But I don’t.
He leans back in his chair, arms folding across his chest. His gaze fixes on me with unsettling focus, like he’s dissecting me from the inside out.
“Are you alright? Something’s worrying you,” he says, tone quiet but firm.
You think?I want to say, but I don’t.
I shake my head, and instead of talking, I sign an “I am fine,” knowing he will understand it. He doesn’t buy it. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens, just slightly. But he nods anyway, like he’s letting it go.
Then he says,
“I want you to come with me to a dinner party.”
I blink.
“What?” I say aloud, my voice soft, rough from disuse. I haven’t spoken all week. Haven’t wanted to. But that word comes out before I can stop it.
His expression doesn’t change.
“My mother is having a formal dinner party on Saturday night,” he says, “and you’re invited.”
A thousand things flicker through me all at once. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Why does he even want me at this dinner party? Just then, something clicks, and I remember when the red-haired lady I saw here last week said something about a dinner party.
“Are you inviting me because that lady who was here told you to give me an invite?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Alexander exhales, then shakes his head.
“I am inviting you because I want you there.”
***
I keep tossing and turning in my bed, my blanket twisted around my legs like it’s trying to hold me down and keep me still when my head won’t. I stare at the ceiling, the soft hum of the standing fan the only sound in the room besides the occasional groan that slips past my lips every time I replay yesterday’s conversation.
“I want you to come with me to a dinner party.”
And I had finally said yes.
God. Why did I say yes?
Alex told me it was just a small dinner celebration for his mother’s skincare brand, which had recently launched. Nothing about Alex or his family is small.
His grandfather inherited and owns one of the largest iron and steel industries in Russia, as well as a tobacco company. His father is one of the most terrifyingly powerful men in investment, real estate, and construction. He practically owns half the damn city and probably a few politicians, too. And his mother, Christ. She’s the daughter of one of Thailand’s most prominent fashion and retail dynasties. I looked her up once. Every photo of her on magazine covers, draped in silk and diamonds, standing next to international designers, smiling with so much grace. At fifty, she looked magnificent. And she’s also the owner of Davis Beauty, a popular skin care and makeup brand. They’re not just rich. They’re old money rich. The kind that feels inhuman and tied to bloodlines.
How the hell am I supposed to be among these types of people?
With a groan, I walk to my small closet, flipping through hangers out of habit even though I already know what’s in there, running my hand through each fabric, rows and rows of thrifted jackets, shirts, hoodies, khaki pants, and jeans. I don’t own a suit. Or a tux. Or anything even remotely close to what I’d need to wear for something like this.
I hate suits anyway. Always hated them and would cry whenever my mother forced me to wear them to the Sunday school lesson, which almost all the kids in the trailer park attended.
My skin crawls as I think of the last time I wore a suit, that was also the last time I attended that Sunday school, and then—
I shut myself out of the memory quickly, pinching myself so hard that I feel the memories going away.
not today demon
I walk back to the bed with a sigh, flopping down like gravity’s heavier today. I grab my phone from the nightstand —still can’t believe Alexander bought it for me —and open the messages, hovering over his name.
Just say you can’t go, say something came up, say you changed your mind. Because the thought of walking into that world with him—of standing beside him while people look at me—makes my chest feel like it’s caving in. I’d rather disappear than face that.
