“Okay then,” I said finally, smothering my giddy glee. “I’m

Ridiculously sexy quality?

there.”

“Dangerous thing going,” she finished.

She gazed at me intently, as if gauging my reaction to this

assessment.

“Yeah, I could see that,” I said nonchalantly. Beautiful and rich and smart and cocky and lascivious? Yeah. That added up to dangerous. “If you go for that type of thing,” I added. “Which I don’t.”

Normally.

But even if I was considering potentially going for it now, she didn’t need to know that. Especially if she, for some reason, had some kind of problem with Thomas, as her tone suggested. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do was come off as boy crazy. I wanted to come off as cool. Sophisticated. Above it all. Like she was.

Ariana smiled slowly and seemed to glow from within. “You

should sit with us tomorrow,” she said. “At breakfast.”

My heart didn’t beat for a good five seconds.

P R I V A T E

69

“Not hungry?” she said, eyeing my meager breakfast of dry toast and coffee.

Starving, actually. I just hadn’t been sure what would constitute a sanctioned breakfast at the Billings table, so I had played it safe.

BREAKFAST WITH BILLINGS

On Ariana’s tray was a half-eaten fruit cup, two pieces of toast, and a bowl of dry Lucky Charms. My stomach grumbled at the sight of it all—inaudibly, thank God.

“I’m not a big breakfast person,” I lied. Then wanted to kick

myself when I realized that if I ended up sitting here again, I was Ariana was seated alone at her table when I arrived the next

going to have to stick to that.

morning, wearing a white sundress and a blue scarf. I wasn’t sure

“I love breakfast,” Ariana said lightly, picking up one purple

if she had gotten there early on my behalf, but I was relieved to horseshoe marshmallow and placing it in her mouth. “I would eat it see her. Approaching her when she was on her own was a lot

three times a day if I could.”

easier than the alternative. I kept expecting her to look up from I smiled. Her serenity had a calming affect on me. “It’s quiet

her book as I got closer, but she never did. Finally I was left here in the morning,” I said, looking around as students trailed standing there, hovering, feeling awkward. Maybe it had been a blearily in through the double doors.

joke. Or maybe she had forgotten. Could she really not have

“That’s why I like it,” Ariana said. “Much better for reading.”

noticed the shadow I was casting on her pages?

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