Annie and Enola were crestfallen. The dress was in lacy pieces around them and their sewing machines.
“It’s going to be nice,” Enola said in a small voice.
“You need to order a dress,” Beck demanded when he saw me. “We cannot screw up this charity ball.” His face softened. “I’m sorry, Enola and Annie, but you know how important this is. I can’t lose you.”
“They’re making a very fine dress,” I told Beck, glaring at him. Against my better judgment, there was no way I couldn’t stand up for the girls, even if they were going to send me to the party looking like a rag lady.
“Just you watch. I’m going to be the best-dressed person at that party,” I said loftily.
“No, you’re not!” Beck said, appalled. “I’m going to have to pretend that I don’t know you.”
“Want to bet?” I shot back.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Bet what?”
“If everyone likes my dress, you have to do an activity we choose, and you can’t complain.”
“And if people gasp in shock and old women faint at the sheer horror of your dress, what I do get?”
“You can make me do anything you want me to do.”
“Anything?” The corner of Beck’s mouth quirked slightly.
I felt my face go hot. “Within reason.”
“It will be very reasonable,” he practically purred.
“Let’s go! Let’s go,” I urged the girls after he left for his study. “We have to win.”
“We’re going to,” Enola said confidently.
“I already know what I want Beck to do,” Annie said happily. “A tea party! A formal one.”
And I also knew what I wanted Beck to do, and it was not as wholesome as a tea party.
38
Beck
As much as I wanted Tess to be presentable at the party, a part of me also wanted her to lose. I had a whole list of things I wanted to spend the night doing with her.
After showering and changing into a tux, I headed into the living room, bracing myself for whatever fright fest the girls had concocted.
When I had lived in the compound, my sister Livy and our mothers would sew our clothes out of bedsheets my father would bring back from thrift stores. They had never fit right, and we always looked like street urchins from the Middle Ages. The pants never had any pockets, for goodness’ sake, and they wouldn’t stay up when we ran.
As soon as I had earned enough money from my company, the first thing I had done was have a whole set of suits custom-tailored.
Maybe if the dress is too much of a horror show, we can quickly stop and buy one, I decided, marking on my phone where we could purchase a cocktail dress nearby.
“Are you ready to go?” Tess called from the living room.
I braced myself and walked down the hall.
But instead of some sort of sack dress, there was Tess, standing in the middle of the room, a vision in lace. The dress was almost Greek in style, with a gathered scoop neck and a wide belt at the waist. The rest of the sheer fabric fell to the floor. It had a slit along one side that exposed her leg as she walked around the room, modeling the dress.
A layer of sheer, gauzy fabric kept the dress from revealing too much through the gaps in the lace. Long sleeves ending in points that almost reached the floor fluttered around her as she walked. A crown of flowers on her messy bun completed the look.
I was flabbergasted at the dress. I wanted to fuck her in that dress.
