Nova

“Love in the Time of Cholera,” she answered. “It’s all misery, which is pretty fitting for my mood at the moment. My contract requires that I be down here for filming, but it sure as hell doesn’t dictate what I’ll be doing.” She motioned to the cameras positioned around the club. Fantastic.

“Is that for Lit?”

“Nope. Just for me. I figured if I’m stuck in this chair, I might as well catch up on some reading.”

“I wish he’d get cholera,” I mumbled.

She side eyed me.

“Okay, I don’t wish he’d get cholera. I just wish he’d go back to the neat little box I’ve had him stashed in. Instead, I go from zero Landon contact to him being everywhere. I’m seriously expecting him to follow me into the bathroom at any moment.”

She picked up her book and wiggled her toes at the end of her hot-pink cast. “You could just talk to him. Rip off the Band-Aid, so to speak.”

“On the pain scale of my life, ripping off a Band-Aid is probably somewhere around a two. Dealing with Landon? That’s off the fucking charts.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugged, then motioned to our waitress. “Two amaretto sours,” she ordered.

“Thank you,” I told her, grateful she’d remembered what I liked to drink from last night. I blinked. Was Landon going to turn me into a freaking lush? “I had to basically dive over to Hugo, who sits on the other side of me during Cultures of the Pacific, to be my partner because Landon was already trying to stake a claim!”

“Well…”

“Oh no…no, no, no, no, no. His claim-staking days are over. Back then I was like virgin territory—”

She dropped her book and gave me an openly skeptical eyebrow raise.

“What? I was. He was my first. But that’s not what I meant.”

“Okay,” she said, reaching for her book again with a sigh as the song changed and Drake came through the speakers.

“I just mean that back then he could have claimed me all day long. Hell, he did for like half a second. But now, I’m not up for grabs. I’m claimed.”

“You have a boyfriend?” she asked, clearly worried.

“No. I’ve been there, done that a few times since him. I’m in a fully committed long-term relationship with myself.”

“Does yourself require batteries?”

“Very funny. I know you’re Team Landon.”

She put down her book with a longing look and turned to me. “I’m Team Switzerland. I thought it was a stupid idea to bring you here. Don’t get pissed—it’s just the truth. You are Landon’s weak spot, whether or not you’re willing to see it, and we’re doing some pretty dangerous stuff. We can’t afford to have him distracted.”

“I didn’t come here to screw with the Renegades. I’m here because I wanted to be a part of this program—to travel the world and study abroad. I had no idea Wilder owned the damn ship, or that you guys were using it as your personal worldwide stuntmobile. But you’re here, and he’s here, and leaving isn’t an option. I’m not losing the only chance I have to visit the village I was adopted from, and now there’s Leah to consider, as well. She’s my best friend, and if I leave, she’ll leave, too, out of some sense of guilt or obligation, and it will ruin her because she’s so damn in love with Wilder.”

“I know,” she said.

“So, yeah, what I did was shitty. I was dating Wilder, and I fell in love with Landon. We went behind his back. I get it. Put the fucking scarlet letter on my chest, brand me a whore, do whatever it is you need to, Penna. But while I almost broke the Renegades, Landon destroyed me. Annihilated me. I gave up everything for him, and he walked away without a backward glance. So if there’s some price you need me to pay, I’ve already paid it.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“What?” I snapped. Damn, my fuse was short.

“I was just waiting for you to finish with the whole self-flagellation routine over there. You’re right—you nearly took down my whole family, and I resented you and the lies I told to keep your secret. But I was nineteen and had little to no perspective. I’ve never been in love; I’m not going to say that I understand why you did it.” She leaned forward a little and waited until I looked her in the eyes. “But last week my sister tried to kill Paxton. She blamed him for Nick’s paralysis, and in the course of her rather insane plot, she did this to me.” She pointed to her cast. “So while I do hate what you did, I can’t really hate you. My own family did more to harm the Renegades than you ever could have done. So you and me are going to call a little truce.”

“A truce?”

She sighed. “Look. I helped get you on board. I thought Pax was nuts when he orchestrated it all. Trust me, it wasn’t easy to convince Leah that her scholarship for tutoring Pax included a full ride for her best friend, too.”

“You were in on it?”

“I was. None of us knew if she’d stay when you came down with mono before the ship launched, and none of us could predict that she and Pax would fall in love.”

“You never told Landon who she was, or how I figured into it,” I accused.

“He would have flipped his lid. You’re the one subject he won’t discuss, the one person who left a scar, and Paxton thinks you’re the only woman Landon’s capable of loving. So you’re here because Paxton thinks you and Landon are destined or some shit.”