Page 39 of Cruel Games

“Not many. How about you?”

“One.” I’d met Sammy at a nightclub, too. He had been keen until weeks later when someone had told him I wasn’t really eighteen. Things had worked out in the end, but he turned out to be a cheating asshole, and now I wish things hadn’t.

Kendrick walked behind Elizabeth’s chair and pulled her seat back. With a fluid, ladylike gesture, she stood and walked in my direction.

She smoothed down her pastel blue, cashmere sweater, which she wore with a navy pencil skirt. A string of pearls and matching earrings complemented the outfit, giving her the air of middle-aged respectability.

Elizabeth stopped at my table and gave me a tight smile. “My knights are worried about your welfare. According to them, the pressure of being the academy’s whipping girl is making you crack.”

“Really?” I asked through clenched teeth.

She inclined her head. “I’d like to extend the hand of friendship.”

My gaze flicked to the head table, where Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Burgh looked on with interest. Students sitting in the surrounding tables stopped talking to watch. Usually, if someone approached my table, it resulted in the flinging of water or food or insults.

I turned back to Elizabeth. “Why did you even start that stupid rumor?”

The corner of her lips curled into a smile. “With a name like Hancock, you were practically begging to become the queen of handjobs. Didn’t people point that out in your last school?”

They didn’t because everyone knew the name Hancock. It was one to be feared, not mocked.

Shoving thoughts of my bastard stepfather away, I asked, “How are you going to fix things?”

A vein pulsed on her temple, and her pampered little hands curled into fists. “Isn’t it enough that I came here?”

“Actually, it’s far from adequate,” said Gideon. “You slandered Miss Hancock, which resulted in a slew of adverse behaviors from other students that have been detrimental to her academic success.”

“Must you speak like you’ve swallowed a thesaurus?” she snapped, curling the corner of her lip.

Gideon sat straighter, preening as though she had paid him the ultimate compliment. “The only way to resolve matters is with a public apology and a retraction of the false rumor.”

Her face dropped. “What? But she accused me of much worse.”

“Because you told a whole hallway of girls that I gave a bunch of strange boys handjobs!” I snarled.

Gideon placed a hand on my forearm the way a duty solicitor would do when trying to stop their client from blurting something that would be used against them in court. I clamped my lips together, relaxed my posture, and waited for Elizabeth to respond.

She straightened. “Very well. I will prepare a formal apology tomorrow at dinner. Will that be sufficient?”

“That’s fine,” I replied.

Elizabeth flounced back to her table, where Kendrick placed his hand on hers. She snatched it away and snarled. A waitress placed a steaming bowl of cherry pie and custard in front of me, which made my mouth water.

“How peculiar.” Gideon pulled the lid off his carton of yogurt.

“What?”

“Do you know the cause of her change of heart?” he asked.

“Oh, that.” I turned back to Elizabeth’s table.

Orlando and Maxwell stared at me like a pair of Rottweilers whose steak had been untimely snatched from their jaws. I couldn’t tell if it was unfinished business or lingering resentment about Friday night.

“The boys cornered me in the garden earlier today, demanding the cameras back. I asked them to call off Elizabeth and her whipping girl crap in exchange for deleting the footage.”

I broke off a spoonful of custard and pie, waiting for Gideon to reply, but he remained silent. When I glanced up, it was to a disapproving look of narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “What now?”

He let out a soft huff. “Blackmail is beneath you.”