“I’ll do my best,” she promised, and her father gave her an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder.
“I know you will.”
Nadia’s home took up the top three floors of one of the Lake Towers. The lowest of those three floors was mostly made up of servants’ quarters, but one large and sunny corner room served as a schoolroom for Nadia’s classes.
An Executive schoolroom looked nothing like the classrooms in ordinary Employee schools. Instead of a bunch of straight-backed chairs lined up facing a teacher’s desk, there was merely a large round table with comfortable ergonomic chairs. You could tell which seat was the teacher’s because of the oversize monitor and whiteboard behind it, but Nadia had always thought the setup looked more like a conference room than a classroom. The table sat on an obviously expensive red and gold rug, and potted plants were artfully scattered throughout. A table in the far corner sported silver urns of coffee and hot water for tea, as well as elegant finger sandwiches and bite-size pastries.
Nadia wasn’t sure what to expect as she made her way from the elevator to the schoolroom. Jewel and Blair were both reluctant students at best, and they often skipped classes unless there was a test or some other pressing need for them to be there. Nadia hoped they would skip today so she didn’t have to spar with them, but she suspected they wouldn’t be able to resist showing up so they could pretend to be sympathetic and concerned while they pressed her for lurid details. Even if she told them nothing, they’d be sure to share a rumor or two they would claim they’d learned straight from her. At least Cherry was a year younger, so Nadia didn’t have to face the entire Trio together. But as concerned as she was with her mean-spirited classmates, she was more concerned about the ominous Robert Dante. She wondered if he was a nasty, weaselly type like Mosely, the kind of person who could give you an ingratiating smile while freezing your marrow with the coldness of his eyes.
Nadia felt uncommonly nervous when she stepped through the doorway into the schoolroom, her eyes darting around quickly to get the lay of the land.
As she’d suspected, Jewel and Blair were both present. They stood together in the far corner of the room, each holding a china cup and saucer while they bent their heads together and talked softly, giggling. Nadia’s immediate assumption was that they were talking about her, but perhaps she was being self-centered.
Chloe was sitting at the table, about as far away from the other girls as she could get in the confines of the schoolroom. Supposedly, racism had been all but abolished in these advanced and civilized times, but the Rathburns were the only black Executive family in Paxco, and Chloe always seemed to hover around the fringes of Executive society. Although she was invited to and attended all the Executive parties and events, she always gave the impression that she was on the outside looking in. Nadia had never been sure whether it was on account of Chloe holding herself aloof or whether it was because the other Executives subtly shut her out.
Nadia had willfully befriended Chloe when they were thirteen, more because she was stubbornly unwilling to accept Chloe’s fringe status than because they had so much in common. They weren’t the kind of “best friends” Nadia read about in books or saw on TV, not the kind who had long, deep conversations about boys and life and their hopes for the future. For instance, Nadia would never tell Chloe the truth about her relationship with Nate. But they were friends nonetheless, and they had fun together.
Chloe noticed Nadia’s arrival first, and when Nadia met her eyes, she knew at once that something was wrong. Chloe smiled at her and waved, but there was something slightly off about her expression, and she quickly looked away, cupping her hands around her coffee cup and staring moodily at the steam rising from its surface. Hardly the greeting Nadia was expecting. And that was when it occurred to Nadia that she hadn’t had any phone messages from Chloe this morning. Surely a true friend should have at least called to see if she was okay.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nadia saw Jewel and Blair watching her and smirking. Nadia could just imagine what had happened here before she’d arrived. Jewel and Blair had probably talked extensively—and loudly—about Nadia’s fifteen hours of questioning at the security station, speculating on the possibility of her being guilty of something. Maybe they’d even suggested that they were taking a social risk by attending classes at Nadia’s home, that the taint of Nadia’s potential involvement with the Chairman Heir’s murder might rub off on them.
Jewel and Blair were both so highly born that they could afford the social risk of being in Nadia’s presence. But Chloe, already on the fringes, could not. And the bitches had made sure she knew it.
Nadia swallowed hard and tried to act as though she were oblivious to the undercurrents. Fuming quietly, she headed toward the refreshments table. And that was when she got her first look at Robert Dante.
He was standing stiffly, with his back against the wall, hands clasped behind him, looking straight ahead in the perfect imitation of a servant making himself unobtrusive while standing at the ready.
She guessed his age as somewhere around eighteen—unusually young for a servant who was meant to interact with his Executive employers. He should have had to work his way up to the position, but she supposed being a spy meant he could skip all that. Well over six feet tall, he had shoulders so broad they seemed to strain the limits of his jacket. The formal livery couldn’t hide the muscular build that reminded her of a professional athlete, and his deeply bronzed skin and freckled nose suggested he spent a fair amount of time in the sun. Not at all the look of someone who hoped to make a living as “personal assistant” to a man like Nadia’s father. Not what she would imagine a spy looked like, either, though she supposed a spy who looked like a spy wouldn’t be much use.
Ordinarily, Nadia would introduce herself to a new member of her household, even if girls like Jewel and Blair would sneer at her for acknowledging a servant as a fellow human being. However, since Dante was here to spy on her, she didn’t feel inclined to indulge in social niceties, so she tried her best to ignore him as she fixed herself a cup of tea.
He was hard to ignore, and she found her gaze darting in his direction again as she dunked her tea bag. If she had to be spied on by someone, at least that someone was conspicuously nice to look at.
Maybe he sensed her looking at him, because he suddenly met her eyes. She looked away hastily, hoping she wasn’t blushing. Just because she was engaged to Nate didn’t mean she didn’t notice good-looking guys like any other girl, but she didn’t want anyone to notice her noticing a servant like that.
Bracing herself for awkwardness, Nadia turned and headed toward the conference table. Jewel and Blair were still smirking in the corner, and Chloe was still fascinated by something in the depths of her coffee cup. Nadia considered sitting on the far side of the table, but she always sat next to Chloe, and she wasn’t going to allow social politics to change that. She took her seat and sipped her tea, painfully aware of the wall of silence beside her.
Nadia felt as if everyone in the room was watching her every move—with the exception of Chloe, who was trying to pretend she didn’t exist. She felt sure Dante was staring at her, spying on her, but she didn’t dare glance his way again. She looked over at Jewel and Blair and saw that they had both locked on to her and were heading over to the table.