I danced a step away, still swishing the fabric. “No, I mean…it’s not too much for you. I don’t want you to get…” I snaked it slowly up my thigh. “…distracted. What with our guests…”
His eyes grew both mischievous and heated all at once. The next second, he had me down on the bed. “Fuck the guests. The guests can wait.”
“I hope I didn’t just hear that right!”
The door burst open a moment later, and Billings strode purposely inside, completely immune to the fact that he’d walked in on Marcus about to take my clothes off.
“You two are needed downstairs,” he said with a lethal calm, “now.”
I sat up with a pout. “Billings, you know you can be a real—”
“You don’t want me to call in the girls to do your makeup all over again, do you?” He cut me off strategically.
My face paled, and I hurried from the room. Marcus trailed along behind but shot Billings a glare as he passed by him into the hall.
“You work for me, you know.”
Billings flashed him a smile. “Just keep telling yourself that, sir.”
The party was indeed in full swing, but the second we walked through the double doors, the entire estate erupted in applause. I jumped a little in surprise, then smiled and waved appreciatively along with Marcus until it quieted down. For a second, we all just kind of stood there. Then the band launched into its first upbeat song and the night began.
I think it’s fair to say that no one danced harder than my mother, and no one drank more than Marcus’s grandmother. Before the party was even two hours old, Augustina herself was pulling Marcus onto the floor for a drunken version of the foxtrot. I watched in tears of laughter before Max spotted me through the crowd and pulled me right onto the floor with them. We laughed and shrieked and spun round and round before the bell finally rang for dinner.
Then came the more formal portion of the evening.
The press—contained in the outer gardens during the dancing and celebrating, was finally allowed to mingle politely through the tables. I have to admit, they did so with relative grace—never stopping too long at any one person before moving on to the next. When they got to Marcus and me, no questions were permitted, but we snuggled up close and posed for what seemed like the better part of an hour.
It had just gotten comically candid—Marcus was trying to stuff a chocolate-covered Cheeto into my mouth—when I spotted someone familiar across the lawn. I couldn’t be sure, but there was something about the slinking gate, the fake—sullen smile, and the hungry looking eyes that made me think I’d seen this woman somewhere before. Then, all at once, it hit me.
It was old Snake Eyes. The woman who had so generously introduced Marcus and me at that first party at his house. For all intents and purposes—my active nemesis.
“What is she doing here?” I leaned over and whispered in Marcus’s ear.
He looked up in surprise and followed my gaze. “Oh, Gretchen? She’s been a friend of mine for years. She used to be married to a good friend of mine.”
“Call her over here.” My eyes sparkled wickedly as I took a sip of sparkling cider.
A few seconds later, Billings caught her attention through the crowd and sent her sulking our way. The closer she got, the harder it was for me to hide my glee. Don’t get me wrong, I was not a passive aggressive person. But to the woman who—just three months earlier—had tried to orchestrate my humiliating downfall in front of all these people? A little active hostility was due.
“Gretchen,” Marcus greeted her with a fixed smile before turning to me, “do you remember my fiancée, Rebecca?”
She turned her beady eyes toward me, and I met them with a triumphant grin.
“Hello again,” I pre-empted her, extending my hand. “Welcome to my home.”
She shook my hand. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“I just wanted to call you over here…and personally thank you.”
Her eyes flickered between Marcus and me nervously. “Th-thank me?”
“For the last time we met,” I explained. “You were so very helpful in connecting Marcus and me at that party—I really don’t know what I would have done without you. So yeah…thanks.”
“So you didn’t know Marcus?”
“Nope. But you introduced us, and we’re so thankful. We’re getting married and having a baby, and it’s all thanks to you. I think if you hadn’t introduced us that night, I would’ve never met Marcus. How can I ever thank you? We were thinking about naming our baby after you if it’s a girl.”
Her face turned a sour shade of green, but she flashed me a pained smile. It might actually be more apt to say that she bared her teeth at me, before melting away into the crowd.