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I’m blushing. The feel of his hand on my cheek, warm and caressing, is so lovely I want to turn my head into his palm and start purring like a cat.
    However, Jase must be having much less happy thoughts than I am, because when he speaks again, his voice is deep and serious.
    “I hate all this sneaking around.” His hand moves through my hair, playing with the curls; then he leans forward to twist one of them around his finger. “I wish we could just hang out normally, you know? Have you meet my mates, go to the normal places we all go, in Wakefield, not have to ride for miles and miles to find some coffee shop in a buried-alive village my dad would never come to.”
    “I know,” I sigh, taking his hand and twining my fingers through his. “Though I do like the long rides on the bike.”
    He smiles at me, his teeth impossibly white against his golden-brown skin.
    “Yeah, but we end up wasting a lot of time together,” he says, tightening his fingers on mine. “I know all that star-crossed-lovers stuff sounds cool when it’s in Romeo and Juliet, but in real life, if you ask me, it’s well overrated.”
    I gape at him.
    “What?” Heightened color tinges his cheeks, despite the even tone of his skin. “You think just because I didn’t go to a private school I don’t know anything about posh writers? We did Romeo and Juliet in English last year.”
    Actually, it was his referring to us as lovers that caused my mouth to dry up temporarily, but I’m not going to tell him that.
    “No, I didn’t mean that, Jase.” I squeeze his hand. “I’m just … I really liked what you said.”
    “Well, it’s true.” Jase rolls his eyes. “I mean, it looks great on TV, or in a film, you know? Feuding families, you can’t be together, all that stuff, it’s really romantic. But it always ends up going wrong. Someone dies, or goes to prison, or something. It never ends up with the two of them being able to be boyfriend and girlfriend properly, with their parents or whatever apologizing and saying they were wrong. I’m pretty sick of this, Scarlett.”
    One of the things I like most about Jase is that he’s so direct. He isn’t the kind of boy who enjoys the drama and intrigue of sneaking around. He just wants to have a normal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship—
    Oh my God. He just said boyfriend and girlfriend for the first time ever.
    And lovers.
    Oh my God.
    I’m still registering that he’s used all those magic words when it dawns on me how dark his tone of voice is.
    “You’re sick of it? Does that mean you’re breaking up with me?” I blurt out in total panic.
    “Jesus, Scarlett.” He pulls his hand away and runs it over his tight dark curls, and for a moment I think I’ll burst into tears. His eyes darken to a deep bronze as he stares at me, frowning. “No, I don’t want to break up, you idiot. I just want to be able to go out like normal teenagers do without worrying that my dad’s going to catch us and throw a huge wobbly. Like last night, or that time at the lake.”
    I shudder as I remember Mr. Barnes catching Jase and me together at the Wakefield Hall private lake. All we were doing was climbing trees—I was balancing on a branch, showing off my gymnastics skills for Jase. His dad went after me, and he and Jase came to blows. Then his dad warned me and Jase to stay away from each other, very menacingly.
    What neither of us really understands is why. Why does his dad mind so much that Jase and I are seeing each other? It seems crazy to think it’s some kind of weird feudal objection to the son of the gardener going out with the daughter of the house, especially since you’d think it’d be my grandmother who’d be making a fuss about that kind of thing, rather than Jase’s dad.
    It’s a complete mystery to both of us. But his father was so scarily, violently angry that neither of us wants to face a scene like that ever again if we can possibly avoid it.
    I’m so lost in my speculations