Claiming Caroline (Claimed 3)

"Psst!" Kennedy whispers, waving at me from her hiding spot in the bushes. She peeks out, looking around precisely as if she expects to be caught at any moment. When she doesn't see anyone else, she hurries toward me, dressed exactly the same as I am.

Even her hair matches mine. Well, the wig she's wearing does.

"Did anyone see you?" she whisper-hisses, making me smile.

One of the things I love most about my sister is that she is absolutely terrible at subterfuge. Her inability to tell a convincing lie is exactly why we have never gotten away with much. I don't mind though. I love her soft heart and guilty conscience. The world is still magical to her, and that makes it magical to everyone around her.

"Everyone saw me," I say with a snort. "Wasn't that the point?"

She huffs at me. "You know what I mean."

"No one knows," I promise, slipping my mask off to hand it to her. "I was on my best behavior and only spoke to one person all night."

"Who?"

"Just some guy."

Okay, so maybe I'm terrible at lying too.

She narrows her eyes on me.

Luckily, we don't have time for her to press me for more details about the guy in question, or what I spent the entire night doing with him. I'm not sure how she would react if I told her the truth. Neither of us has any experience with men. But the kitchen door creaks open, saving me from a confession we don't have time for at the moment.

Kennedy's eyes go wide. She grabs me by the arm and drags me into the bushes with her. A branch gouges me in the side, but I bite back the pained curse and hunker down with her, peering through the tangle of branches and still changing leaves.

A man steps outside, his back to us.

Kennedy's nails dig into my arm.

Neither of us dares to breathe.

He pulls the door closed and then hesitates for a second as if reluctant to go.

When he turns a moment later with a softly muttered curse, allowing me to catch sight of his face, relief hits me so hard my legs threaten to buckle. It's Jared. Even if he spots us, I know he won't say a word to anyone or ask any questions. He wouldn't do anything to hurt me, I'm certain of it. But I don't want him to have to lie for us if we get caught, so I bite my tongue instead of calling out to him.

"What is he doing here?" Kennedy mumbles, speaking so quietly I wouldn't have heard her if we weren't crammed into the bushes practically on top of one another.

"Who?"

Jared grits out another curse and then takes off across the grass, headed away from the estate. His long legs cover the ground quickly. Within a matter of moments, the deeper shadows of the night swallow him up.

"Professor King," Kennedy whispers as if Jared might still hear. "He never comes to these things."

Professor King? Does she mean Jared? Is he–? Professor King is–?

No. There's no way.

"Professor King?" I hiss, clutching my throat as if that's going to allow me to pull in a breath. Except it isn't, because the anvil sitting on my chest is crushing all the air from my lungs. Jared and Professor King can't be the same man.

"He's the devil," Kennedy complains, and then grabs my arm, practically dragging me out of the bushes. "We need to hurry up before we get caught."

"That was…that was Professor King?"

Kennedy bobs her head, oblivious to the way my world shudders, entire regions caving in on itself to form a giant abyss of guilt. I just let my sister's beastly professor do…that to me. Oh my god. I promised to meet him again tomorrow.

I gave him my panties!

I called him daddy.

"Are you okay?" Kennedy searches my face when I make a strangled sound. "You're acting really weird. Have you been drinking? And why is your hair all messed up?"

I brush off her questions and suck in a deep breath, trying to hold it together until she's safely inside and we're not in danger of being found out here trading places like we're up to something. That's the last thing I need right now.

"I'm fine," I lie, but I'm not. The man who sent my heart soaring is the same one who keeps breaking my sister's. Not because she has a crush on him or anything—she doesn't. But because he's ruthless, so brutally honest it borders on cruel.

He doesn't believe in love.

Isn't that what she told me this morning? That he thinks her view of love is too out of touch with reality to be taken seriously? That she needs to stop thinking like a naïve girl and focus on building characters people will believe?

How is her despot professor and my charming prince the same man? They can't be…can they?

"Hey." I touch Kennedy's arm before she can dart inside. "Is his name really King?"