Secret Heir (Dynasty #1)(58)

“You had snow on your lashes,” he murmurs and he’s so close, that I can feel his words almost on my lips.

I realize that he’s going to kiss me. Oh God. Panic and something like fear races through me, but still I don’t move.

His mouth brushes against mine in the softest of touches, once, twice. It’s nothing more than the brushing of lips, but oh God, it’s everything. Everything I didn’t feel in that kiss with Baron—the fire, the flutters, the heat. It’s all there and it’s insane, because it’s not even really a kiss.

I can hear the sound of my own pulse roaring in my ears and my heart is pounding so hard, it feels like it’s going to come out of my chest.

But everything stops when Raph pulls back as if he’s just been burned. He looks at me in something like horror, and then I’m the one who feels like I’ve been burned.

He curses, as he takes another step back, and it feels like a slap to the face.

“Shit. That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

I take a step towards him, although I have no idea why, because it feels like I’m stepping into the path of an oncoming train.

“What—” I have no idea what I’m even trying to say, but Raph cuts me off as he holds his hand up to stop me and I clamp my mouth shut, feeling the humiliation wash over me.

His eyes take in my stricken expression, and he runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Dammit—I can’t do this with you.”

His face becomes shuttered, closed off like the first time I’d seen him on the beach. I can’t ignore the clawing that I feel in my chest or the feeling like someone has just stabbed me right in that same spot. When he speaks again, his voice is as cold as the ice surrounding us.

“This can’t happen.”

I’m saved from having to say anything as the delicate snowflakes falling around us turn to large droplets of rain, pouring down on us in what is an entirely appropriate representation of everything I’m feeling. Because I sure as hell feel like I might cry.

“Sorry to interrupt this touching moment,” Lance calls over to us from another section of the ice garden, which is now starting to melt. There’s a wry look on his face which is mirrored on Keller’s.

I tear my eyes away from Raph, who is still just standing there, stone faced.

Something like anger washes over me, and I focus on it because it’s familiar. It’s safe.

“You weren’t interrupting anything,” I call back to Lance, although I’m really speaking to Raph. Take that, fucker.

I walk away from him and join Lance and Keller on the edge of the lake.

I don’t bother to wait for Raph.

Keller walks ahead with me and is watching me in a way that tells me she can sense something is wrong. But I tell myself that there’s nothing wrong. No, in fact this is just right. What was I thinking?

That was a mistake. His words echo through my ears and I feel like screaming. But why should I be mad?

Raph probably realized, just as I should have realized, that whatever it was that happened, is wrong. He probably just remembered that he’s the future king of Eden and has the entire planet in his hands, whereas I’m a half human nobody who can’t even use her powers properly. But fuck him. Because he started this. He asked me to stay, he offered to help me learn how to use my powers, he was the one who started sleeping in my bed, sitting with me at lunch and in classes, touching me and making me feel like I was actually beginning to trust him.

Then I laugh at myself for my own naiveté. Because it’s my own fault for reading too much into things. Raph was probably being just Raph—flirting is like breathing to him. He’s charming without even trying, he can get girls to fall for him without even meaning to. So, the joke is on me. But I feel that familiar wall of stone closing around me because I will never let that happen again.

“Did something happen back there between you and Raph?” Keller asks, as we near her motorbike. Yes, that’s right, this kickass girl actually has her own motorbike.

“No,” I lie. But she, of course, doesn’t buy it.

“Well, it sure felt like it, because I haven’t felt so much awkwardness in the air since that time in sophomore year when Lance walked in on Baron balls deep in Lance’s Winter Ball date.”

I laugh at the mental image, despite myself.

Keller looks at me expectantly.

“It was nothing,” I say.

“I just forgot for a second who Raph is,” I add, after a moment.

Keller looks at me thoughtfully.

“You know, most people think that they know Raph—he’s got this perfect life and he’s untouchable. Every girl wants him, every guy wants to be him or is just scared shitless of him, etc.

“But I don’t think anyone really knows Raph. He puts on one hell of a front. That’s what being next in line to the throne does.”

I don’t want to hear anymore, because I was in a good place just a few minutes ago—resolved not to let myself get caught up in Raph’s twisted web again. I don’t want to think about the glimpses of him that I’ve seen beneath the self-centered and arrogant fa?ade, the parts of him that I’m almost certain no one else has seen and all that it means. I don’t want to think about the fact that I know that his life isn’t perfect, that although our lives couldn’t be more different, he understands the loss and sorrow that’s plagued me for almost my entire life. That he understands it only too well.