DE rolled her eyes and looked at her phone. On her other side, Alaric was talking about his limited-edition gold-plated Lambo to Lachlan McCoy. He could almost have passed as a little boy bragging about his new Hot Wheels car.

They were silent for a long moment, Grey looking out the window while his attention was laser-focused on Jaya. She was ostensibly looking straight ahead too, but Grey could tell her attention was elsewhere. Finally, in a voice so low he almost didn’t hear it, she said, “You’re going to tell me.”

He jerked his head to look at her. “What?”

She turned her cool brown gaze on him. “I can feel it; you’re going to try to wriggle out of telling me what you were doing in my room. About my pendant.”

Feeling the beginnings of panic, Grey glanced around at the other students, but they were all intent on their own conversations. Jaya was speaking low enough that it was hard enough for him to hear her over the bus engine and the chatter of the other students, but still. “I’m not wriggling out of anything,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair. He had been tempted to avoid her, but that was too cowardly. It wasn’t how he rolled. “I’ll tell you everything, okay? I promise.”

She raised an eyebrow. “When?”

“I just need to think.” Grey leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thigh. He needed to get up the courage, figure out the words to say. How did you begin to explain something like this? “Meet me at the Forest Lakes Lodge tonight, seven o’clock.”

Jaya looked at him, assessing. Satisfied with whatever she saw in his eyes, she nodded. “Okay. Seven o’clock, sharp.”

With a hissing sigh, the bus stopped. Everyone began to chatter loudly, all at once. Grey looked out the window at the parking lot of the large Aspen shopping plaza St. Rosetta’s always took them to. “Go time,” he said softly.

CHAPTER 11

Jaya

Jaya watched Grey lope off by himself, as she’d known he’d do. Even though she shouldn’t, she felt sure he’d meet her when he said he would. Soon she’d know exactly what was going on with him.

One thing had become clearer: what Grey had said at the mixer before he disappeared—about how he couldn’t date and how he wouldn’t run the Westborough estate because he didn’t speak to his family—was connected to Jaya’s pendant, just as she’d guessed. It had to be. How, Jaya was eager to find out.

“So, I think we need to talk,” Jaya said to Daphne Elizabeth now.