Just a Summer Party, Right?

 "This is ridiculous.” Rick Deacon stepped out of the car onto the curb outside Ewan Steed’s New York family penthouse dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, looking not at the building but at Selena Davenport who was climbing out of her grandparents’ sedan on the street right behind them. The rust-haired teen gestured to her. “We leave Gulinger at the same time and drive in two separate cars to the same place. Honestly, can’t you just say to your grandparents that we are going as friends to a party of friends? It isn’t like this is a formal affair.”

The debutante with the Mediterranean skin tone and changeable aqua eyes scowled at the word ‘affair’ as if he was hinting they were having one. She stomped towards the door, searching for paparazzi out of the corner of her eye. “People will talk if we are seen together.”

“Selena, we go to the same school,” he said, following her. “Friends hang out. They share rides.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I know that. But the tabloids will construe it into something else, and you know it.”

He rolled his wolf-gray eyes right back at her. “And you are worried about losing your inheritance. I know.”

They walked past the doorman together, heading straight through the lobby to the elevator.

“But remember that offer I made?” he whispered. “That scholarship for Ghoulies trying to make it in the world? Dad is willing to give it to you.”

She opened her mouth, feeling scandalized. “I won’t become some charity case!”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Selena stomped in.

Moaning, Rick followed her. “It isn’t like that. Scholarships are given to deserving individuals. You’re smart, and you want to do good in the world.” The doors slid closed. Rick pushed the button for their floor. “You would be earning it. It wouldn’t be like we’re just giving it to you because we feel sorry for your predicament.”

But she continued to huff, her cheeks flushing.

“But if you really want to resign yourself to this tragedy,” he continued as the elevator rose up and up, “then fine. I’ll stop bugging you. I just—”

“Can’t leave it alone,” she cut in. In her eyes was a killer scowl. “This is my problem, not yours.”

Rick lifted his hands. “Fine. Let the world cut off your voice. Be the Little Mermaid.”

She scowled more at him.

“But really,” Rick cocked a wolfish eye in her direction, “if I had a voice that could make people do things at will, I’d actually use it to my benefit. Or at least to my protection. I wouldn’t let people boss me around. I wouldn’t let them manipulate me with threats about—”

“Well I’m not a lone wolf, Rick,” Selena bit out. The elevator slowed, reaching their destination. “I’m part sea nymph. We like being with people. And I know I can kill with my voice. Ok? But I don’t want to become a killer siren. My father may have been a naughty mermaid—a sexual predator as it were—but I am not going to be like that. I’m not going to have people afraid of me.”

Stepping back, Rick shook his head. “Too late.”

She rolled her eyes at him then turned to the elevator doors. They opened. She stepped out into the hall, Rick following with another roll of his eyes.

“But your dad is not a mermaid,” Rick said.

Selena halted, turning back with a dry look. “Excuse me?”

He shrugged. “Just a moot point, but he’s not a mermaid. Men aren’t you know.”

Then he knocked on the door.

Her mouth opened in a gape. “You sexist—!”

“Ah! You’re here!”

Ewan’s front door had opened without them knowing it. He stood in it with a broad smile on his face, perfectly genial. In the past months, he had backed off from his previous stalking behavior, became friendlier, more open and more polite. He stopped trying to woo Selena, and he had spoken to Rick with a great deal more regard than before. Rick suspected it had to do with his friend Stewart nearly getting killed as bait by the SRA back in the fall, though it was never clear if Stewart had told Ewan about that incident at all. Stewart had been mostly aloof since the event—a nodding acquaintance rather than a friend. There was also hidden terror in Stewart’s eyes, yet a polite regard remained as well.

Ewan extended a hand and stepped aside to let them in. “Brilliant! You are both

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.09.2014
ISBN: 978-3-7368-5207-5

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