The Switch (4 page)

Just keep moving. Ignore them. Head up,
never mind the soreness, walk straight and proud.

She was used to their stares and dirty
looks. So what if they were whispering, snickering now? Another six
months and she’d be out of here, anyway.

Behind her, someone gave a soft whinny, and
she almost faltered. Laughter, outright now, and more horse noises.
She rolled her eyes and continued. Idiots.

But her bravado failed, sinking in dread as
she approached the alcove where Grayson and his followers always
hung out. He hadn’t been in the parking lot when she’d arrived -
not a good sign. What would he say? Would he join the others in
their teasing? Had she lost him, too?

It’s his fault, after all.

At least, that’s what she’d told herself
when she’d snuck into his family’s stables and taken their
horseman’s flirtations to the next level. For months - no, years,
she’d pined after Grayson, the dumb jerk, merely to achieve status
as his ‘one true female friend.’

He could have his pick of any girl in school
or out, and often did. Lately, it was the co-captain of the
cheerleading squad, naturally. He was going to go all the way, he’d
told her. Marion was the only person who knew Grayson was still a
virgin; he’d shared that secret in addition to his countless
‘almost’ exploits with her, “to get a woman’s feedback,” he often
joked.

Well, the joke was on him.

Or not, Marion realized, drawing nearer. She
wouldn’t look, but she could feel him watching her. Her throat drew
painfully tight as she faced the reality that she’d not only lost
Olivia, but indeed, Grayson, too.

A movement in her peripheral vision made her
pause. Her heart skipped in hope and fear as he stepped out from
his little group.

“
Not even going to say hello?” he asked
softly.

Only then did she hazard to look at his
face. He was doing that
thing
, where his mouth wasn’t
smiling, but his eyes were. She swallowed.

“
Hi.” It came out as barely a whisper,
her mouth was so dry.

Then he did smile, and his arm came up
around her shoulder. “Nice job,” he said with admiration as they
walked the rest of the way to her locker. “You’re really making it
a challenge for me to keep up.”

Marion hadn’t known what he meant at the
time, but over the years it became clear. Olivia was right in that
regard. Grayson had a penchant for thumbing his nose at everyone,
for being ‘bad,’ just to be contrary. A perfect rebel without a
cause. And what better way to rebel than to embrace the pariah?
That one gesture of acceptance had thrown their narrow little world
into turmoil, and had planted the first of many walls between
Grayson and Olivia.

Not that Marion had grasped any of that at
the time. Oh, she’d known she was a tool for Gray’s rebellion, with
her half-Indian looks and a single father who’d come into his money
through hard work rather than blood. But despite all that, she’d
fallen. Hard. Multiple times.

Pathetic.
Story of her goddamned
life.

At least she had so much practice pulling
herself up and dusting herself off, that she pretty much expected
it. But the idea of him getting married… What did Olivia mean, he’d
‘have to’? Were his parents really that old-fashioned?

“Olivia. How wonderful it is to see you
again.” William appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. He didn’t cast
so much as a glance at Marion, but this was clearly a rescue. “Am I
to understand you’re now engaged?” he continued, putting an arm
around Olivia’s shoulders and giving her cheek a swift kiss. “I
thought you were saving yourself for me, you hardhearted minx.”

Olivia gave a light laugh and returned
Will’s greeting, her sleek coolness sliding back over her demeanor.
Marion took a step back and pulled herself together as well, though
she was still shaken by the whole encounter. Were it not for her
beloved heels, she’d have run away from the two, away from the
whole damned party, in fact.

She was forming an exit plan when William
caught her eye over Olivia’s head. He gave a wink and a small nod
toward the farthest refreshment table before continuing with
another round of platitudes and false flirtation, slowly guiding
Olivia in the opposite direction.

Marion let out a long exhale and headed to
where the bitchery was more on the catty end of the spectrum,
rather than sheer hatred. She’d always known Grayson’s rebellious
streak was a spike driven between him and his sister, sinking
deeper every year. It wasn’t her business, though, and there was
little she could do about it even if it was. But to realize that in
Olivia’s eyes, not only had Marion stolen Jasper, she’d taken away
her brother as well…

Maybe she’d have one Scotch on the rocks,
after all.

The evening was rapidly approaching
suckville. After his “birthday surprise,” Grayson’s friends had
conveniently scattered, and he could find neither his Scotch, nor
Marion.

What the fuck was Corbin playing at, with
that damned reunion scheme? Did everyone think Grayson was just
rebelling, that his life was nothing more than a series of
‘phases,’ even now as he was pushing thirty and actually doing
something meaningful with himself?

No, they didn’t all think that. Marion
understood him. She knew him, accepted him for who he was, for the
most part.

But even she didn’t know about his bizarre
sexual tastes, the needs that drove him to
Club Ten
almost
weekly. Not that she’d judge him or think poorly if she found
out.

Trouble was, he wanted her, had wanted her
for years.

But more importantly, he wanted her in
that
context. Nothing else would do. It was why, after all
these years, he’d never laid so much as a finger on her. Well,
until the July Fourth party. But even that was nothing more than a
drunken, vanilla make-out session. And then, of course -
nothing.

Grayson sighed and resisted the urge to bang
his head against a marble column. He was such a goddamned coward.
He’d been too scared to risk everything, too try for something more
with Marion. What if they got involved and she wasn’t willing or
able to help him with his ‘needs’?

Maybe it was selfish, but it also wasn’t
going away. Domination and submission wasn’t a disease to be cured.
Sure, he could survive on vanilla for a little while, but
inevitably it always came back to—

“—you mean like, spanking and whips and
shit?”

Grayson rolled his eyes and shoved a finger
sandwich in his mouth. The last thing he needed to hear was Peter
discussing BDSM with his usual idiocy. Unfortunately, he’d trapped
himself in a corner behind the buffet. Any attempt to escape would
draw attention to himself, and Pete would likely try and drag him
into the conversation, if for no other reason than to snark about
Marion and her costume.

Where the fuck is she?

“Well, yes, but there’s much more to it than
that, from what I understand.” Chloe’s voice was patient and
clinical. “We barely touched on it in my class, but people have all
sorts of kinks and fetishes that fall under the heading.”

“Did someone say ‘kink’?” a familiar voice
interrupted. Husky and tinged with that lilt that had faded over
her years of living in the states, Marion’s words slid through him
like the whiskey he’d downed earlier.

Not waiting for an answer, she leaned in and
plucked several pieces of fruit from one of the platters. Grayson
couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering over her luscious form,
hungrily taking in the details of her costume up-close.

“Nice tights, Pete,” Marion remarked with a
smirk before turning to greet him,
finally, damn it
. “Hey
there, Captain Tightpants.”

He straightened, flipping his hair out of
his eyes with a flick of his head. “I’m Han Solo,” he replied
indignantly - hadn’t any of these people seen
Star Wars
? It
was a classic, after all.

With a bored hum, she bit into a strawberry
and quirked her eyebrow at him. “So where’s Leia?”

Grayson relaxed. Slipping easily into their
usual sarcastic banter, he gave her a suggestive half-grin worthy
of a space scoundrel. “You applying for the position,
princess?”

Marion snorted and turned away. “In your
dreams, Jones,” she threw over her shoulder as she headed, oddly
enough, toward the small crowd surrounding Rosaline. Her hips
swayed, distracting him with a glimpse of black lace and garter
clip peeking out from under the hem of her dangerously short
skirt.

“Well, I think you look gallant in your
Robin Hood costume, Peter,” Chloe declared.

Game
on.

Marion’s blood pulsed with anticipation
despite her bored expression.

“Someone is eating you alive with their
eyes,” Emmaline remarked dryly.

Her heart tripped, but she only shrugged and
took a tiny swallow of her Scotch. It was enough to take the edge
off, and that’s all she wanted. She seemed to be in the minority,
however.

Hours into the evening, the booze now flowed
freely. After her initial encounter with Gray, she found herself
included in circles that normally kept her on a careful fringe;
pulled into conversations that usually died off the moment she drew
near.

“Pretty sure that was the whole idea,”
Rosaline said, leaning back against the gold damask wall from her
perch on the arm of an overstuffed sofa. Her words were a little
slurred and a lot more blunt than her usual backhanded remarks.
“Honestly, Mare, why don’t you just throw yourself at him and have
done with it? No one’ll judge you – we’ve all done it at one point
or another.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Chloe. “Not
everyone falls for arrogant, self-centered assholes.”

Rosaline snorted. “Irrelevant. Grayson the
Great doesn’t go for livestock.”

Marion traded a look with Emmaline. Rose had
torn down her ‘fat friend’ behind her back on many occasions, but
with a little more subtlety than this. No one came to Chloe’s
defense, though.

Without so much as a blink, Chloe replied,
“Oh, come now, Rosaline. So he rejected you. It’s not as if anyone
holds it against you.”

Marion sipped at her drink to hide her grin.
No one came to Chloe’s defense, because she never needed it. Marion
was tempted to point out that, for nearly a year, Grayson actually
had harbored a thing for Chloe. Sadly, that was one of several
secrets she kept for the arrogant, self-centered asshole.

“He didn’t reject me,” Rosie gritted. “He
was simply honoring the fact that Corbin wanted me.”

Chloe nodded understandingly. “Broes before
hoes.”

Emmaline made a strangled sound before
coughing into her cocktail napkin.

Entertaining as it was to watch the
thinly-veiled verbal catfight, Marion had heard enough. Chuckling
to herself, she turned and wandered away from Rosaline and her
frienemies.

For the first time since he’d left home and
all the outdated, overblown, overly-stuffy, and utterly boring
‘social events’ his parents used to make him attend, Grayson was
actually anxious to leave a party early. No, not anxious –
impatient.

Ironic, since it was his party.

But ever since she’d walked in wearing that
getup, he couldn’t breathe right. His skin felt too tight; the room
felt too small and too large all at once.

Where the fuck has she gone off to, now?

She hadn’t spoken two words to him since her
initial greeting, had barely paid him a glance that he was aware
of. And he was very much aware of her movements throughout the
gathering.

It’s probably nothing.
No way she
could know. That costume, the whole Bettie Page in leather thing… a
coincidence, that’s all. He’d been telling himself that all
night.

Sure.

And she wasn’t intentionally keeping a
distance, either. After all, she was a total butterfly in these
circles. Everyone in this exclusive little country-club world
wanted her attention, and would monopolize all of her time trying
to catch up.

Yeah, right.
Grayson snorted and
popped a piece of cheese into his mouth with a scowl.

She was here for
him
, damn it. These
pompous assholes had never embraced her, regardless of how long
she’d lived here, or how much money her father made. She was always
an outsider, with her dark complexion and ‘un-American’ looks.

Idiots - all of them. But he was glad for
it. Because he knew how special Marion was. And his friendship with
her had shown him how stupid the rest of them were.

He laughed along with Corbin at something he
supposed was a joke – he didn’t know and didn’t care. Making
another covert scan of the room, his eyes narrowed in satisfaction
as he caught a glimpse of caramel skin and black leather. He’d
nearly missed her slipping through a pair of French doors leading
to a secluded balcony. Giving his best friend a quick clap on the
shoulder, Grayson excused himself and headed in the direction of
his birthday present.

Marion sighed as the cool night air
enveloped her. The small, hidden veranda off the back corner of the
ballroom was blessedly empty.

Emmaline was correct. All night, from the
moment she’d snarked at him about Han Solo, Marion had felt
Grayson’s eyes on her. Even now, as she quietly pushed the French
doors shut and took several deep, calming breaths, she knew he was
watching, or at least was aware of her whereabouts.

It was a heady, powerful feeling. At the
same time, her nerves positively vibrated. Was she really going to
do this, cross this line with him once and for all?

She’d been thinking about it for months.
Okay, years - ever since the summer they graduated college. She’d
gone to England for a couple months to visit her aunt, and let
Grayson stay in her apartment while she was gone.