Lessons in Secrets

POV: Adeline

The first thing they did when I arrived at SwordOak University was look at my last name. Not my face. Not my invitation. Not even the scholarship letter I had spent three months obsessing over.

My last name.

“Name?” the woman at the entrance asked.

“Adeline Baumgarten.”

Her fingers stopped over the tablet. It lasted less than a second, but I noticed.

The woman beside her looked up too. Their eyes met, something unspoken passing between them before the first woman smiled again.

“Of course. Welcome to SwordOak, Ms. Baumgarten.”

I smiled back, pretending I hadn’t noticed anything. I had spent most of my life learning not to notice the things people did when they heard my surname.

Baumgarten had belonged to my father long before it belonged to me. It was the name of a family I had never really known, a family that had disappeared from my life almost as completely as he had. My mother never spoke badly about them. She simply didn’t speak about them much at all.

So when the woman at the door looked at me like she’d just recognized something, I assumed it was because I didn’t look like I belonged here.

Maybe she had expected someone different.

Someone who arrived in a car with a driver.

Someone who knew which fork to use at a dinner like this.

Someone who didn’t have to check her bank account before buying a coffee.

I smoothed my hand over the side of my dress instead.

The burgundy fabric hugged my body from my ribs to my hips before falling into a softer, flowing skirt that moved around my legs when I walked. Tiny crystals covered the bodice, catching every chandelier above me and throwing little flashes of light across the dark fabric. My hair was twisted into a loose bun at the back of my head, a few strands already escaping around my face.

The mask hid most of it.

At least that was what I told myself.

I had caught my reflection in the glass doors on the way in, and for half a second I had barely recognized the woman looking back at me.

Maybe that was why I liked the mask.

Tonight, I didn’t have to be Adeline Baumgarten, scholarship student, psychology graduate, daughter of a dead man nobody talked about.

Tonight, I could just be a woman in a burgundy dress at a masquerade.

Someone handed me a glass of champagne.

I accepted it before I could change my mind.

“Thank you.”

The ballroom stretched beyond the entrance, enormous and almost absurdly beautiful. SwordOak had been founded more than a century ago, but tonight the old stone walls had been transformed into something between a historical painting and a billionaire’s fever dream. Tall windows reflected hundreds of candles. Ivy curled around the pillars. Black and gold banners hung from the balconies, and enormous arrangements of deep red roses filled tables scattered around the room.

Everywhere I looked, there were masks.

Silver.

Gold.

Black.

Feathered.

Jeweled.

Some were delicate enough to look like lace. Others covered half a person’s face.

It was the annual Founders’ Ball, although the university called it a promotional gala when they wanted to pretend the night wasn’t really about money.

Potential donors were here.

Alumni.

Professors.

Students.

Executives.

Politicians.

People who had graduated from SwordOak decades ago and still behaved as if the university belonged to them.

Maybe, in some ways, it did.

I took a sip of champagne and tried not to look like I was counting how many people in the room probably had more money in their watches than my mother had ever seen in her life.

“Adeline?”

I turned.

A woman with short red hair was approaching me, holding a tablet against her chest. I recognized her immediately.

“Renata.”

Her smile widened.

“I was hoping I’d find you.”

“I almost didn’t come.”

“I know. You told me that during your interview.”

I laughed softly.

She had been one of the people who interviewed me for the new graduate fellowship program. She was young enough to be mistaken for a student herself, but there was something efficient about her that made it impossible to forget she was one of the people deciding who got through those doors.

“You look beautiful,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“And terrified.”

“That obvious?”

“Only to people who were terrified the first time they came here.”

She linked her arm through mine.

“Come on. I want you to meet Professor Lieberstein.”

My stomach tightened.

“Now?”

“Unless you’d rather spend the evening hiding behind a potted plant.”

“I was considering it.”

“I know. That’s why I’m not giving you the opportunity.”

She pulled me through the crowd.

I tried to focus on what she was saying about the program, about the department, about how excited Professor Lieberstein was to have me joining the international policy seminar.

But then I heard a laugh.

Low.

Male.

Warm enough to catch my attention despite the music, my eyes moved toward it before I could stop them. And everything else in the room seemed to become background noise.

He stood beside a man near one of the tall windows.

I knew immediately that he was different.

I couldn’t have said why.

He wasn’t the tallest man in the room, although he was tall. He wasn’t the only handsome man there, either. There were dozens of them, polished and expensive in their tuxedos.

But he didn’t look polished.

He looked dangerous.

His suit was completely black, without the slightest trace of a tie. The top button of his black shirt was undone, revealing just enough of his throat to make the whole thing feel deliberate rather than careless. His shoulders were broad beneath the jacket, his body lean and solid in a way that suggested strength rather than a gym obsession.

His mask was black too.

Simple.

Elegant.

Almost severe.

But it was his eyes that caught me.

Blue.

Not soft blue.

Not friendly blue.

A deep, intense blue that seemed almost unnaturally clear beneath the edge of the mask. He was holding a glass of whiskey in one hand, and watching the room.

Not admiring it.

Watching it.

His eyes moved across the ballroom with slow, deliberate attention, pausing at entrances, balconies, doors, groups of people.

Then they found me.

He stopped.

For one strange second, I had the overwhelming sensation that he had been looking for me.

Ridiculous.

I didn’t know the man.

He didn’t know me.

And yet something in his expression changed.

Not surprise.

Recognition.

My pulse stumbled.

“Adeline?”

Renata’s voice brought me back.

I blinked.

“What?”

She smiled knowingly.

“Come on.”

I forced myself to look away.

The stranger’s eyes remained on me for another second before the man talking to him said something, drawing his attention back.

I followed Renata across the ballroom.

Professor Lieberstein was exactly what I had expected a man named Professor Lieberstein to look like.

He was somewhere in his late sixties, perhaps early seventies, with silver hair, round glasses, a slightly rounded stomach beneath a tweed jacket, and a glass of whiskey that looked like it had been refilled several times.

He turned when we approached.

“Professor Lieberstein,” Renata said. “I found her.”

His face brightened.

“Miss Baumgarten.”

“Professor.”

He extended his hand.

His grip was warm and firm.

“I’ve heard wonderful things.”

“I hope only the good ones.”

He laughed.

“From Renata? Impossible. She remembers everything.”

“Unfortunately,” Renata said.

Professor Lieberstein glanced at the man passing beside him.

“And you’ve met Professor Daniels?”

My heart stopped.

Daniels.

The stranger turned toward me.

My stranger.

The stranger who made me lost my breath and my ability to think seconds ago.

Up close, the effect was worse.

His hair was dark brown, lighter where the ballroom lights touched it, cut short enough to reveal the clean line of his jaw. His face was all sharp angles and restrained expression. There was a faint scar near one eyebrow, barely visible beneath the edge of the mask.

His eyes settled on mine.

Blue.

Steady.

Unhurried.

“Not yet,” he said.

His voice was lower than I expected.

Professor Lieberstein smiled.

“Adeline Baumgarten, this is Stephen Daniels. Professor Daniels has been teaching international political science for several years all over Europe. He’s visiting here.”

Stephen extended his hand.

I looked at it.

Long fingers. A faint scar across one knuckle.

Then I placed my hand in his.

His fingers closed around mine.

Warm.

Firm.

Controlled.

And something inside me reacted before my mind could catch up.

His gaze didn’t leave my face.

“Adeline Baumgarten,” he said.

The way he said my name shouldn’t have mattered.

It did.

“Professor Daniels.”

One corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Something more dangerous.

“I think you can call me Stephen tonight.”

Tonight.

The word slipped beneath my skin.

I swallowed.

“Then you can call me Adelaide.”

His thumb moved once against the side of my hand before he released me.

A tiny movement.

Probably meaningless.

I felt it anyway.

Professor Lieberstein began talking about the fellowship, about the upcoming semester and the department, but I barely heard him.

Because Stephen Daniels had turned his attention toward the ballroom again.

And I found myself watching him.

The way he stood.

The way he held his whiskey.

The way his shoulders remained relaxed while his eyes moved constantly.

He wasn’t nervous.

He wasn’t impressed.

He wasn’t even particularly interested in the party.

He was assessing it.

Everyone in it.

“Professor Daniels has been helping me with some of the curriculum changes,” Lieberstein said.

Stephen looked back at me.

“Professor Lieberstein is being generous.”

“I’m rarely generous.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Also true.”

I laughed.

Stephen’s eyes dropped briefly to my mouth. It lasted barely a heartbeat, but I saw it, and suddenly the ballroom felt warmer.

“Are you enjoying your first SwordOak event?” he asked.

“I’ve been here for eleven minutes.”

“That’s enough time to form an opinion.”

“I’m still deciding.”

“About the university?”

“About the people.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

“And?”

I took another sip of champagne.

“I haven’t decided about you yet.”

His gaze held mine, then, slowly, he smiled. It was the first real smile I’d seen from him, and I immediately understood why I had noticed him from across the room.

Because Stephen Daniels didn’t look like a man who smiled often.

Which made me wonder what it would take to make him smile like that again.

I had no idea that by the end of the night, I would find out.