I meet her eyes in the mirror. “With my life.”
“Okay. Well in that case, buy the dress. Trust me on this, you are going to look amazing. I know this is a charity event, and I know your bosses and their families will be there, but everyone is going to look at you and be blown away. They’ll see a whole new side to you.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. Is that what I want? Aren’t I happy enough being Office Ellie? Maybe I am with Mason and Elijah. And everyone else I work with.
But there’s also the possibility that Maddox will be there. I don’t know that for sure because I don’t have a copy of the guest list, but Mason did say ‘the whole gang’ would be in attendance. The thought of seeing Maddox has me feeling hot and bothered for a whole different reason.
Apparently Amber, Elijah’s wife, would skin their family alive if they didn’t show. He said that in a way that suggested it was meant literally. I haven’t met her yet, but Amber is a legend in the Jamestech world. I’ve also Googled her, and she is stunning—tall, slim, elegant, a mature blonde beauty who never looks anything less than perfectly turned out.
I am walking in a different world tomorrow night, and perhaps I need to raise my game. I’m sure all the James men will be wearing tuxedos. Maddox James in a tux. Heat blooms beneath my skin.
Am I really going to wear this dress?
Yes, I tell myself, twisting my head around so I can see my butt better. It looks kind of good, actually. And I want to look good at the fundraising dinner—for purely professional reasons of course.
It has nothing to do with Maddox James. Nothing at all.
Chapter 9
Maddox
“You okay, bro?” Nathan asks me. For maybe the millionth time this evening.
“Yeah. I was okay an hour ago. I was okay twenty minutes ago. And guess what? I’m still fucking okay now.”
He holds up his hands. “Right. Chill out, Incredible Hulk. The fact that you’re so snappy tells me maybe you’re not as okay as you claim.”
“And the fact that you’re so fucking annoying tells me you’re not as perceptive as you think you are.”
We glare at each other, the room tense as Melanie walks in with baby Henry in her arms, and Luke wrapped around her legs. She senses the mood immediately and raises her eyebrows at us.
“Now now, boys, let’s behave like grown-ups shall we. And I’m not talking to Luke and Henry here.”
Nathan softens immediately and takes the baby from her. Luke flies towards me, and I scoop him up in my arms, blowing raspberries onto his chubby belly. He giggles away, cute as hell in his little dinosaur PJs. All the kids—the two boys and Amelia and Drake’s baby girl, Evie—are staying at home with Ashley.She says she’s looking forward to a night with her munchkins, and I know everyone feels a lot better leaving them with her than a sitter.
“Mel, you look beautiful,” I say, dropping a kiss on her head.
Nathan is staring at her with fire in his eyes, his gaze roaming her body. Guess he feels the same way. “And Nathan, I’m sorry I’ve been a… grump,” I finish, conscious of Luke. He’s quite the chatterbox these days, and I don’t want him going into kindergarten saying his Unca Mad used a bad word.
I give Luke a cuddle and chuck the baby under the chin. Gorgeous little chubmuffins. Their presence is enough to calm me right down.
Nathan nods at me and helps Melanie get the kids settled for bed. I stay in the kitchen, eying the open bottle of Champagne that sits on the counter.
Fuck. This will never be easy. My family seem to think I’m some kind of Buddhist monk, like I have an iron will. The truth is, every day is a battle—some more than others.
Today is tough. Today would have been Yasmin’s birthday, if she’d lived. I’ve already made my annual pilgrimage to visit her dad in prison, and that is never a fun time. But as shit as it is for me, he has it so much worse than I do.
There’s no reason for Nathan to know this. No reason for any of them to know. No reason for me to even remember her birthday, really. If we’d split up like a normal teenage couple, both alive and healthy, I probably wouldn’t. But after her death, everything about her became ingrained in me.
Yasmin took her own life after she was brutally raped at a football party I took her to. She was drunk and out of her depth. We had a huge fight, and she told me to leave. Because I was furious, I followed her advice.
But I still shouldn’t have left her there. I still shouldn’t have stormed off and abandoned her in a place where she was destroyed by predators.
I feel the familiar flow of regret and anger. What if I hadn’t left her at that party? What if she hadn’t been raped? What if the justice system wasn’t so rigged against a poor girl who looked like trouble, allowing the bastards to be acquitted? What if she hadn’t been brutalized a second time on the stand during the trial?
So many what-ifs. Only one ending—her death.
And theirs, of course. The men who raped her. They were cocky, arrogant, laughing at what they got away with. Two of them were killed by Yasmin’s own father. The third…well, that’s another story. Same ending, though.
