Alexis wanted to die.

Not in a dramatic way. Not the theatrical kind of dying she performed for Instagram when her latte came out wrong or her manicurist ran three minutes late. She wanted the floor of Gogi House to open beneath her Louboutins and swallow her whole, dress and pearls and all, before Kumiko’s stupid enthusiastic wave could register in Harrison’s peripheral vision.

Too late.

Kumiko’s arm swung through the gap in the sliding screen like a windmill possessed by pure joy.

"Hiiii!"

Alexis’s brain performed a hard reset.

She knew Jordan lived some kind of insane double life. She knew he was dating Chloe. She knew, because Kumiko had told her in a bathroom while crying happy tears, that Jordan was also dating Kumiko. She had processed this information. She had filed it away in the folder marked THINGS I REFUSE TO THINK ABOUT and locked the drawer and thrown the key into the ocean.

But knowing something and seeing it were different animals entirely.

Because there he was.

Jordan McKnight.

Sitting in a private booth like he owned the restaurant. Broad shoulders filling out a black tank top. Dirty blonde hair pushed back from his forehead. His jaw sharp enough to open mail. And surrounded by women.

Chloe on one side, composed and gorgeous with her blue streak catching the light.

Kumiko practically in his lap, waving like an idiot.

A pale girl with jet-black hair and crimson eyes sitting in the corner, radiating the specific energy of someone who wanted to phase through the wall.

And a goth girl with a purple streak and a corset that should have been illegal, sprawled across the booth with a soju bottle.

Four women.

Four.

While Alexis stood in the main dining room with Harrison Van Allen the Third breathing expensive cologne down her neck.

"Do you know them?" Harrison asked.

His voice carried that particular register of old money, the kind that assumed the world would rearrange itself to suit his convenience. Which it usually did. Which was exactly the problem.

"No," Alexis said.

The lie came out flat and immediate.

"That girl is waving at you."

"She’s confused."

"She said your name."

"There are many Alexises."

Harrison frowned. He had a good frown. Symmetrical, even, the frown of a man who paid a dermatologist to prevent premature aging. Everything about Harrison was symmetrical and even and expensive and boring enough to make Alexis want to walk into traffic.

Kumiko, sensing weakness, doubled down.

"Alexis-chan! Come sit with us! There’s so much meat!"

Alexis closed her eyes.

She counted to three.

She opened them.

The situation had not improved.

"Excuse me," she said to Harrison, in the sweet controlled tone her mother had drilled into her since she could walk. "I think I do recognize someone from campus. Let me say a quick hello."

"We’re being seated in four minutes."

"Then I’ll be quick."

She walked.

Every step across the dining room felt like a runway she hadn’t agreed to walk. She could feel Harrison’s eyes on her back, tracking her the way he tracked stock prices, with mild ownership and zero warmth. She could feel the eyes from the booth too, five sets of them, and one set in particular that made her skin prickle in a way she absolutely refused to name.

She stopped at the edge of the sliding screen.

She looked down at Jordan.

He looked up at her.

And he had the audacity, the absolute nerve, to smile.

Not a smug smile. Worse. A genuine one. The kind that started slow and crept up to his eyes and made her stomach do something humiliating.

"Princess," Jordan said.

Alexis’s entire nervous system short-circuited.

"Do not," she hissed, keeping her voice low enough that Harrison couldn’t hear, "call me that in public."

"You told me to stop calling you that in class. This isn’t class."

"It’s a technicality and you know it."

"I know a lot of things."

Kumiko was practically vibrating. "Alexis-chan, you look SO pretty! Is that dress from that boutique you were telling me about? The one in Newport? Oh my god, sit down, we ordered too much food and Lila-chan already burned two pieces of beef because she got distracted talking about—"

"I burned them on purpose," Lila said, not looking up from the grill. "Char is a flavor profile."

"Char is carcinogenic," the crimson-eyed girl said quietly. "Prolonged consumption of heavily charred meat correlates with increased—"

"Nobody asked, Wednesday Addams."

"My name is Brooke."

"Cool. Nobody asked, Brooke."

Alexis stood frozen at the edge of the booth, cataloging.

The goth was rude. The crimson-eyed one was strange. Chloe sat in the middle of it all with a wine glass, watching Alexis with an expression that gave away absolutely nothing, which somehow felt like the most threatening thing in the room.

"Who’s your friend?" Chloe asked.

Her voice was pleasant. Warm, even. But Alexis had known Chloe for six months, and she heard the edge underneath. The blade wrapped in silk.

"He’s not my friend," Alexis said.

"He’s holding your chair out at the hostess stand."

Alexis turned.

Harrison stood by their table, one hand resting on the back of her chair with proprietary patience, watching her with the mild expectation of a man who assumed his property would return to him shortly.

"That," Alexis said, and her voice came out tighter than she wanted, "is Harrison Van Allen the Third."

Jordan’s smile didn’t move.

But something in his eyes did.

Alexis saw it. That flicker. The same flicker she’d seen when she’d told him about the arranged marriage in Econ, when she’d explained about the calligraphy lessons and the tea ceremonies and the yacht her father had already promised as part of the merger. Jordan had gotten angry then. Not for himself. For her.

Nobody got angry for her.

"The husband?" Jordan asked.

Alexis flinched.

"He’s not my husband."

"But he’s the one they picked."

"Jordan."

"I’m just clarifying."

"Well, stop clarifying."