She’s wielding an eyeliner brush and I’m trying to wiggle free. “Please, I can do it myself,” I beg her.
“To be fair,” Athena says, “Mala has perfected the art of the Smoky Evening Eye, whereas your ability is somewhere around the Dead Hooker in the Alleyway skill level.”
“Harsh, Athena!” I snap, looking at Tatiana for support. She avoids my gaze, pouring herself a glass of wine.
Slumping back against the chair, I allow Mala to put lots of things on my face. When I can barely lift my eyelids from the metric ton of mascara she has piled on my lashes, she claps her hands. “Perfect!”
Okay, she did a good job. My hair is piled on top of my head in some complicated updo and I look… different. Glamorous.Older. I’m way out of my comfort zone in a fire-engine-red dress that Tati made me buy in London last summer. It’s silk, totally inappropriate for winter weather and uncomfortably sexy.
“You are wearing the hell out of that dress!” Meiying says approvingly, and we all hustle out of our rooms before I can change my mind.
Carefully navigating the icy path in our high heels, I link arms with Mala. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes.” Her mouth is tight. “He’ll have to show some reaction, one way or another. And if it’s a negative one, at least I’ll know, right?”
Looking her over, her pretty, coffee-colored eyes narrowed, I’m pretty sure this mystery man will not know what hit him.
Konstantin…
“Let’s recap.”
Lucca is grinning, finishing his bow tie as I pull on my tux jacket. “You asked Mariya to the Christmas Eve party like a proper gentleman.”
“Correct,” I growl, straightening my shirt cuffs.
“And she told you that she had asked someone to the dance already,” he said gleefully.
“We’ve been through this,” I said warningly.
“I know, I just enjoy the vein bulging in your forehead every time we talk about it.”
“It’s going to be hard to dance with Tatiana if I punch you in the nuts first,” I wrestled with the hand-stitched Italian leathershoes Lucca brought back to the Academy for me last year. I’d never wear shoes so expensive and impractical, but Dean Christie’s insistence on her annual extravagant Christmas Eve party means we must keep formal wear here at the Academy, just for one night a year.
What is Mariya wearing? It better not be sexy.
“Are you going to be able to do this?” Lucca asks, at least half-serious this time.
“I have no choice,” I said, “not if I want to show Mariya that I’m not the bastard she thinks I am.”
Lucca shoots me a stern glance. “This is true.”
The Christmas Eve party is held in the Great Hall in the Dean’s Building, the most beautiful structure at the Academy. Stained glass windows soar up two stories and the massive iron chandeliers create a dramatic glow that makes everyone look better tonight. Even the professors and Dean Christie are dressed in their finest, and I watch a group of girls following Professor MacTavish around, tittering every time he looks at them.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Tatiana sighs.
Lucca keeps an arm around her waist as he hands her a glass of champagne.“Youare beautiful,piccolo bacio,my little kiss.”
“Are you going to keep a death grip on me all night?” She laughs as he glares at the three sophomores by the massive bar, staring at her longingly.
“Where’s Mariya?” I ask, trying not to say it through gritted teeth.
“She’s dancing,” Meiying says, winking at me as her cowboy boyfriend Chuck pulls her out on the floor. Most of our friends are dancing together in a group. As I slide through the crowd, it parts enough to see Mariya. And her date.
Mala looks hot in a short, silvery dress that sets off her deep auburn hair.
Then, there’s Mariya…My Mariya!My inner caveman growls. She’s wearing a vivid red silk dress with a long slit in the skirt that shows off her toned thigh. She’s delectable.
They’re dancing closely. Mala’s hand slides up Mariya’s arm. Mariya spins Mala in a circle. They’re beautiful together.
