She stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. Her mouth moved and whatever she said to him madeherlaugh.
Figures. Only narcissists laugh at their own jokes.
Charlotte could easily be described as a gorgeous creature. She was built like my mother, looked more like her too. Her features were soft and perfect, and so was the shape of her body. In certain clothes, her curves almost seemed indecent. Her golden hair seemed almost platinum in the glow of her lace dress. The irony: it was stained the true color of my name.Scarlet.
Charlotte kept her grip on his arm strong, using her chin to gesture to my parents, who were greeting guests as they arrived.
“Charlotte is playing the payback game.”
“What?” The word came out as more of a rasp. My mouth felt dry.
“You have something she wants and can never have. She wants you to feel the same.”
Violet’s assessment was spot on, which made my blood boil. Charlotte had always played this game with me. She had even told my parents that Brando was my date tonight. I was no coward and had planned on telling them myself. Tonight, taking his arm and walking up to them together would’ve made a point.
Brando shook his head in answer to whatever she had said to him before he extracted himself from her hold. He seemed to be experienced in that arena—knowing how to sidestep a woman when she had her claws in too deep. My sister watched him turn to me and open his arms with hate in her eyes. She’d never forget this.
Neither would I.
I took my time walking down the steps, my eyes on his the entire time. He waited at the bottom of the staircase, and when close enough, held out his arm.
“Scarlett Rose,” he whispered.
“Fausti,” I whispered back.
“Let’s meet the parents.”
I smiled.
My father was pleased to see Brando, which surprised me. His usually subdued laugh became boisterous, and he pulled Brando in for a man hug—“surprise” turned into “you could have knocked me over with a feather.” Then he inquired about Mitch and Mick. It had been a while since he last saw them. Brando searched the crowd and pointed them out.
My mother watched him over her champagne flute, polite but reserved as usual. The two of us standing next to one another seemed to make enough of a statement that she didn’t comment or pry. Eunice had told me that when Brando sent the RSVP back, which he had never done, he had included my name as his guest.
After a man with a cigar in his mouth took my father by the shoulder, my mother took Brando by the arm and carted him around the room, introducing him to different people.
No doubt about it, my sister and mother were in cahoots.
Violet found me a moment later, as I watched my mother show off my date. “We’re just getting started.” Violet turned my body so that I faced forward.
Ace. Right behind him and his family was Travis and his relatives.
“What is Ace doing here?” I whispered, expecting Travis but not Ace.
“He’s wealthy, Scarlett. A thief doesn’t need to be poor to steal. It’s who they are, not what they have.” Violet snagged a cranberry drink from a server in passing. She put the cup up to her mouth. “Tonight should be interesting, to say the least.”
To say the least.Ace hid in dark corners most of the time, sipping on drinks and alternately giving me hot eyes (which actually made my blood turn cold) and a mischievous smile.
It was Travis who I couldn’t seem to shake, in the physical sense. He held my arm and brought me along with him to each of his stops—at some point he even asked me if now was “sometime later” because I owed him a game of chess “sometime later.” His group of friends laughed at this. Travis seemed to be taking advantage of the space between Brando and me.
There seemed to be an abundance of that, space between my date and me. He was the talk of the party, every woman whispering something about him at some point, and it seemed I was always in direct earshot. Or Violet, the scuttlebutt, would report the latest.
Brando’s lack of contact, quite honestly, grated on me. He made no move to approach me or save me from Travis and his “smart” friends, but his eyes were never far. Which made no sense. For him.
He was currently in conversation with my mother and father again, plus three Brazilian models, who were discussing his backside on the sly in their native language, Portuguese.
I snatched a flute of champagne from one of the servers, about to make my way upstairs, just to escape the party turned inferno, when the most attractive of the three said to the other two, “Vou levá-lo para a cama.”I will take him to bed.Then she touched him on the arm.
I tapped her on the shoulder, my heeled foot tapping against marble. When she turned, the entire group became silent, all eyes falling on me.
