Good.
Another server walks by, offering me a fresh drink. I place my empty glass on the tray and pick another one up. This guy gets it. Then, plopping down on a random chair, I watch the party happen like a fly on the wall—the laughter spilling from their throats, the white teeth showing when they talk, the gulping of drinks and chewing on the aperitifs. I don’t realize it when someone plops down next to me.
“Damn, and I thoughtIwas a major introvert,” a voice says from my right. A voice I recognize too well, even if we’ve only talked once in the past. “You’re in my hiding spot.”
“Hello, Odette,” I say, my tone void of emotion. “Didn’t realize someone like you needed one.”
She laughs with that loud, chirpy laugh of hers from last time. “I am glad my mask is deceiving enough. This is how we play the game of politics, Dove. We pretend all the damn time.”
I acknowledge that and uncross my legs, only to cross them back the other way.
“And whatareyou hiding from tonight?” she muses.
I sneer. “People who pry into my private life.” A low, hateful blow, but… it’s all I can muster right now.
Maddox and Cam take to the dance floor, and everybody makes room for them. The ice in Cam’s eyes has melted—shewatches her husband as if he’s everything she’s ever wanted now. No longer with defiance… no longer with the promise of a long, painful death.
“I’m sorry,” Odette says, getting my attention. “For what I said to you that day, about Rowan and I screwing behind your back. I was in love with him, and he didn’t love me back.”
I turn to look at her for the first time since we started talking. Her dress, a deep emerald that brings out the brightness in her eyes, flows gracefully over her crossed legs. And her expression… she looks as though she’s peeling back a layer of herself she doesn’t show often. I wonder what has got into her—I wonder if perhaps I was too blinded by jealousy that day and misjudged her.
“But he married you,” she says, disarming me once again. “He shows you off everywhere and looks at you as if you’re a treasure of sorts.” She scoffs, but I no longer take it personally. Whatever storms brew behind Odette Chevrier’s cool façade, I now know it isn’t about me. It’s about her. I can only hope she finds peace one day.
She brushes an invisible piece of lint from the skirt of her dress as she says, “Look, I don’t know what happened between the two of you, and I don’t need to know. But if I can give you some unsolicited advice… make up with him. Because I see the way you look at him too, and it’s just the same.”
“What makes you think something happened between us?”
She smiles and stands up, her body turning away from me as she says, “It takes one to know one. Only someone good at wearing masks can spot another during their act.”
One hour later, I’ve already danced with Rowan twice and held up my act. Now I’m back in my hiding spot, on the same chair from earlier, downing my fourth glass of champagne.
He keeps coming back—through the goosebumps on my skin, the flush in my cheeks when he touches me gently and guides me through the crowd—he keeps coming back to the front of my mind. And no matter what I do, no matter who I speak to or where I go, he’s always there, haunting me, waiting for me to open the door and let him in like I never pushed him out.
And I’m caving.
The high walls I built around my heart are chipped, scabbed. They were never meant to last, and we both know that.
Rowan’s hand brushes my thigh under the table, trailing up. My breath catches in my throat, a shiver running down my spine like wildfire. His heat is home to my body, and goddammit, I can’t stop from wanting it all over me. I blame it on the champagne, knowing full well it’s a lie.
“I think you’ve had enough,” he murmurs in my ear from behind.
I pull my hand with my drink away from him. “And I think you should mind your own business.”
“Aren’t I?” His cruel smile catches me off guard as he leans to steal my glass.
He’s either doing this to provoke a fight from me… or he’s been paying attention to the amount of alcohol I ingested, and it truly concerns him. I tend to think it’s the former.
The glass is back on the table, and I could reach for it if I wanted to. But the truth is… I’m tired, and I no longer want to pretend I’m all right. The champagne bubbling up inside me conjures up my despair instead of willing it away.
Thanks for nothing.
“I want you to fight me,” he says, placing a tender kiss on my naked collarbone. I shiver, watching a few curious eyes glanceour way from the crowd. “I want you to curse me and spit in my face, and do whatever it takes to make you forgive me. And then, when you have exhausted every bit of turmoil from that pure little soul of yours, I want to spread you open on the president’s couch and fuck this attitude out of you until I know it’s all gone. Here. And now.”
I muster up the words between heavy breaths. “Quite commanding for someone who’s in the wrong.”
“Yes. I want things from you, and you’re going to give them to me on a silver platter. Because I own you.”
Fire licks down my veins, spreading more and more through my body as his words fuel it. Howdarehe? How dare he demand these things of me when… when…
