“Are your siblings going to the party?” Araminta asks without looking up from her phone.
“Just Tianna,” I say. “My father’s driver is taking her. Brazen isn’t allowed to go out.”
“Uh-oh,” she mutters, pocketing the phone. “Drama at home?”
“Always.” I roll my eyes. “Hey, thanks again for doing this with me. I’m not so good at this… girl stuff.”
“Really?” She laughs out loud as if it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. “Well, I have a feeling things are going to change for you soon, girl. Come on, we need to go. You don’t want some other chick making her moves on Dexter before we get there, and we still need to stop at the salon.”
I’m trying to ignore the pangs of jealousy I feel when she mentions Dexter hooking up with someone else.
If he’s forcing me to be loyal, he better do the same for me. At least until I can run away from him…
Eleven
Pandora
When Tianna mentioned the party the previous day at dinner, I didn’t expect… well, this.
The bash is held in a fucking crypt, first of all. It’s Julian’s family home, but his parents are away. Everyone is gathered below the ground in the family mausoleum, which gives me the creeps. The spacious room is filled with marble sculptures and stone graves, and it makes me wonder how the dead would respond to being disturbed this way. I have a feeling there’s some bad juju coming my way just for disrespecting those who have been laid to rest here.
As Araminta and I enter, the crowd parts to let us through. The party looks about as sordid as any college get together, although the red solo cups are missing, replaced by glasses of Crystal and thousand-dollar bottles of wine. I’ve never felt more out of place, and even though Araminta gave me a pep-talk about confidence in the car
on the way over, I feel myself shrinking back, away from the watchful eyes of the other partygoers.
A low whistle emanates from the crowd before us, and Araminta smirks, pushing me forward. The people gathered in front of us step aside, a sign of respect before two Firstborns. They open the view, and I come face-to-face with Dexter, sitting on a marble throne, with an older-looking honey-blonde sitting on his lap. She smirks at me, and I find myself blushing at the sight of her.
“Boys, I brought you a little plaything,” Araminta he calls out, and I look over my shoulder at her. She’s wearing a smirk, and she shrugs at me as if to say, Sorry, but you had this coming. “Don’t go too hard on her. She spent a fortune to look presentable for you.”
“What the fuck?” I hiss at her as the crowd laughs. “This was a fucking set-up? I trusted you!”
“Never trust a Firstborn,” she says innocently, blowing me a kiss before disappearing in the crowd. Now I’m left standing alone in front of my fiancé, who obviously doesn’t give a shit that I’ve just caught him with another girl.
“Well well well,” Dexter says slowly, getting up from the marble throne. The girl slides off his lap and steps to the side. Good. At least she knows her fucking place. “What do we have here? Did you have a little makeover, toy?”
He walks up to me, touching his fingers to my smooth hair and leaning down to whisper in my ear. “I’m going to be checking to see if you did as you were told.”
I blush, knowing he’s talking about the waxing that made me feel numb all over. I’m about to snap back, tell him he doesn’t own me and that he has no right to check up on me like that, but he doesn’t let me speak. Instead, he spins around and sits back on the throne, his dark grey eyes still on mine as he taps his knee.
“Why don’t you come sit down,” he suggests over the sound of electronic music. “I want to have a nice catch-up with my betrothed. I bet you have a lot to tell me.”
I only hesitate for a second, but someone shoves me from the back when I don’t immediately follow his orders. I look over my shoulder, coming face-to-face with the handsome Julian – the boy whose party I’m at. He laughs in my face.
Hating myself for being so compliant, I walk up to Dexter, my body trembling as I lower my butt to his right knee. He doesn’t wait for me to get comfortable. His arm wraps around my waist proprietorially and he pulls me on top of him. I have to wrap my arms around his neck to stop myself from falling.
“I brought you a present,” he mutters in my ear while the rest of the crowd disperses, thankfully giving us some privacy. “You’re going to open it now.”
“Oh?” I ask lamely as he pulls out a small box wrapped in black, with Chanel’s logo on top and a white camellia adorning the paper. “How sweet.”
I’m genuinely surprised by his sweetness and I unwrap the little box with trembling hands. Under the paper, I can make out a box holding a perfume. La Pausa, one of their exclusive fragrances. Not really my kind of scent – it’s too powdery and soft for me - but it’s still nice of him to get me something. I’m about to thank him when he speaks up again.
“It’s the scent Lily Anna used to wear,” he says, his tone matter of fact, and just a little bit teasing. “I want you to wear the same one.”
“What?” I balk at him. “You want me to wear the perfume your dead girlfriend used to wear? How fucked up is that?”
His expression changes in an instant, and I half-expect him to toss me off my lap. Instead, he mutters something about me being an ungrateful little bitch under his breath and pulls me closer, his eyes testing my patience by boring into mine.
“Why don’t you put it on now,” he suggests icily. “I want to smell it on you while you’re sitting here.”