Chapter 259
Lance
The smirk on Diana's face should've been my first warning.
"Well," she said, drawing out the word with obvious satisfaction. "This I know all about. Lance used to be very dependent on me back in the day."
I felt my jaw tighten. Here we go.
"College was so much easier with a fake girlfriend running interference." Her eyes glittered with mischief. "Saved him from how many desperate sorority girls? I lost count."
The change in Serena was instantaneous. Her hand, which had been resting comfortably in mine, suddenly clenched—hard—before she released it entirely, as if my palm had turned scalding hot.
"Fake girlfriend?" The words came out strangled. "College?"
I closed my eyes briefly. Of course this is happening now.
Diana was clearly enjoying herself, one hand rising to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear in that calculated way people do when they know they're dropping a bomb.
"We were both at Harvard," she said, her tone light but pointed. "Lance and I—we were practically a couple. Just never made it official, you know? But to everyone else?" She paused for effect. "We were the perfect match. The golden couple."
Serena's face flushed. She turned to me, those green eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my chest ache.
"Is that true?"
"The important part," I said carefully, "is that we were never actually together."
Eleanor, who'd been watching this exchange with barely concealed delight, leaned forward in her chair.
"Oh, this I have to hear." Her smile was wicked. "Why 'almost'? If you were so perfect together, why didn't it happen?"
For the first time since she'd arrived, Diana's confidence faltered. Her mouth opened, then closed. Whatever answer she'd prepared died on her tongue.
I decided to save her the trouble.
"Because we were too alike." I kept my voice matter-of-fact, ignoring the way even Arthur had straightened in his seat, suddenly interested. "Diana's basically the female version of me. Cold, detached, allergic to social bullshit."
I let myself drift back for a moment—to those strange, intense years at Harvard when I'd first met her.
---
"You can't actually believe Friedman's theory holds up in emerging markets."
Diana had cornered me after Macro Theory, her expression as sharp as broken glass. Most people at Harvard either wanted something from me or wanted to sleep with me. She was the first person in two years who'd looked at me like I was an interesting problem to solve.
"I didn't say I believed it," I'd replied. "I said it was internally consistent."
"Internally consistent garbage is still garbage."
"Agreed. But at least it's elegant garbage."
She'd laughed—actually laughed—and I'd realized with something close to alarm that I liked the sound of it.
Within a month, we'd become inseparable in the most dysfunctional way possible. Study partners who competed over every grade. Debate opponents who drew blood with words. The two coldest people in a school full of strivers, circling each other like arctic predators.
"You know what your problem is?" she'd said once, after I'd systematically dismantled her argument in front of Professor Chen's entire seminar.
"I'm sure you're about to tell me."
"You think being right is the same thing as being happy."
"And you think being miserable makes you profound."
We'd glared at each other across the seminar table while our classmates pretended not to watch. Then she'd smiled—that rare, genuine smile that made her look almost human.
"God, I hate how much I like you," she'd said.
"The feeling," I'd replied, "is mutual."
People assumed we were sleeping together. We never corrected them. It was easier to let them think we were a couple than to explain what we actually were—two people who understood each other completely and found that understanding both exhilarating and suffocating in equal measure.
---
"It's like finding your reflection in another person," I said now, pulling myself back to the present. "You're grateful someone finally gets it. And you're also terrified, because if they can see through you that clearly, what does that say about all your carefully constructed defenses?"
"Scholars resent other scholars," Diana added quietly. "Writers despise other writers. It's the same principle. We recognized each other, and part of us... recoiled."
Eleanor looked between us, fascinated. "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."
"That's not even the real reason," Diana said, and I felt my stomach drop.
"Wait—" I started.
"We were both too controlled." Her smile turned rueful. "Weren't we, Lance? Two people so locked down emotionally that the idea of actual intimacy was... impossible."
The temperature in the room seemed to spike. I could feel Serena's gaze boring into the side of my head.
"She's telling the truth?" Serena's voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper. "So you and I... we still haven't really...?"
"Don't finish that sentence," I muttered, heat crawling up my neck.
Diana rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. I'm not interested in your sex life—"
"Thank God for small mercies," I cut in.
"—but it's rather telling that you've managed to break through that particular wall with Serena when you couldn't with me."
Eleanor's laugh was delighted and entirely too loud. "All right, enough! This is neither the time nor the place for your former almost-girlfriend and your current girlfriend to have a territorial dispute!"
"I'm not being territorial!" Diana and Serena said in perfect unison, then glared at each other.
I opened my mouth to defuse the situation—though God knew how—when a slow, mocking clap echoed through the room.
"Bravo, Lance." Thomas stood in the doorway, his expression somewhere between amused and predatory. "Really. This is quite the performance."
Every muscle in my body tensed. I'd been so caught up in damage control I hadn't heard him approach.
"You came here to discuss your mother's death," he continued, voice dripping with false concern. "And instead you're... what? Playing relationship counselor? Comparing notes with old flames?"
He took a step forward, and the easy humor drained from his face like water through a sieve.
"Here's some free advice, nephew." His smile was all teeth. "The moment you think you've won? That's when you're most vulnerable."
The air in the room changed—sharpened. I could feel Serena tense beside me, Diana's posture shift into something more alert. Even Arthur had gone very still.
I stood slowly, deliberately, and gestured to the chair across from me—the one reserved for suspects, for people about to be broken down and exposed.
"Appreciate the wisdom, Uncle." I kept my voice level, cold. "Now sit down."
Thomas's eyes glittered with something that might have been respect.
"Let's finish this."