicked Elites

I continued walking, but Sebastian caught up with me and stood in my path. I glared up into his green eyes. “What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“The other night.” He swallowed. “Outside your room.”

“Ten thousand pounds is a lot of money. I can understand why you and Leopold wanted to take up Geraldine’s offer.” I made sure to use the phrase he’d said about scholars. “It’s enough for even someone like you to compromise your principles.”

He winced at the reminder. “Forgive me. Sometimes I run my mouth and forget who I might offend.”

“But isn’t that what you thought about people who take up bursaries?”

“Maybe at first,” he murmured. “But I never took the time to understand why they did it.”

“And now you do?”

“Willow. I’m the sole heir to Garraway Tea. It’s a company that’s been in existence since 1657. My grandfather can afford to send me to whichever school I want. Sometimes it’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like to have nothing.” He lowered his gaze to the ground. “Skeptics have said that losing everyone in the plane crash has put me in a better financial position.”

My chest ached. Whoever said that didn’t have a heart. Not everything was about riches. “But you’d give it up in a heartbeat if it would bring them back.”

“I’d give up everything. My point is that you and your sister were dependent on your parents, and no one should judge you for taking up a bursary to study here. I can see you’re doing your best to keep what’s left of your family together.”

“Thanks,” I whispered. Right now, I couldn’t imagine anything but having to struggle for money. Even when Mom and Dad were alive, their paychecks didn’t provide us with luxuries.

He placed a hand on my arm, and the warmth of his touch filled my heart. “I should thank you for understanding. And for the record, I wasn’t thinking about that stupid bet when I asked to come into your room.”

I nodded, even though a nagging voice in the back of my head told me to be careful. What did I really know about Sebastian, and how was he connected to Corrine? Cormac hated the kings with such vehemence, there had to be something I was missing.

“Now,” he leaned close and whispered in my ear, making my nerve endings zing. “May I please take you out on Saturday night?”

My heart stilled, and a breath caught at the base of my throat. Time alone with Sebastian sounded like trouble. Even if he wasn’t playing pull-a-pig, I couldn’t entrust my heart with a guy who melted my resolve with a mere kiss.

Until I’d uncovered the mysteries of the months leading to Corrine’s death, I couldn’t let myself fall for Sebastian. Maybe it was time for me to read the diary.

I shook my head. “Sorry. I have a ninety-eight percent average to maintain. All my free time goes to prep.”

Sebastian drew back, his face shuttering into a blank mask.

A tight fist squeezed at my heart so hard that tears filled my eyes. Clutching at my chest, I leaned against the wall, watching him walk away.

* * *

After dinner, I lay back on my bed, cracked open the leather diary, and leafed through the pages. Corrine had written a simple code of numbers to represent letters and translated certain key words into Latin, making it difficult to skim.

I jotted down numbers that represented common names. For example, Brittas was 2-18-9-20-20-1-19, but she’d written it as a string of numbers like 21892020119. Benazir was 2514126918, Cormac was 315181313, and Sebastian was 1952119209114. Most pages were about prep or naughty limericks about members of staff. I continued reading and deciphering, even memorizing the code for pull-a-pig to see if it came up. So far, she hadn’t mentioned the game or Sebastian.

One entry caught my attention, and I wrote it out in longhand:

Benazir is running a scam. Everyone with an ounce of sense can see it. The wealthy want their precious spawn at one of the Elite Schools, and right now, Brittas is at the top of the Register. But there’s nothing elite about Brittas, except for the brilliance of our headmistress. She’s the biggest con-artist since the Spanish Prisoner.

I had to look up what she meant. It was a confidence trick that predated the Nigerian Prince or the 419 scams. The passage continued.

Pay eight impoverished scholarship students zero to twelve grand a year to push up the grades.

Charge forty reasonably intelligent students forty grand a year to bask in the glory of the above.

Profit before overheads = Over one point five million pounds, mother fucker. One point five million.