# CHAPTER 10: The Ruby Pendant's Warning
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review CHAPTER 10 of "Of Curses And Kisses free digital audiobook". This chapter is a tense, icy turning point full of stolen glances, stolen secrets, and a ruby pendant that seems to have a will of its own. So bundle up, because we are heading to Aspen—and nothing about this trip is going to be simple.
We begin with Jaya on Saturday morning, the day of the seniors’ Aspen trip. Before leaving, she stops by Isha’s dorm to say goodbye. It is a small scene, but it hurts. Isha stands there in her Bob’s Burgers pajamas, guarded and sarcastic, promising to go back to bed, maybe get her nails done with Raina, maybe eat a burrito with avocado spread—maybe not. Jaya wants to protect her little sister, to kiss her cheek and leave without turning everything into a warning. Instead, she feels like Isha’s parole officer, not her sister. Isha closes the door without even saying goodbye, and Jaya swallows the sadness, forcing a smile for Penelope.
Outside waits a bus unlike anything Jaya has seen: shiny black, leather seats, neon lights, mirrors, polished floors, almost like a nightclub on wheels. Penelope explains it is a limousine bus. Leo loudly discovers the bar, only to be told it is stocked with hot chocolate and soda. Daphne Elizabeth, Leo, Rahul, and others chatter as Jaya looks around for Grey. She does not see him. Rahul says he texted Grey, but there is no answer. Jaya feels a thud of disappointment, which she immediately tells herself is only because Grey is interfering with her plan.
Then comes the Caterina La Valle drama. Outside the bus, Caterina insists she will ride in her own car with her driver, Pietro. Alaric, with his cool, slightly accented voice, refuses to make a scene and tells her the school will not allow deviations. Their argument is sharp and public. Caterina eventually retreats to a smoky gray Tesla, alone behind tinted windows. Jaya notices that none of Caterina’s friends defend her. Alaric and the others even mock her once she is gone. Jaya remembers Caterina saying she does not trust anyone, and for a moment, Jaya feels pity. Caterina’s friendships look like transactions, not loyalty.
But Jaya’s own morning is about to tilt. As she turns back around, her hand goes to her throat and finds nothing. She has forgotten the ruby pendant. She rushes off the bus, apologizing to a teacher, and heads back inside.
Meanwhile, Grey Emerson had planned not to go to Aspen at all. He waits until the senior wing falls silent, then leaves his room. He thinks about Jaya—how different they are, how they argue, and yet how both of them are trapped by family expectations. She wears her rules like royal couture; he wears his like a curse. And that curse is exactly why he is walking toward the girls’ dormitory.
Grey knows the unspoken St. R’s custom: doors are rarely locked. He slips into Jaya’s room, feeling guilt and shame burn through him. He tells himself this is life and death. He searches her desk, her vanity, her drawers. Then he finds it: a black velvet bag. Inside lies the heavy rose pendant, its center bare, the remaining rubies gleaming like bloody teeth. He intends to take it, to decide later what to do—repair it, return it, destroy it. But then he hears a sound.
Ping.
A ruby falls. Then another. Then another. Four are missing now. Then two more drop, leaving only twelve in their sockets. Grey is terrified. The pendant feels aware of him, as if it knows a thieving Emerson has come for it again. He imagines the rest of the rubies falling, sealing his fate weeks before his eighteenth birthday. Whispering “no, no, no,” he pushes the pendant back into the velvet bag and shuts the drawer. In the mirror, he looks like someone who has just received a death sentence. Then he hears the elevator.
Jaya steps off, walks to her room, opens the door—and stops. Grey is standing there, pale, wild-eyed, with dark circles and stubble. Her drawer is open. Her first thought is that he was snooping. She demands to know what he is doing. Grey says no, he was not looking for tabloid material. She believes him, but she does not let him go. She asks what he was looking for. After a long pause, he says it: her ruby pendant.
Before she can get the full answer, the bus horn honks three times. They are leaving in five minutes. Jaya makes a decision. Grey is coming to Aspen, and he will finish this conversation there. He agrees. She grabs the velvet bag, tucks it into her coat pocket, and follows him out.
On the bus, Grey wonders why he is obeying. Jaya cannot truly force him, though she could threaten expulsion. But he feels guilty and caught. Worse, she now knows his strange interest has something to do with her pendant. He cannot imagine telling a Rao the truth he has never told anyone. Still, he sits across from Daphne Elizabeth and Penelope, and Jaya sits beside him. When Daphne Elizabeth asks where he was, he says, “Upstairs.” Jaya smoothly steers the conversation elsewhere, and Grey feels both grateful and guilty.
Then Daphne Elizabeth asks who he is taking to Homegoing. Grey says he is not going. Everyone insists he must. Jaya studies him and quietly tells him he is going to tell her what he was doing in her room. He promises he will. He asks her to meet him at the Forest Lakes Lodge that night at seven o’clock. She agrees. The bus hisses to a stop at the Aspen shopping plaza. Grey looks outside and says softly, “Go time.”
This chapter is a beautiful, anxious knot of a turning point. It balances the glamour of the Aspen trip with the quiet desperation of two people hiding truths from each other. Jaya’s pity for Caterina and her conflicted feelings about revenge make her more human, while Grey’s attempt to steal the pendant makes him both sympathetic and morally messy. The pendant itself becomes almost a character—watching, punishing, counting down. The tension between Jaya and Grey is electric precisely because neither is fully innocent. The chapter ends on a promise that feels dangerous, intimate, and inevitable.
Reader's Impressions & Star Rating: I loved how this chapter made the curse feel immediate and physical. The ruby pendant dropping its stones one by one was chilling, and Grey’s panic was painfully real. Jaya catching him in her room was the perfect collision of their secret agendas. My only complaint is that I wanted the confession right then, but the delay makes the Aspen meeting even more tantalizing. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars
Next Chapter Prediction: At seven o’clock at Forest Lakes Lodge, Grey will finally begin to tell Jaya about the Emerson curse and why her ruby pendant terrifies him. But Jaya is still hiding her own plan for revenge, so the truth will likely arrive in pieces, tangled with guilt and attraction. I predict the pendant will lose another ruby, Caterina’s drama with Alaric will spill over, and Jaya will start to see Grey not as an enemy to destroy but as someone trapped by the same kind of family fate she understands too well. There may be an almost-confession, an almost-kiss, and a secret that changes everything.
To listen free the next reviews chatpers, please access website novelsaudio.com and search keyword: Of Curses And Kisses free digital audiobook or click the link in the description of this video or if you want to listen or read full the Of Curses And Kisses free digital audiobook please access website novelsaudio.com