The Lost Heiress: Loved By Three

The distraction

(Avery)

I can’t believe that I actually blushed when Luca was flirting with me. I have to blame the extra attention he was giving me, not only him but Elias and Jackson as well.

I shook my head as I tried to focus on English class since Mr. Hamilton was discussing Macbeth. I always liked picking apart the words, trying to understand why they were said and what they really meant. But today, my head wasn’t in it.

My mind kept drifting back to Luca.

He had a way of saying things like he was testing me, waiting to see how far I’d push back. The smirk, the tone, the confidence. It was too much to ignore. And the worst part? For a second, when he leaned close, I didn’t want to ignore it.

I stared down at my notes. My handwriting was uneven, the words running together because I wasn’t paying attention. Mr. Hamilton’s voice came from the front, steady and patient, going over a passage from Macbeth that most of the class didn’t even bother to read. I tried to keep up, writing down a few things, but none of it stuck.

Across the room, I could feel Serena’s eyes on me.

I didn’t want to look at her, but I did anyway. She was glaring, her chin lifted like she was daring me to even breathe wrong. The hatred in her eyes was so strong I could feel it pressing against me, even with rows of students between us. I quickly looked back at my paper, forcing myself to keep my eyes down, but my stomach turned.

I told myself not to care. That’s what I had been doing since I came to Prestwick. Don’t care. Keep your head down. Get through it. But it was hard when Serena made sure everyone in the room saw me as a target.

Mr. Hamilton called on someone in the back row, and a boy stumbled through an answer. Half the class laughed. Serena didn’t. She was still staring at me.

I tapped my pen against the page, trying to block it out. I wrote down the words “ambition” and “guilt” even though I wasn’t sure what point I was supposed to be making. My thoughts were still on Luca, on the way his grin had stayed in my head like it belonged there.

The bell finally rang, and I packed up my things as fast as I could. I wanted to get out before Serena found a reason to corner me. I knew she would, even without the warnings to stay away from me.

Math was next, and I felt my chest relax just a little when I walked into the room. Algebra made sense to me. Numbers followed rules. No guessing, no pretending. If you did the steps, you got the answer. It was one of the few things that felt steady in a place where nothing else did.

I slid into my seat, pulled out my notebook, and tried to focus on the board as Ms. Carter started writing out equations. I liked the way the problems lined up, neat and clear. Solve for x, check the work, move on. Simple.

But again, my mind betrayed me.

Luca.

The way he leaned against the wall like he owned the whole hallway. The way Jackson had laughed when I told him off. The way Elias had stepped in, serious, like he always was. And me, standing there with all of them, with every eye in the hallway on us.

I pressed my pencil harder into the paper. I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t stop.

I worked through the first problem quickly, almost too quickly, then stared at the answer without really seeing it. My head was filled with too many things that didn’t belong in math class.

Ms. Carter walked by my desk, glanced at my work, and gave me a short nod. At least I had gotten it right.

The girl next to me whispered something to her friend, and I caught Serena’s name in it. My chest tightened again. I didn’t look at them. I couldn’t.

Instead, I bent over my notebook and forced myself to keep writing. Numbers, lines, steps. Anything that wasn’t Luca or Serena or the way this school seemed to swallow me whole every time I tried to breathe.

When the bell rang again, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. I packed my books slower this time, waiting until most of the room was empty before I stood.

But when I stepped into the hall, Luca was there. Leaning against the lockers like he had been waiting.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, grinning like the whole world was his.

I felt my face heat again, even though I told myself it wouldn’t. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“Nowhere more important than here.”

I rolled my eyes, but my lips twitched before I could stop them. And that scared me more than Serena’s glare ever could.

"Come on, I like messing with you. It gives me pleasure to see your face flushed."

He said it so easily, like he didn’t even have to think.

I tightened my grip on my books. “You should find a new hobby.”

He laughed, low and careless, and it made a couple of students nearby turn their heads. They always did when he spoke. Luca Monroe didn’t blend in anywhere, not even when he tried.

“You’re not like the others,” he said, still watching me.

I shifted my weight, annoyed at how my cheeks still felt warm. “You don’t even know me that much.”

“That’s the point,” he answered. “I want to know all of you.”

I blinked at him. He wasn’t smirking this time. His voice wasn’t teasing. It made me feel more off balance than when he was throwing his stupid lines at me.

Before I could think of what to say, Jackson showed up, sliding in beside him. “You two look cozy.”

I rolled my eyes again, wishing my face didn’t give me away. “We’re not.”

Jackson grinned, his eyes moving between us. “Sure.”

Elias walked up a second later, looking at both of them like he already regretted it. “Don’t you have class, Luca?”

“Yeah,” Luca said, but he didn’t move. His eyes stayed on me.

I cleared my throat and finally stepped past him, forcing my feet to move even though I could still feel his gaze. Elias moved with me, slowing his pace to match mine. Jackson hung back with Luca, still laughing about something.

“You don’t have to let him get under your skin,” Elias said quietly.

I looked down at my books. “Who said he does?”

“You’re blushing,” he said, not unkindly.

I frowned, heat rushing back to my cheeks. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not to you,” he replied. “But to him, it does.”

I didn’t answer. We reached the next hall, where more students were already spilling in and out of classrooms. I became nervous when I caught sight of Serena again. Forgetting about what Elias had taught me before. She was standing by the lockers with her friends, her arms crossed, her glare fixed on me like she’d been waiting for me to show up.

I kept walking, refusing to meet her eyes. But I could feel them anyway. The same way they had been in English. Like she was already planning something.

I walked into my next class quickly, sliding into the first empty seat I saw. Elias didn’t follow me in this time, and I was glad for it. I needed space.

But the truth was, even as I opened my notebook and tried to focus on the teacher’s voice, my thoughts weren’t on the lesson. They were stuck on Luca’s grin, on his words, on the way I hated and liked the attention at the same time.

And that scared me more than anything.