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She kicked out, connecting with Dixon’s abdomen. His arms wheeled as she connected, and they both landed in a heap and a dull thump against the floor.
The hardwood cooled her skin. Her ass throbbed and ached. It was the second time she’d landed on her butt in several hours.
They turned their heads, each eyeing the other’s face.
Dixon lifted his hand in a pincer.
Lila erupted into fits, her side burning from laughter, her lungs not pulling in enough air for her to breathe.
Dixon wasn’t much better off. He sputtered alongside her, smacking the heel of his palm against the floor. The other flopped around his midsection as though trying to hold it inside.
The sounds in Tristan’s bedroom quieted.
Dixon realized it too. He let out a fake moan, mocking his brother’s, and shoved the empty bed three times against the wall, the booms echoing in the small room.
“Stop,” Lila hissed, sitting up. “What are you doing?”
He shoved the bed again.
Crawling to his notepad, he scribbled off a few lines. What happened that night at the Closing Ball? What happened between you and La Roux?
Her laughter died as quickly as it had lived. “I don’t want to talk about it, Dixon,” she whispered, folding her legs underneath her.
He gave her another poke and pointed again to his question.
“I chose the wrong person. Just drop it.”
Another poke.
“You have your secrets. Why can’t I have mine? L
et’s just keep them, shall we? We’re highborn. It’s what we’re good at.”
Dixon licked his lips and fiddled with his shamrock bracelet. His eyes roved over her face, studying each feature in turn.
All except her eyes.
He wouldn’t meet them.
All at once, Dixon crossed his legs and bent over his notepad, his pencil skating over the page. No. I don’t want to keep secrets from you anymore. We’re not highborn. We’re exiles, and we’ve made one another into a family. We’re best friends, and best friends can tell each other everything.
Lila nodded. “I’ll always keep your secrets.”
Dixon turned back to his notepad. Tristan came to live on the Holguín estate in Beaulac when I was young. I remember him well, this odd slave boy from Bordeaux, following me around and asking me to sing, just like so many others. I didn’t care much about him until I was older and learned we shared a father. I hated him for that. I didn’t want a workborn sibling, especially one who was a slave. I was ashamed. I treated him terribly. In the end, Tristan forgave me. He did more than forgive me. I was an idiot, Lila. I ignored everything my highborn parents and tutors always taught me.
“What did you do?”
He smiled bitterly. I fell in love. Some girl from a rival family. Her name was Adelisa. She was blonde, beautiful, smart, and forever clad in the indigo dresses and boots of her family. I had never wanted anyone or anything so much in all my life. I was sixteen years old, and I thought I could trust her. I told her everything.
“You told her a secret. You told her something you shouldn’t have.”
Dixon looked in her eyes helplessly. I don’t know. They said I told her something, something that lost our family a great deal of money, but they wouldn’t even tell me what it was.
“Who wouldn’t tell you?”
Who do you think?
Lila sucked in a breath. “The Holguín blood squad?”
