Bollocks. He’d earned every word of that comeback, naturally, but Jaya’d lost sight of the plan. And that was very, very bad. Keep your eyes on the prize, Jaya, my girl, her inner critic said, shaking her head and tutting. Recover yourself immediately. “Nothing,” she said, trying to calm her breathing and putting on a smile that felt very flat and very small. Why did this boy get to her so easily? “Nothing. Just that other people here, their fathers… I don’t know. I’ve heard stories. That’s all.” You arrogant, bloody son of a duke.

Grey studied her for a long moment, like he didn’t quite believe her. Nevertheless, the fire went out of his eyes. She felt her cheeks warm and her temper cool at his obvious suspicion and coughed politely to distract from it. “So, ah, Grey,” she said. “What’s your plan, then? After you graduate?”

A strange look passed fleetingly over his face. “I have no plans.”

Jaya frowned, interested in spite of herself. “But… what about your estate? Westborough? Don’t you want to manage that, help the duke run it?”

Something dark and shadowed settled over Grey. “That’s not in the cards for me.”

“But surely your family would want—”

“I don’t speak with my family,” Grey said tersely.

“None of them?” Jaya frowned, remembering his words at the sushi restaurant. Family can be unreliable. Family can hurt you.

“No,” Grey said, his jaw hard. “None of them.”

Jaya felt a flickering doubt, like a guttering flame, inside her. Was it possible that Grey really didn’t speak to his family? That his seeming lack of knowledge about the Rao scandal wasn’t an act or a devious ploy she couldn’t work out, but simply the truth? But… then who had the journalist in India been talking about? Was there another young Emerson who might’ve fed the papers this story? Perhaps. Jaya didn’t know every single member of the Emerson family tree.

She studied Grey’s profile, feeling a hint of misgiving. If he truly had no idea what his family had done… did he deserve to be punished for it? But had the Emersons given Isha any such consideration? Had they thought of her as an innocent?

“Why don’t you speak to your family?” Jaya asked, bringing her mind back to the conversation at hand.

Grey was opening his mouth to respond when Samantha Wickers accidentally whacked him with her shoulder. Samantha, a senior like them, had curly strawberry-blond hair piled into a high updo and was nice enough, Jaya supposed, but right then she wanted to slap her.

“Oh, crap!” Samantha said, her blue eyes going wide. She was holding a plate filled with hors d’oeuvres in her hands. “I’m so sorry, Grey. I didn’t see you there.”