꧁ʙᴏʀɴ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴜʀᴘʟᴇ꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 30

꧁✧✧✧꧂

𝕮rosswise, a variant of Princess Cinderella looks around, like the short blonde, embarrassment flooding her face.

Romie feels a twinge of awkwardness inside for them herself, fuelling the whisper that hisses through her teeth,

"You've ruined the sequence"

Not the slightest bit concerned or apologetic does Regulus appear for the mass disruption he's caused, the only traces of emotion evident on his face, the piqued aggravation Romie's purely accountable for. Advancing and retreating like a professional, Regulus dismisses in a mutter,

"Tell someone who cares"

Because he didn't. Not an ounce, not a smidgen, not a teeny tiny grain of sand. Caring would imply that he regrets making the move the devil of his conscience had been relentlessly plaguing him with since the second he caught sight of her on the dance floor with someone that wasn't him. Regulus didn't care, didn't care he's humiliated the poor girl now fleeing the room, didn't care he's stolen the partner of the short blonde unwisely sizing him up from the sidelines. In Regulus' fair opinion, he's not stealing, he's taking what's his in the only way it could be.

And the small part of Romie that initially did seem to care, to consider what he's just done, dissipates the second she registers his response. In lieu, something else invades and conquers that part, that space, something that brings back her smirk in full force. From beneath her fluttering eyelashes she stares up at him, asking in a rather sultry whisper,

"You want a dance with me that badly?"

A shadow of darkness looms over the grey of his eyes, somewhat blending into his pupil that's admittedly more thick and swelled than he likes. So effortlessly it lures Romie in, finishing her off with the help of his next reply, sinfully low and adamant,

"It's me or no one"

No one. That's would Romie's immediate answer should be, feed him a taste of his own medicine by abandoning him in the middle of the floor the next opening twirl. That's would she should do, especially after that stunt he pulled earlier, randomly vanishing in a blink of eye. She's still battling the odd pang of disappointment from that. And yet, the tipping scales of contemplation in her mind she once thought to be wise, were swaying more towards the other option. The dangerous option.

Because he's here now, a mere hair's breadth away, sustaining the judgy stares and disapproving whispers of onlookers all around, accepting the forever fate of the boy that wrecked the dance affair. Because the chance to be Romie's dance partner outweighed all of that. The want, the need to be Romie's dance partner outweighed all of that. It's him or no one.

It's him. It's him, it's him, it's him, he realises the exact same time as she, studying the shift in her eyes. Locking it in, locking him in. Romie's more powerful than him, able to break out from the intense spell of eye contact to scan him over. He doesn't mind all that much, he had his moment to soak her up earlier, a moment that he fears he'll ever be able to shake off and forget.