The smug little smile dancing on his lips made Briar’s eyes narrow slightly in annoyance. Mostly because it made her aware that she was paying far too much attention to him, it was clearly giving him the wrong idea. Merlin, being boring was more difficult than she’d first imagined. At Hogwarts she’s been beautiful, rich, from a prestigious family and popular. Upon entering the muggle world, she became a high end model and was fawned over by the muggles. Her life didn’t exactly lend itself well to pretending to be mundane. Still, she’s have try harder than this if she wanted to divert Samuel’s attention from her.

It probably would have been better if she’d walked away when she’d had the chance. But, that would have run the risk of becoming ‘hard to get’ which wouldn’t help matters. His response to her answer made Briar re-think that logic. Too late to flee now, he would have found out eventually so it’s better to get it over with now She thought resolutely. Why did he have to make things so complicated? Already he sounded suspicious and they hadn’t even exchanged a dozen words yet!

A small sip of wine was used to give her time to think of a properly distracting question to sidetrack Samuel from her response to his question. Inspiration struck like lightning and though it would be like walking a tightrope Briar took it. “Oh, I graduated a year ago and took a year off to earn enough to come here. I was in Ravenclaw.” The words fell easily from her lips with no emphasis, plane and boring. Now for the distraction. “You’re from Britain then? Do you have a girlfriend waiting for you to graduate?” she asked with a flirtatious little smile. Not quite a promise, but something shiny dangled in front of him to distract from her prior answer. It was a calculated risk, dangerous in that it would spike his interest but necessary. Better to have him lust after her then become too curious about her past. Her wording also screamed muggleborn and if he hadn’t figured it out from her attire that she was poor, so hopefully that would help put some distance between them.