We’ll be sending a car for you, darling. Send me your address.
Wes
Ride with me.
My people pleasing trauma response activated in an instant, caught between both orders.
I stared at the ceiling. I remembered every time Wes had commanded me to only do what I wanted to do—as if it was ever that fucking easy.
What I wanted to do with Wes was always far too complicated.
I made my decision. My fingers typed furiously before I left the phone on the bed and began my day.
I gave up on doing anything but prepping for the night as nerves ate me alive. Delilah and Hudson were both out, having already given up trying to talk me out of it. I was under the harshest of orders to text them immediately when I was on my way home, and if they didn’t hear from me by morning, they would be calling the police and sending them to that address.
Which was fair. I was grateful for the backup, as useless as it might be in the face of tech oligarchs.
I kept the angelic fairy lingerie in the boxes, knowing I would need to change at the mansion. The girls lit up the group chat with texts about taking over a bathroom to help each other get ready.
I wasn’t used to being in groups of women like this. On the one hand, it was scary. On the other, they were kind of sweet. It was nice to be included, to have a safe place to land at such a nerve-racking event—an event I still didn’t understand why I’d been invited to.
If this whole thing really was run by the ultra-wealthy, I didn’t belong anywhere near it.
Yet, here I was, getting into another cheap black satin dress, doing my makeup and spritzing myself with perfume as my hands shook.
I checked Lorelei’s account with my burner. No new posts. Her single story slide was of an elaborate brunch spread. I could just make out a male hand next to her and another female hand across the table. That was it. No words. No music.
She was fueling for the big night. Did she know I was coming? Had someone mentioned me to her? Or were they protecting my identity too?
In a few short hours, I would see the girl I ran across state borders with the moment we turned eighteen.
I would tell her I loved her. I would tell her she could get better, and I would help her do it.
Us against the world,I could nearly hear her whisper, the same as she did that day we decided our plan. We were sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom, her hands in mine as we whispered and giggled.
Take a train to New York. Change our names. Leave it all behind and never look back.
Everything tied up in a neat little bow.
We could escape again—that was what I’d tell her tonight. I would escape with her over and over again if it meant she’d finally be free of what had happened to her.
I finished getting ready and forced myself to eat something even through the anxiety. I needed sustenance to keep my wits about me.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed my bag and the boxes of lingerie and headed downstairs to the black car that awaited me.
The driver took my things and opened the door.
I slid inside and turned to Wes. “Hi.”
His eyes were dark and moody, just as I predicted they’d be. His smile was tense. “Hi.” He released a long breath, quickly scanning me.
He fell somewhere between classy and edgy tonight, with a white shirt with several buttons undone, black slacks, and heavy boots.
“Are you even on theme?” I raised a brow.
Don’t look at his chest. Don’t look at his tattooed, muscled chest.
I looked. I swallowed. I quickly glanced away.
