My phone vibrates in my pocket and I flinch, then release a long breath before I fetch it and check the text.
Landon: You alive, love?
My heart skips a beat and butterflies erupt in my stomach.
I’ve always thought those sensations were clichés that only existed in shoujo mangas, but it took real-life experiences to realize just how true they were.
How one word, one text, from the person who matters, is more important than the whole world.
I straighten and reply.
Cecily: I think so. Just got back.
Landon: Meet me?
Cecily: Sure. Where?
Landon: Same place.
I smile at that. We have a place. It’s not big nor special, but it’s our little secret.
Cecily: On my way.
Thirty minutes later, I stop my car near the deserted rocky shore of the beach.
Since Brighton Island, which is situated near the south coast of the United Kingdom, is surrounded by sea on all sides, there are a lot of beaches and shores.
But we from REU don’t usually hang out in places that TKU’s students frequent to avoid unwanted fights.
This part of the beach is ours, and yes, it’s a public place, so we can’t stop TKU’s students from coming here, but they know not to unless they’re ready to face our club’s wrath.
Just like TKU has Heathens and Serpents, two notorious clubs whose members are part of the mafia, our university has the Elites.
They’re not mafia or anything that shady, but they’re equally lethal in an ‘old money rules’ kind of way.
And the one I’m meeting is the leader of this club.
I step out of my MINI Cooper, do a sweep of my surroundings, then open the passenger door of the black car that’s parked facing the sea and slide inside.
My heart does that skip again when my gaze falls on the most ethereally beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. So blue and deep, they might as well rival the ocean and swallow anything in sight.
Landon King is three years older than me, so while I’m a second-year psychology major, he’s already getting his master’s degree in arts and sculpting masterpieces that galleries all over the world snatch up before they’re even complete.
And just like his statues, he has Greek god beauty with sharp features, gorgeous dark brown hair, and a straight nose that might as well be carved from marble.
He’s the epitome of masculine beauty with his toned body and stylish clothes. Even his car is a special edition McLaren, made specifically for him and him alone.
I shift against the leather to face him, and that brings on the memory of a different type of leather.
The one that groped and touched me in places even Landon hasn’t.
“You do look alive.” His voice brings me out of my forbidden musings.
“Yeah. I managed to escape.”
“Interesting choice of words. Were you not allowed to leave for one reason or another?”
I go still.
Sometimes, I forget how much of a genius Landon actually is. He’s attuned to every single detail and nothing escapes his notice.
For some reason, I don’t want to talk about what happened back at the initiation. A part of me, a stupid, lovesick part, views it as a betrayal to Landon.
And that’s the epitome of irrationality.
Lan and I aren’t an item. Hell, he has no clue about my feelings for him and had friend-zoned me to the next planet when we were kids.
Not that I’ve liked him since then. I think I started to have a crush on him when I was maybe seventeen and we had a thought-provoking conversation about choosing lives that were independent to our godlike parents’。 He said they wouldn’t shadow us if we didn’t allow them to and that if anyone could do it, I could.
There was something so sexy about a man who believed in my potential before I could reach it. Little by little, I developed a crush on him, but due to his obvious lack of interest, I backed off.
I tried to get over him, you know. I even dated, but look where that disaster got me.
Besides, there are just no other guys like Landon. None with his wit, charm, and Machiavellian view of the world.
I don’t really approve of the last part, but nobody’s perfect, right?
“The initiation was brutal,” I say in reply to his last question. “That’s what I meant by I managed to escape. Unscathed. Mostly.”
He watches me intently, his hand stroking the steering wheel in a slow rhythm. “No problems other than that?”
There were only problems.
“The guard did double-check me when he scanned the invitation, but he allowed me in, so I don’t think there were any issues on that front.”