Her Royal Highness (Royals #2)(12)

Maybe this is just what being rich does to your face.

Because there’s no doubt this girl is also very, very rich. Her clothes are simple—a sweater and jeans tucked into high leather boots—but they practically smell like money. She smells like money.

Also, only rich people can curl their lips the way she’s currently doing at the guy in the suit who followed her in. Her dad? He looks a little young, plus it’s hard to imagine that a guy with heavy jowls and pockmarked skin could possibly be related to this actual angel of a girl, standing there with a Louis Vuitton bag in the crook of her elbow.

“Your mother—” the man starts, and she throws up her hands.

“Call her, then.”

“Pardon?” the man asks, his heavy brow wrinkling.

“Call my mother,” she repeats, her voice carrying just the softest Scottish burr. Her chin is lifted, and I can actually feel tension vibrating off her.

“We were told—” the man says on a sigh, but she’s not giving in.

“Call my mother.”

On my phone, Dad scowls. “Everything okay?” he asks, and I glance back at my new roommate, still imperiously repeating “Call my mother” every time the man tries to speak. And now I realize he’s pulled his phone out, I assume to call her mother, and she’s still saying it, over and over again, like a toddler.

“Call my mother. Call my mother. Call. My. Mother.”

Maybe it’s jet lag. Maybe it’s the weird, weightless feeling in my stomach that started the moment I walked into the school and the massive change I’d made has fully sunk in.

But I turn to look over at her, and before I can think better of it, I hear myself say, “Hey. Veruca Salt.”

Her lips part slightly, eyebrows going up as she stares at me. “Pardon?”

I’ve never wanted to pull words back into my mouth so badly. Lee was right about me not liking confrontation—it’s pretty much my least favorite thing, right there underneath mayonnaise and jazz music. But something about how this girl is talking just . . . bugged me.

So maybe this is who I am now? Millie Quint, Confronter of People.

I decide to keep going with it.

“Do you mind being a little quieter?” I waggle my phone at her. “Some of us are trying to talk, and it seems like my dude here is calling your mom, so, like, maybe take it down a thousand notches?”

She keeps staring at me, and the man with her is now looking at me, too, his florid face going even redder.

Whatever. I take a deep breath and turn back to Dad. “Look, I’m here, I’m safe, everything is great . . . ish, and I’ll call you back later, okay?”

Rubbing his eyes, Dad nods. “Sounds good, Mils. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

He hangs up, and I go back to the suitcase on my bed. I still have a ton of unpacking to do, and it’s going to take a lot of work to get this room looking even the littlest bit homey, so I should—

“Did you really call me Veruca Salt?”

I turn around to see my new roommate standing there with her arms folded. The guy who was with her is out in the hall, talking on his cell phone, probably to this girl’s mom like she asked.

I take a second to study her now that I’m not blinded by her bone structure and shiny hair. Her sweater is a pale green that would make anyone else look vaguely ill, but just plays up the gold in her eyes, and yeah, my original take of her being the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen holds up, but the sulky way her mouth is turning down kills a little bit of her glow.

“I did, yeah,” I tell her. “It seemed like you were about three seconds from launching into a musical number about wanting things, so it just felt right.”

Her lips purse together, curling up into a smile. “Charming,” she finally says, then her eyes drop to my jeans—nowhere near as nice as hers—and my long-sleeved T-shirt. It’s the one I got working on the yearbook last year. I’d figured there was no sense in dressing up, since we’d get our uniforms as soon as we came, but now, next to this girl, I feel a little . . . grubby.

“I take it you’re my roommate,” she says, and I cross my own arms, mimicking her posture.

“So it seems.”

That smile again. It’s a straight-up Disney villain smile, reminding me that no matter how gorgeous this girl is, she’s clearly a witch.

“What a delight for us both,” she says, and then she turns, flouncing back out of the room.

She’s probably running to the headmaster to ask to be moved or something, and frankly, that suits me just fine.

But hey, maybe school is going to keep us both so busy that I’ll hardly even have to see her.

It’s only after I’ve heard her stomping footsteps disappear down the hall that I realize I never learned her name.





CHAPTER 8





According to the itinerary I was emailed, I have a “tea” at 4 p.m., and since it’s 3 now, I change into my new uniform, which was hanging up in the closet, draped with plastic, when I arrived. There’s a knee-length plaid skirt, a short-sleeved white shirt, and two different sweaters, one long-sleeved, the other a vest. I choose that one, the Gregorstoun crest stitched on the front. It’s warm enough, so I don’t have to bother with the dark tights, settling on the kneesocks instead and finally sliding my feet into a pair of very plain black flats.