I can’t help the silly-ass smirk from forming on my lips. “Well, speaking of my?—”
My sister’s hand rises in the air, cutting into my words. “I swear to God, you finish that sentence, and I’m outting you. You’re foul.”
“You asked.” I scan the room of over a dozen people I hardly know. Business owners wanting to make pacts to make more money, a few family friends, and the rest I barely register because frankly, I don’t want to be here.
“Why is Vivian Muncy here?”
For the love of fucking God…
I follow my sister’s line of sight just to fall on Vivian’s ambling toward us.
Uninvited.
She’s wearing a shit-eating smile with a tight pink dress, and her focus already landed on me before I saw her coming.
This night just keeps getting better and fuckin’ better.
“Hello, Luisa,” she beams at my sister, immediately stepping in for a hug as if they’re besties and kick it whenever they can. “You look so pretty. Where did you buy this dress?”
Luisa half-ass hugs her back and pulls away slowly. “Vivian, we weren’t expecting you tonight.”
My ex doesn’t miss a beat with her excuse when she says, “Well, I figured I’d stop by. Since this event happened so quickly, I assumed my invitation got lost in the mail.” I don’t respond because I’m not looking to make a scene. I’m not looking to do anything but get rid of Sienna, whatever her name is, and go hole up in a corner somewhere. “Hi, babe.”
Vivian makes a move for me, but she second-guesses the action when my eyes slice back to her with a glower.
She knows she’s not welcome here, but she came anyway. There was no way in hell she was getting a happy greeting from me.
“Babe, will you go get me some lemonade?”
My brows raise because this isn’t a fucking picnic. “Lemonade?” She beams at me expectedly, and she’s stupid enough to give me an escape, so I take it. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”
Or not.
Stealing a look at Luisa as I walk away, I shake my head to tell her I’m not coming back for shit and not to expect me. She’ll make her own escape from my ex. Vivian won’t spend too much time shooting the shit and will end up looking for me, but I’ll be long gone by then.
In one of the many rooms in this house or outside smoking a blunt.
Speaking of the latter, I forge to the French-styled doors and fish for a lighter. I couldn’t feel more pressure if my parents put me in a sardine can with this little soiree. I knew there would be a coronation; I’m just not in the right headspace to do one.
Maybe if I didn’t feel like I was getting hit from all sides, I’d soak this in more. If there wasn’t a multitude of looming threats that posed death and destruction in their wake, I’d feel more at ease.
I’m fully aware of why my father shoved this on my plate, however. With all that being said, I need to take my official title and finally wear it. There wouldn’t be any perfect placement of time in the near future, and there’s no time like the present—my father’s exact words tonight.
“That’s my door, Sinatra. I charge a toll.” My hand freezes over the latch, and I recognize the voice. This was the same set of doors Bay barreled through when she found my family took in her sisters. “Running away from your party?”
Turning on my heels, Bay stands there expectedly, prompting my immediate perusal of her attire, and it’snotat all what I expected.
She’s in a white dress that looks more girly than her normal badass black. It has thin straps on her shoulders, and the material drapes fluidly and loosely off her body, to just above her knees.
It appears comfortable yet foreign. She looks like the kind of girl you’d take home to meet your mother before you got her home and she fucked your brains out.
And I like knowing what lies underneath the persona she’s trying to portray tonight. Replays of her on my bike, taking my cock, makes said body twitch in my dress slacks, and this gathering just became bearable.
“Where did you get the dress?” I mutter. “I wouldn’t think that would be in your closet?”
“You don’t like it?”
I take another generous look down her body and shake my head. “You could pull off a potato sack, and I’d think you were still the sexiest woman in the room.”
