“To calm your nerves?” I offer her a glass of champagne and then pour one for myself. She takes it and drinks it in one go. “Easy, you don’t want to end up in my bed tonight.”
“Bastard,” she scowls. “This whole thing is a set-up, isn’t it? To get me back into bed?”
I roll my eyes at her. “As I said, don’t flatter yourself. I’m over it.” I get out of the car to a parade of flashing camera lights. I may have forgotten to tell her the paparazzi would be all over this shindig tonight.
Arabella’s eyes behind her mask look frightened, a delicious mouse caught in a trap. She looks fucking divine.
“Don’t wait too long, my dear. They’ll start to wonder who you are and why you’re fucking petrified,” I say under my breath.
She scrambles out of the back seat and into my arms, trembling like a lamb in the chute to a slaughterhouse. I can practically smell her fear. All I want to do is drag her through the crowd and into a dark alley somewhere, strip her down to her cheap pantyhose, and pound her mercilessly.
But I smile instead and offer my arm and then pose for an incriminating picture with Arabella, her calling me every name under the sun behind her own fake smile.
As we walk to the party entrance, the media bombard me with questions wanting to know who Arabella is and what this means for me showing up with a date for the first time in public. I’m the eligible son of one of the wealthiest families, heir to one of the Montford thrones. Of course, they fucking want to know.
“They’re going to recognize me,” she hisses.
“No, they won’t,” I retort. “Just smile and fucking wave.”
They’ll never guess who she is. But the pictures in the paper tomorrow will infuriate my father, as well as get me further along in the game than Zane or Carter combined.
Arabella is fuckingawful at these events. After she’s lost for words for the hundredth time and I’ve had to bail her out, I turn to her.
“Can you at least look like you want to be here?” She can’t lie to save her life.
“But I don’t want to be here,” she scowls, taking another glass of champagne off a passing tray. “You coerced me to be.”
“Did I coerce you into my bed too?”
She throws me a look. “You’re never going to let the past stay in the past, are you?”
“No,” I say as I place my hand at the base of her neck and guide her to our table. She jumps like I’ve electrocuted her. “Still quite skittish, I see, despite the amount of alcohol you’ve imbibed?”
“There are so many important people here,” she lets out.
“Exactly. They’re too busy worrying about their own skeletons coming to light to worry about yours.” I find my eyes wandering to her scars. The information I managed to get on her said nothing about them. Not even her medical records.
We take our seats, and I shake my head slightly to clear my thoughts. I’m letting her distract me again. I’m supposed to be here for work. I smile at the other people at our table—potential investors in Grandfather’s company—and force myself to forget about my date. Marcel is trusting me to make the right impression if I want any piece of his empire. I need to focus.
Without my coaxing, Arabella sinks into silence while I work the table. I’m fucking good at it too. I’ve been taught how to circle-jerk my whole fucking life.
Halfway through dinner, the award ceremony entertainment starts, and I can relax a little.
I glance at Arabella as I take her to the bar to get a real drink. She’s looking around the room, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at all the celebrities.
“Is that…?”
“Yes, it is,” I say, ordering a bourbon. “What do you want?”
“Er….I’ll have a Mai Tai. What kind of event is this?”
“A fucking boring one,” I say, then I look at her. “With you here, it’s mildly interesting. Almost worth getting slapped.”
She smiles. Fucking yippee ki-yay. About fucking time.
Her gray eyes pierce mine. “I am really sorry.”
That she slapped me, or that I let her break my damn heart?