PLAYBOY PRINCESS (gxg) ✓

16. Rory Preston

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                HER HAIR WAS BURNISHED GOLD, RINGLETS THAT LAY unbound atop her slender shoulders. Her eyes were framed by thick, dark lashes, deepening the colour of her cinnamon eyes. And her skin—like honey and bronze, glowing with molten sunlight. Her laughter lit up the world and her smile looked like . . . 

                 Rory's pencil struck the paper. Her smile looked like a lopsided cucumber.

                 She wasn't doing the piece justice. 

                 Earlier, when Paris had come into Rory's room, she had quickly buried her sketchbook beneath the covers.

                 Drawing was something Rory loved.

                 And it was something she had never told anyone about.

                 Even when Paris and Rory had been together in boarding school, she had kept her sketchbook a secret. It might have been one of the only possessions she cared about.

                Inside were the faces of people she had seen.

                People sitting cross-legged on the train. People at restaurants, faces bright by the light of the crystal lighting. People at the ski lodge, buckled tight into a helmet and a suit. People at the palace, with stern faces and simpering smiles.

               Each face was a glimpse of someone's life.

               Each face told a story. 

               And above all, buried between pages and tucked into the sheets and sketched in the moments when her mind wandered, Rory drew Paris most of all. 

               She had been drawing Paris for ten years, and it still wasn't enough.

               Rory could never capture it just right.

               There was something about the beauty in the angle of her jaw, the soft sprinkle of freckles on her brown skin . . . something about her. 

               Rory might never deserve her, but she would damn well spend the rest of her life trying.

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               "WHAT PRANK DO YOU NEED HELP WITH TODAY?" 

               Trying to distract herself from what she had seen earlier—Paris answering the phone, the blood draining from her face, and disappearing in a blur—Rory leaned forward.

               Dhonielle and Cat were sitting with their heads together.

               "No, we don't need help today," said Cat, snickering.

               "Unless you pay us three million dollars," Dhonielle said.

               Rory needed something—a distraction.

               A thrill. A high. 

               Her fingers clenched into a fist. There was no way she would be able to find liquor anywhere in the hospital—it was no use trying.

               "Fine," Rory said. "But I'm sure you'll regret saying that. I happen to be a very useful person, just so you know. With a great variety of skills. And . . ."