6
24 February
Xavier Hall
She almost reached up and rubbed her eyes, sure she was hallucinating. Juliana recognized Rowan, knew the voice belonged to Rowan. But the man staring up at her was a diminished version of the dominating skipper she’d met over the summer. Everything about him was smaller. He’d dropped a tremendous amount of weight, and his coloring was off. His beautiful mocha skin held a gray cast to it. The physical difference was disturbing enough. But the edge in his look was dulled, and that disturbed her the most.
Juliana glanced behind her, searching for Violet.
“She’ll be back to take you to your room.”
Juliana’s attention returned to Rowan. A thousand questions scrolled through her mind, but she didn’t know which one to ask first or second or last.
Rowan had a way of scrambling her brain, so she wasn’t surprised when she said, “How are you?”
Really? That’s the best you can come up with?
Rowan scowled. Of course he did because Juliana seemed to only evoke annoyance in him.
He ran his hand over his head. “I’ve been better.”
“Right, sorry. Bloody stupid question,” she acknowledged.
“Yes, it was,” he snapped.
She didn’t expect Rowan to cut her any slack or for his disposition with her to have improved over the last few months. But she was always taken aback by his blistering attitude.
She shook her head in exasperation. “You brought me here. What is it you want from me?”
Rowan scoffed. “What the fuck was I thinking?” he muttered to no one in particular.
She wasn’t even sure if he knew he’d spoken aloud, but she bristled at his words. She knew Rowan was an incredible football player and was revered by most footballers and fans. But she couldn’t quite figure out why. He was an asshole of epic proportions. Yes, she’d kissed him in front of a bunch of press without any provocation or thought for how it would affect him. He could have played it off. He could have laughed it off. Made some remark about his overwhelming sex appeal or how he was satisfying a schoolgirl fantasy for the People’s Princess. He could have acted in a hundred different ways to play down what had happened. But he’d exacerbated the entire situation so that it became fodder for the media for weeks. Of all the things Juliana had done in an effort to protect Ele, her stupid kiss had stirred up the most trouble. Yes, Juliana had started the whole thing, but his actions had made it into an event.
Which begged the question, what the hell did he want from her?
He dropped his head onto the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling. He swallowed hard, and Juliana’s gaze locked on his throat. Was a throat supposed to be sexy? Because her stomach fluttered with awareness.
She looked away from him and glanced around the room. It struck her all at once. Rowan was at the Barrington Estate.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted, demanded.
He snorted.
Rowan Beckwith snorts?
“I was wondering when that little detail was going to finally register.”
The disdain in his voice slammed into her. She took a step back, like his comment was a physical blow. His cutting comments always made her feel like a child being reprimanded. In theory, she agreed with Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote that no one could make you feel inferior without your consent, but she was fairly certain Mrs. Roosevelt hadn’t had a Rowan Beckwith lobbing verbal jabs at her. He was such an arrogant, condescending prick.
“What do you want?” she asked through clenched teeth.
He lifted his head and leveled his big, beautiful, hard brown eyes at her. “I have a proposition for you.”
“What kind of proposition?”
“An insanely stupid, sure-to-fail proposition.” He sighed, and some of his bluster seemed to fade.
He shifted in his seat and then winced. Juliana fought her automatic response to move toward him to help. A few more wiggles and shifts, and he settled. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and his breathing was labored. Juliana would have to be a robot to not feel any sympathy for him. One of the greatest footballers of their time couldn’t change positions without stopping to catch his breath. How the mighty had fallen.
“I was surprised to see you as a participant in this marriage mart farce.”
Juliana shrugged. She wasn’t giving up anything to this man. He wasn’t entitled to her secrets.
His eyes narrowed, but he continued, “My guess is that the queen realizes how advantageous an alliance would be with Barrington, especially now.”
Juliana couldn’t stop herself from blurting, “Why especially now?”
He dropped his head again but in exasperation this time. “Come on, Princess,” he said with an extra dose of sarcasm on the princess moniker. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”
Her spine stiffened. She really hated him. Instead of engaging with him, she waited. She imagined nothing would piss him off more than her feigned indifference. She was right. As the silence stretched out, his expression darkened. But her mind continued to whirl. Something wasn’t right. Rowan’s presence at Xavier Hall was unexpected. Despite their planning and plotting, they’d missed something. And could throw a wrench into their plans?
“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to hold the questions in any longer.
He smiled wickedly. And without knowing why, she braced herself.
“The duke is my father.”
Juliana’s brow furrowed, and she bit down on her bottom lip. She studied him, and he chuckled. But it wasn’t a happy sound.
“I know. The coloring is all wrong.”
Juliana almost rolled her eyes. Because, yes, Rowan’s own dark skin didn’t match the rest of the Barrington clan. But the eyes—the big, dark, doe-like eyes—were exactly like Violet’s and Frederik’s.
The implications of Rowan’s statement hit her at once. He was the duke’s illegitimate child. He was older than Frederik, so what did that mean for the titles? Did they bypass Rowan and go to Frederik? And Rowan was a duke’s son. How had that juicy tidbit of information about him stay under wraps for so long? Then, something else struck her. In a million years, Juliana would have never thought she had something in common with Rowan Beckwith. And yet, what they shared seemed more elemental than anything else. He had to know what it was like to grow up and not quite fit in.
Even though they seemed to be in the same situation, of course both handled it differently. He seemed to do everything in his power to separate himself from his family. And she did everything she could to be part of hers.