Page 77 of The Last Love Story

This completed, he leads me back to the ballroom, where I drop, sopping and exhausted, into an upholstered chair that I’ll probably stain with seawater. Music pipes gently into the space, and couples swirl up into dancing. Callum offers his hand, but when I decline, he dances with each of the sisters, then works his way through the crowd, never resting. Whatever his father said to him, he’s on his best behavior, mask in place. I’m too drained to even fake a smile. Instead, I stare up at the chandelier as we race through the hurricane wall. Perversely, it remains fixed, frozen, not even swaying with the motion of the boat.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice says, and President Graves eases himself down into a chair next to me. My full-body flinch nearly sends me careening off my seat. “You’re all right, right?”

“I’m fine—”

“I mean,” he continues, voice flinty, “my son told me he had you handled. Is that true?”

I bite my tongue.

He sighs. “There was something, something I was hoping would never get out. All of this”—he sweeps a hand at me—“it was insurance, let’s call it. And part of me, well, I’d hoped I’d never need to use... all of this.”

My heart races. Does this mean Lyceum succeeded? Did they find the dirt they needed? Did Callum give it to them?

With a groan, he pushes up. “Oof. I’m not as young as I used to be,” the president says. “But I’ve still got a few tricks.” His sharp eyes find mine. “When we get service again, I hope you remember what my son promised me. That you’rehandled. Because you’re not useful if you forget that. After all, think of the optics.”

I’m frozen with horror, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I scan the ballroom for Hux, hoping to catch his eye, to ask to borrow his tablet, but he’s nowhere to be found.

It turns out I don’t have to wait that long.

I notice the stares first, the way that Quinnie looks at me, clapping a hand over her mouth. Ms. Beighlor laughs cruelly and points so sharply it feels like I’m being stabbed.

Panic pushes me to my feet and I stride over to Mona, air already slipping along my lungs. I’m nearly hyperventilating when I reach her tablet.

There’s an image of me in my bedroom in Post Angeles in my pajamas, sprawled across my bed. The strap of my top falls, exposing my shoulder.

I remember those pajamas. I threw them out when I spilled nail polish on them. When I was sixteen.

“So romantic,” someone is saying.

And it’s my face, my body, my bedroom splashed all over their screens.

“Star-crossed lovers,” someone else says.

Mona turns to me with a smile. “You know,” she says,“I can ask the chef to whip up some pancakes. I’m sure we’ve got plenty of syrup.”

My stomach drops.

Mona’s eyes find Callum as he cuts over to us. “For both of you,” she adds.

“Callum?” I squeak out. “What are they talking about?”

His expression falls. “Ripley,” he says, “I can explain.”

Chapter 18

Callum leads me to the far end of the ballroom, behind a piano. We’re pressed up against a wall, except that entire wall is glass—a framed portrait of the destruction outside—while I feel like I’m being destroyed inside.

“Explain,” I beg, my voice shaking.

Callum looks up, his eyes wild and scared. “Listen. I missed you, okay? The second we left for the White House, I missed you. I think I was in love with you even then, Ripley.

“And it’s fucked up. It’s not okay, but I wanted to check on you. I knew my dad had ruined your parents’ lives. I knew he had threatened you in order to keep them in line. I needed to make sure you were safe.”

A new bubble of anger rises. I didn’t know that. But it makes sense. My heart aches for my parents. For what they lost, and what they lived in fear of losing.

Callum continues. “I swear I was only going to do it once.”

Everything in me goes glacial. “Dowhat?”