American Royals

“Arise, Lady Monica Sanchez,” the king concluded, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. There was a polite smattering of applause, noticeably softer than it had been at the beginning of the alphabet. At least they were finally on S.

“Jeff looks amazing,” a girl in the next row whispered.

Daphne felt her mouth curl in a proprietary smile. Jefferson did look fantastic, standing there on the side of the dais, a glaring space next to him where Samantha should have been. On a normal man, the royal dress uniform might have looked ludicrous, all that ribbon and decorative braid and those shiny gold epaulets. Yet Jefferson somehow made it seem distinguished, even sexy.

“Mr. Ryan Sinclair,” Beatrice went on, and Daphne quickly checked herself before anyone could catch her staring at the prince. There were so many cameras, clustered on both sides of the room like a thicket of eyes, and she never knew which of them might be trained on her. She clasped her hands in her lap and looked forward, arranging herself like a mannequin on display.

The ceremony concluded at last. Slowly, like a great lumbering elephant, the herd of elegantly dressed people shuffled back down the hallway and into the ballroom. Toward the entrance, a few journalists spoke rapidly into their microphones, completing their coverage of the evening. Daphne didn’t bother searching for her parents as she began to circumnavigate the room.

She knew where Jefferson was at all times. She could feel him, as if he were holding the opposite end of a rubber band, and its constant tugging let her know in which direction to look. But she didn’t look. She would wait until the time was right.

She’d forgotten how good it felt, being at court. Her blood thrummed at something in the air—as thick as the scent of rain, but more raw and primal and heady like smoke. It made Daphne feel brutally awake, all the way to her fingertips. It was the scent of power, she thought, and if you were smart, you knew what it meant.

She couldn’t go a few a feet without someone stopping to greet her. Here was Countess Madeleine of Hartford and her wife, the Countess Mexia. Daphne noted with a spark of envy that both women were wearing gowns straight off the runway. Next the Minister of the Treasury, Isabella Gonzalez: her mousy, poorly dressed daughter was a close friend of Samantha’s. And now fast-food heiress Stephanie Warner was rustling over to pose with Daphne for the photographers, making certain to stand on Daphne’s right, so that her name would appear first in the photo captions.

“How’s your friend Himari?” Stephanie asked when the bulbs had stopped flashing. The question caught Daphne off guard.

“Himari is still in the hospital,” she replied, with perhaps the first genuine emotion she’d shown that day.

Stephanie pursed her lips into a moue of sympathy. She was wearing a dark shade of lipstick that wasn’t right for her pale complexion. It made her look garish, like some kind of vampire bride from the crypt. “She’s been in there a while, hasn’t she.”

“Since June.” Daphne said a quick goodbye and moved along the room. She couldn’t let herself think about Himari, and what had happened to her the night of Jefferson’s graduation. Once she did, the memory would grab hold of her mind and refuse to let go.

This was the greatest game in the world, the only game that truly mattered: the game of influence at court. So Daphne glanced around at her smiling enemies and smiled right back at them.

Looking slender and shadowy in her dusky silk gown, she started at last toward the prince. Her heels made emphatic little clicks on the hardwood surface of the ballroom. She’d worn her hair down tonight, its fiery layers framing the perfect oval of her face. She’d even managed to borrow a pair of emerald droplets that brought out the vicious green of her eyes.

When she reached him, Jefferson made a show of looking up as if startled, though he’d probably been watching her from across the ballroom. After all these years, he was just as attuned to her presence as she was to his.

Daphne dropped into a curtsy: straight down like a bucket, like a ballerina at the barre. The fabric of her skirts pooled architecturally around her. She kept her head lifted the whole time, her eyes on his. They both knew there was no reason for her to greet him like this, except to give him a good view down the front of her dress. A bit desperate, but then, so was she.

After a moment, Jefferson reached to pull her out of the curtsy. She looked up at him wistfully, as if to say, Here we are again, after all, and was relieved by Jefferson’s answering grin.

“Hey there, Jefferson.” The familiar syllables of his name rolled in her mouth like candy.

“Hey, Daph.”

“Dance with me?” She flashed her most beguiling smile, the one Jefferson had never been able to resist. Sure enough, he nodded.

As they stepped onto the dance floor, he twined a hand in hers, resting the other on her waist, the way he had so many times before. God, he was so gorgeous, so achingly familiar. All the old tenderness and warmth was bubbling back up, and the hurt, too, as she remembered what he’d done to her—what she’d done to him—

“Did you have fun in Asia?” she asked, to cover her momentary confusion.

“It was incredible. There’s nothing like sitting at the top of Angkor Wat and watching the sun rise to really put things in perspective.” Jefferson gave a lazy smile. “How’s senior year treating you? I heard you got prefect, by the way. Congratulations.”