parentshiftbook Chapter 368: Astrid’s Jealousy
Chapter 368: Astrid’s Jealousy
The punch stopped a hair from the boy’s nose.Jax’s hand had closed around Astrid’s wrist, and the suddenness of it left the young noble frozen mid-bow. Whatever charm he had strolled over with evaporated clean out of him. His mouth opened, shut, then opened again.
Then a trembling, terrified apology scraped its way out. "I... I’m sor... I never, I only meant to—"
Jax saved him from embarrassing himself any further. "Leave."
As the word landed, the boy turned and started backing away, eyes still glued to the pair of them like a man retreating from a sleeping bear. Jax spoke up one more time.
"And a piece of advice. Spend a little less time polishing your etiquette and your charm, and a little more learning to read a room. The pretty manners won’t count for much if you can’t tell when the woman in front of you is one wrong word away from rearranging your entire face."
Astrid’s anger snapped toward its new target. "Let go of me."
In answer, Jax let her wrist slip free, only for his hand to glide down and catch hers instead, his fingers threading slow between her own until they were locked tight together.
"And let you unleash all that murderous energy on some poor innocent?" His other hand came to rest at the small of her waist, easing the two of them into the posture of a waltz.
Astrid’s breath hitched at the sudden advance, in front of the entire ballroom no less, but her fury burned the panic off in a heartbeat. "Don’t you dare think your little tricks will work on me," she hissed. "And I haven’t forgotten the humiliation you just dragged me through."
Jax glanced sidelong at the guests, who had gone still as statues, every eye fixed on the two of them. "Smile wider, will you? Otherwise our audience is going to start thinking the wrong things. Right now you’re holding my hand like you’re deciding which finger to snap off first."
"I’m choosing several," Astrid said, without missing a beat.
"Greedy." He turned her, the two of them slipping into the rhythm of the song.
Watching him nudge her mood up by a single hair only reminded her exactly why she’d been furious in the first place. "Do you have the faintest idea what tonight has been for me? While I was up there fighting my own father over you, while I stood my ground and showed him my resolve and exactly how far I’m willing to go for your sake, you were down here charming yet another piece of trash."
Jax tried to get a word in. The dance had gone tense and strangely private, every other pair on the floor having stopped to feast on the newest scandal. "In my defense—"
"Fuck your defense." She didn’t even let it breathe. "There’s no innocent little spin on this, not after the begging that woman bragged about, and your silence filled in the rest. You were the one who asked her to dance, knowing full well who you belong to. And you were the one who wrecked my plan to pull the two of you apart, by turning around and inviting her right back in."
Hearing that, Jax finally put it together. It had been Astrid behind Roxana’s sudden promotion all along, and Astrid too behind the way academy’s staff had been so frantic to get Roxana moving as fast as possible, because every one of those servants knew their own lives would be on the line if they let her dawdle near him under the eyes of a jealous girl. And how could she not be jealous, when the boyfriend in question was this much of a scum and this shameless a magnet for women?
Jax decided this was a poor moment to die on that particular hill. "The dance, it was just a calculated move to kill a rumor before it could—"
She cut him off clean. "It is always a calculated move with you. That’s the whole problem. I genuinely can’t tell anymore whether you’re dumb, or whether you just play dumb so you never have to notice what your actions keep doing to the girls around you. Your precious calculated moves always rake in the attention, the affection, from every pretty face in reach, don’t they?"
Their steps had slowed to a crawl, Astrid still dredging up every last insecurity she owned.
"You made that cold, distant vampire princess sob right there in your arms, and then you patted her on the head like she was some loyal dog, and the worst part is she let you. Then there’s Lilith. The girl who was so shy she didn’t say a single word to a single soul for nearly a whole year, suddenly chatty and bright the second you walk into the room. And even now, did you not see how that drunk fool insulted me right in front of you? Me. In my own territory."
"You’re describing it like it’s a hobby," Jax said.
"Isn’t it?"
A pause settled over them. Astrid sank into her own thoughts for a moment before she spoke again, quieter now. "I’ll admit it. I feel jealous whenever there are others around you. I want all of your attention for myself. But knowing what a scumbag you are, I’m already the one making the compromise, sharing you with three other women of yours. And even that isn’t enough for you. You won’t stop there."
She drew a deep breath. "Here’s the part you don’t understand. I don’t actually hate Professor Roxana. If I had even an ounce of sense, I’d be grateful she exists. I know she’s trustworthy. I know she’s a great ally for you. And she stood up for you tonight knowing full well I could end her career, maybe her whole life, with a single word. And then she read you from the inside out while I was the one who failed to notice what you were carrying from the start."
Her voice dropped, the anger sliding away into something far rawer.
"Every word out of her mouth, drunk as she was, came straight from her heart. Straight from her feelings. And that’s exactly the thing that frightens me, because I can already see where this leads if it keeps going the way it’s going. I don’t hate her, Jax. I hate that every single thing she does keeps wounding me. The way she wore the pride of knowing you like a crown on her head. And worse, the way she stood right there and announced, to my face, that she knows you better than anyone alive."
Astrid’s lips pressed into a furious little pout.
"And of course she does. Of course she does. She gets to spend all day glued to your side, clinging to you while you eat, while you sleep, while you bury yourself in your research, every little this and that, and I hate all of it. I hate it enough to wipe that smug smirk clean off her face with my fist."
Jax studied her adorable, scowling face. "You’re getting jealous over nothing. There is nothing between us. None. She helps me out, I survive her tantrums as the price of it, and I babysit that drinking problem of hers."
"Stand in my shoes for five minutes and you’ll know precisely how it feels." Then she waved the whole subject off and skewered him with a look. "No. Forget me." Her face slid into full detective mode, eyes narrowing like she was a single clue away from cracking the case wide open. "Answer me honestly. Have you two ever slept together?"
Jax gulped under the weight of that stare and that was the exact moment their dance came to a halt, Astrid going still and Jax frozen right after her. The whole crowd burst into applause, most of it powered by fear, a few of them genuinely delighted by the show.
For Jax, it felt less like applause and more like a death sentence, courtesy of yet another misunderstanding.
He tried to answer. "You’ve got it wrong, I swear. I swear on my life it’s not what you’re picturing. She was drunk and getting all emotional, going on and on about how much she’d missed me, so I had no choice but to lie down beside her. That’s all it was."