The holiday season in London has always been a time for great jubilee. Parties and seasonal cheer and everyone singing carols.

Bloody shit, I hated it. In our house, it was always a gloomy couple of months, overshadowed by my mother’s death and my father hitting the liquor cabinet extra hard.

But this year, I had to pretend. Put on my knit green and red sweater and fake my love for Christmas movies and hot cocoa with marshmallows. All because Nora and I were together, really together, and I was homing in on my final step.

“You know I’ve never attended this stupid thing, and I’m only doing it for you.” I pull on the bowtie at my neck, annoyed that I have to yet again squeeze into a tuxedo.

It was true, I’d never gone to the Winter Ball at Winston, but I was going this year simply because Nora had never been asked to a dance.

“Thank you for asking me. And for putting up with festivities, I know how much of a Grinch you are.”

“I’ll be even grinchier if you make me watch that incessant Jim Carrey in a fat green suit one more time.”

“I used to wish I could live in Whoville when I was younger.” She fastens an earring in and spritzes some bottle from her dresser on her neck.

I’m now a regular visitor at Kensington Palace, after our successful trip to Switzerland over a month ago. That night in my bedroom not only secured her and put her faith in me back on solid ground, but it had also been one of the hottest nights of my life. There was something sexier than shagging a woman when it came to Nora. Her innocence, her tentativeness when I undressed her, the way she’d unraveled as she orgasmed into my hands. God, I was hard as a fully-cocked shotgun each time I thought about it.

And the first time she’d gone down on me, just a week ago, keeping her eyes locked on mine for directions … well I about lost it a second into her wrapping her lips around my shaft.

“Does this look all right?”

Nora shifts her feet in front of me, looking to see if I deem her worthy of going to the dance with me. Even though she had more brains than our entire school put together, and could be the sassiest mouth I’d ever engaged with … there was still this schoolgirl insecurity that made her so appealing.

She shimmered like a real live snowflake, the long silvery column dress hugging her slim figure. Her red hair curled up on top of her head, looking like ringlets of fire falling down onto her cheeks.

“You look … edible.” I rise from her desk chair and walk across her room, bending down to bite the tip of her nose.

“Sweet.” She rolls her eyes, and I wish we could stay here and I could show her just how edible she really is.

We walk down the stairs of the palace apartment together, my arm a balance for her in her high heels. My head is on a swivel, as it always is when I’m here, tracking Bennett. Tonight though, he and Rachel are in Canada on official business, something Nora told me when she was upset that her mom couldn’t be there to see her off for her first school dance.

I’ve only seen Bennett once in my visits to hang out with Nora, and that time, just like at the regatta, he didn’t recognize who I was. He still didn’t realize that the son of his mistress was the one with his hands and lips all over his stepdaughter. And each time I entered the space he called home, I burned with the fury of knowing that he lived the life of a prince while my mother was cold in her grave.

Nora’s chauffeur took us over to Winston, which was decorated with its traditional Christmas trimmings. The school spared no expense in its decor or Winter Ball budget, and when we walked into the auditorium, it looked like one of the grandest halls in London itself. White and silver fake snow, green and red curtains hung like a canopy from the ceiling, chiavari chairs and a full on buffet with food choices from all over Europe.

“I spiked the punch.” Drake walked up to us, his eyes already drowsy with drink.

Nora hit his shoulder. “Why did you have to do that? You’re incorrigible.”

She and Drake had a banter between them that I didn’t understand, but they had a riot keeping it up.

I squeeze Nora’s hand where it’s threaded in mine, and Speri walks up and glances at the gesture between us. My group of friends has been weirdly supportive of our relationship, not that we talk about it all that much. They know we are together, and they give us our space. I thought they would have been teasing or suspicious, but that’s just my paranoia. No one, not even Ed, knows the real reason that I’m with her.

But I guess they’ll find out soon enough.

“Could this band be any more boring?” Speri huffs, and we all look at the twelve-piece band playing some classical song.

“Ed, go flirt with the violinist and ask her to play some Rihanna, or at least Katy Perry,” Katherine jokes.

The place is packed with Winston students of all ages, and I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different if I’d grown up with two happy parents like most of my classmates. Would I have come to this formal every year? Would I have had a steady, healthy relationship? Would I be blissfully ignorant like all of these bloody people?

“Ouch.” Nora lets go of my hand, I realize I was squeezing the circulation out of her fingers.

“Sorry, love. Want to get something to drink?” I want to get her away from my group of friends.

As what I knew would be the end of our relationship loomed nearer, I wanted to cut off her contact from the group as much as possible. I wanted her left with no lifelines, no one to turn to. By hurting her as much as humanly possible, I would hurt him. The acid in my stomach churned ever more rapidly.

“So, what is the most favorite Christmas present you ever received?” Nora put her hands on my hips as I sipped the water bottle I’d picked up out of the bucket.

“I don’t know.” I shrug and look around the dance floor, avoiding her question.

“Oh, come on … you have to have a favorite. An electronic dog? No, you grew up rich. What, the Maserati you got when you were twelve?” She chuckles.

Nora is completely comfortable with me now, caught exactly where I want her in my crosshairs. Which makes it ever more difficult for more. On one hand, I’ve accomplished what I wanted to. But on the other, it came with something I wasn’t expecting at all. I actually have real feelings for this girl. I thought I would be able to deflect them, to guard myself from the emotions that would come along with spending so much time with someone. But I’m not immune … and now I care about her. I find myself trying to make her laugh, or craving her touch when we’re in a room full of people.

I think hard, tapping my finger to my chin. “Fine … when I was eight I got a guitar. A Martin Vintage, made in nineteen twenty-six. It was beautiful, all polished wood and perfectly tuned acoustic strings. I spent hours trying to play that thing, perfecting songs on it.”

“I didn’t know you played an instrument.” Her smile is smitten with my revelation.

“Yeah, my mum tried to teach me, she was the one with the musical gene.” My hands froze where they’d been rubbing her back.

“Does she still play?” Nora’s voice is small, and she knows that I haven’t mentioned my mother before.

Someone laughs in the background as the band switches songs. The different noises of the ball filter in and out of my ears, and rage simmers in my veins thinking about the role her new family played in my mother’s death.

“No, she doesn’t.” I don’t elaborate.

We’re interrupted by someone coming over the loud speaker. “And now, it’s time to crown the annual King and Queen of the Winter Ball! You voted all week for your favorite classmates, and now it’s time to see who you all think is the most beloved couple here at Winston!”

Everyone in the room turns toward the stage, and I can’t help but grumble my annoyance. While I may be one of the “popular” kids here, I could not be more removed from the politics and gossip of the school. I’m so aloof that for some wonky reason, it makes people want to know more about me than if I were involved.

“And your King and Queen of this year’s Winter Ball are … Asher Frederick and Nora Randolph!”

The room erupts into applause, and my stomach turns to bile. I hadn’t even realized that so many people in this spoiled playground knew we were together, but apparently I didn’t fly as under the radar as I had hoped.

“What?!” Nora’s face was pure glee, while inside I was panicking.

She grabbed my hand and started walking to the stage, and I followed with numb limbs. I walked up the stairs, waited while they put the crown on her head and then put one on mine.

Looking at her, standing next to me in her queen’s fashion, I could just imagine the gaudy thing cracking and falling to the ground. Just like I was hoping her life would do when I finally exposed the McAlister name and all of the atrocities he’d committed.