I shifted in my seat, suddenly overtaken by the urge to make myself small. My home life was happy, by all accounts. It’d been years since my parents divorced. But still, the sound of adults stomping and yelling was enough to make me feel eight years old again, crawling into bed with Ainsley to seek reassurance I never really believed.

Brougham was totally unruffled. The only sign he’d noticed anything was a blink, and the slightest tilt of his chin toward the voices. Then he grabbed a cracker and nibbled on it thoughtfully. “Well,” he said. “I think it’s pretty clear we’re not getting anywhere today.”

“What?”

At first I thought he might be kicking me out because of the nearby argument, despite the fact that he barely seemed to have heard it, but then he continued with, “You’re obviously not prepared, and so far, I’ve learned nothing useful.”

I gaped. “You barely gave me a chance—”

“How about we call it for today? Let me know when you have something prepared, and we can regroup then.”

My lips tightened as I fought the urge to tell him to call this whole thing off. How was it even humanly possible to teach your child such shitty manners? If his parents hadn’t been so obviously preoccupied with an argument down the hall, I’d have had half a mind to tell them off for letting their son develop this for a personality.

But I somehow managed to keep my cool. I just folded my arms and followed Brougham silently out of the room, back through that hallway. The closer we got to the front door, the louder the man’s shouting got—something to do with a lie he’d caught Brougham’s mother telling—and the more I shrank into myself.

Truthfully, I was glad Brougham chose this moment to lose faith in my abilities. All I wanted to do was get out of this spotless, charmless mansion with its echoing halls and unwelcoming vastness. How had I thought it was beautiful when I first got here?

If this was where Brougham was raised, no wonder he was so cold.

FIVE