Chapter 38: The Wrong Dress

With the Founders’ Festival closing in fast, Dance Club announced everyone would need a proper outfit for the performance, and Isla decided immediately that Roxanne needed a dress. Roxanne argued she’d survived an entire Alpha Challenge and could survive a dress without any help, but Isla dragged her into the academy town anyway, joining the rest of the students already crowding the shops.

Somehow the brothers ended up there too, and Liam appointed himself chief dress critic before Roxanne had even entered the first store, which annoyed her instantly. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to turn buying one dress into a group activity, but with all four Moonstones following them around, there was clearly no escaping it.

She tried on the first option, and Liam rejected it on sight. "Too innocent."

The second one earned an even flatter response. "Too boring."

The third made him wince outright. "That one makes you look like you’re about to attend a funeral."

Finally he disappeared into the racks and returned holding a dress he handed over with total confidence, telling her to just try it. When she stepped out wearing it, Liam actually went quiet for a second, longer than his usual teasing pause, and that silence told her more than anything he could have said out loud. His eyes travelled over the dress before meeting hers, and for once, there wasn’t a joke waiting on his lips.

Then he recovered fast.

"Okay. That one."

"You finally approve?"

"Unfortunately."

She laughed, though something about the moment lingered a little longer than she expected, a quiet reminder that Liam wasn’t always joking when he looked at her like that.

Back with the group, wearing the chosen dress, each brother reacted differently. Liam complimented her immediately before burying the sincerity under another joke about finally getting something right. Roshan said quietly that it suited her, which somehow felt more genuine coming from him than a longer speech would have. Lucien offered a simple, honest compliment without any hesitation at all.

Kai said nothing.

Roxanne noticed immediately. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You were staring."

"I wasn’t."

Liam jumped in without being asked. "He absolutely was."

Kai shot him a look sharp enough to end the conversation, though the tension it left behind didn’t disappear quite as easily. Roxanne looked away first, suddenly far too aware of the dress she was wearing and the warmth creeping up her neck.

Not long after, Arabella and Joanna appeared, and Arabella wasted no time offering a comment about how royal attention apparently changed a girl’s taste in clothing. Roxanne didn’t rise to it.

"Good thing I bought the dress with my own money," she said simply, and the flat delivery landed hard enough that Arabella had nothing left to say. Roxanne didn’t need any of the brothers to step in and defend her this time. She’d handled it herself, and that mattered more than the dress ever could.

Isla caught up with her outside the shop, practically bursting. "Did you see her face?"

"I saw it."

"That was incredible. You didn’t even raise your voice."

Roxanne shrugged, though she couldn’t quite hide the satisfaction underneath it. "She wanted a reaction. I wasn’t going to give her one."

They wandered back toward the rest of the group, who were arguing about lunch options outside a small café tucked between two shops. Liam was midway through explaining why every reasonable person should choose fries over anything else on the menu, and Roshan was already ignoring him in favor of studying the little bag in Roxanne’s hand.

"You kept the receipt," he said.

"Why wouldn’t I?"

"In case anyone asks."

She looked at him for a second, understanding exactly what he meant. He’d noticed Arabella’s comment too, apparently, and had already worked out that having proof might matter more than winning the argument itself. "You think of everything."

"Not everything." He glanced toward Kai, who was still standing a little apart from the group, watching the street rather than joining the conversation. "Some things take longer to notice."

Roxanne didn’t ask what he meant by that. She had a feeling she already knew.

Lunch turned into its usual chaos, Liam stealing fries from everyone’s plate regardless of what he’d ordered himself, Lucien correcting him without much hope of it actually working, and Isla recounting the entire dress confrontation to anyone who hadn’t already heard it firsthand. Roxanne let the noise wash over her, feeling lighter than she expected to after an encounter that should have ruined her afternoon.

A few weeks ago, a comment like Arabella’s would have followed her the rest of the day, replaying over and over until she convinced herself it meant something. Now it barely lasted the walk back to the academy. Maybe that was what changing felt like—not becoming someone completely different, but realizing certain people’s words no longer had the power to control her mood.

Back at the academy, Dance Club held a full rehearsal, and Roxanne found herself facing the close section with Kai again. This time nerves weren’t the problem. Something else had shifted since the last rehearsal, an awareness she couldn’t quite shake now that she suspected there was more behind his silence than simple focus. That awareness made the dance harder, not easier, every touch carrying a little more weight than it had before.

They still moved through the routine flawlessly, and when the instructor praised them afterward, Kai said quietly that she’d trusted him this time.

"Don’t get used to it," she said, though she was smiling when she said it.

Dorian caught sight of her not long after, laughing with Liam, talking easily with Roshan, walking beside Kai like it was the most natural thing in the world. For the first time, something close to real fear settled into his chest. It wasn’t just one man standing between him and Roxanne anymore.

There were four.

Worse than that, she didn’t look like someone waiting for him to come back at all. Arabella noticed the shift in his expression, and though she said nothing, she filed it away carefully, watching him watch someone who clearly wasn’t thinking about him anymore.

Just as Roxanne started to believe the festival might actually be something fun rather than another obstacle, the academy announced one more event: the Founders’ Festival Royal Dance Competition, open to student pairs, with the winning couple earning special recognition at the closing banquet. Since Roxanne and Kai already had the strongest routine in the club, their instructor entered them without asking either of them first.

Roxanne turned on Kai the second she found out. "You knew about this?"

"No," he said, entirely calm.

She narrowed her eyes. "Then why are you smiling?"

He looked at her, unbothered. "Because you’re going to win."