Tempting the Knight - Heidi Rice Page 0,2

in that special buzz that only alcohol could offer. That had been the afternoon of her parents’ funeral. Age thirteen. When she’d discovered the drinks cabinet at her aunt’s house in London and gotten hammered while Seb, only recently returned from the hospital, had been locked in his bedroom upstairs, brooding and ignoring her.

That had been a bad hangover, but not as catastrophic as this one. Who knew that two hundred year old brandy was a lot less hard on the head than the wine the sisters at St J’s used for communion. Then again, Mercy—whose family were celebrated vintners in Argentina—had warned them, declaring it was not a good vintage before they’d all chugged their first glass.

Zelda had had her sixteenth birthday two weeks ago, but she suddenly felt a million years old as the door to the Mother Superior’s office opened, and Dawn appeared, her shoulders bowed, her face a sickly shade of grey and her eyes shiny with unshed tears. Dawn must have a killer hangover, too, because she looked really crappy. Then again, Zelda had a vague recollection of her looking pale and shaky last night, after locking herself in the bathroom, even before they’d started drinking.

“Go to your dorm and collect your belongings,” Sister Ignatius announced.

Dawn’s being expelled? No, no, no.

Panic hammered at the pain in Zel’s temples. But as Dawn nodded, the nun added. “When you come back from your suspension, you will bunk with the year fours. To show you the meaning of humility and sobriety.”

Relief gushed through Zel. Dawn was okay. Suspension wasn’t the worst that could happen. If they didn’t expel Dawn, they couldn’t expel the rest of them, because they’d all made a pact not to tell who had stolen the wine. And Zel knew none of her friends would rat, no matter what the Mother Superior threatened them with.

Screw her.

Because they’d made a pact, they were one for all, and all for one, just like the Musketeers.

Dawn sent Zel a weary smile, that seemed to want to say everything would be all right but wasn’t too sure. Zel smiled back, even though it made her head hurt.

Zel heard Mercy’s mother whisper something else across the hall, but she didn’t look round as Sister Ignatius approached her and Seb.

“Mr. Madison, thank you for coming. The Mother Superior will see you both now.”

Seb nodded as the Sister headed back towards the office at the end of the hall. His once warm, brown eyes were empty though when he turned to her. Black holes of nothingness in his darkly tanned face. As empty as they’d been three years ago, when he’d been eighteen and broken, in body and soul, and she’d sat by his hospital bedside and bawled like a baby, praying that her brother would be okay—only to discover the brother she’d once known was never coming back when he finally regained consciousness.

The thin scar that cut into Seb’s lip twitched as he stood up. “Let’s get this over with.”

She stood, brushed her uniform kilt with trembling hands, and prayed it wouldn’t be the last time she wore it. Her belly bottomed out as Seb strode off ahead of her, the heavy boots thumping against the polished wood like the toll of the doomsday clock. She caught Faith’s eye. Faith smiled, but like Dawn, her smile looked worried. And forced.

Then Zel made the mistake of making eye contact with Faith’s hard-ass brother again, who was still glaring at her as if he were Superman trying to drill through lead.

The hot pool of anger that had been bubbling under her breastbone ever since she’d discovered she would never see her parents again erupted without warning, and the burning desire to wipe that pissy look off his handsome face consumed her.

Who was he to judge her? Just because he was older and bigger and a guy and had done a few years of law school, and probably had every girl in Brooklyn, swooning over those wide shoulders and that dark messy hair, which curled around his ears and made him look kind of hot.

He didn’t know shit about her, or her life.

She lifted her chin and stuck her tongue out at him, swaying her hips for all she was worth.

He went rigid, those forbidding brows drawing down in anger.

Up yours, arsehole. Like I care what you think of me.

The emerald glare went nuclear as he gripped his knee, the knuckles whitening as the grey fabric of his suit pants wadded up under his