At First Sight (Vow To Protect 0.50)

I try to keep my tone even as I address her. “Can I help you, Maddie?”

She bats her eyelashes, or I think she does. It’s more like a wink gone wrong, but I remain the gentleman.

She, however, has lost her damn mind. I realize this when she reaches out and grabs my cock as if she has permission to touch me. As if she even has permission to speak to me.

I don’t get the pleasure of ripping her claw-tipped fingers off before Alexei, Andrea’s twin, is there, leading her away.

With disgust, I stare after them. Then I remember my mission before she mauled me. I spin to find the flower amongst the weeds. But she’s disappeared.

3

Valentina

If this is what the rest of my life looks like, I don’t want it. Every person at this party is either drunk, high, or both. And not in the glamorous, I’m rich so I can do anything I want sort of way. They are all sloppy and mean, and I’m about to lose my shit if Sal touches me one more time.

Rose meets my eyes for a moment, conveying her own distress that Sal has barely left us alone for a second. We’d hope to be drinking and watching the people we’ve never gotten to meet. But we can barely even speak with Sal breathing down the neckline of my dress as if he’d dropped his keys in there.

A part of me wishes my father had come tonight. He gave his excuses, saying Sal was within his rights to come in his stead since he would soon be his son-in-law. If he were here, he would witness Sal’s clear disregard for the sexual contact rule and maybe, for once, do something to help me. Maybe he’d pretend I’m his daughter and not his burden.

Since Rose is only related by marriage, he does consider her a burden. Her mother, my mother’s sister, died along with my mom, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I suspect my father knows that if he throws Rose out, there is nowhere in the world I won’t go to find her. To protect her. She may be my cousin by blood, but she’s my sister in every way that matters.

The thoughts of my father showing any kind of support for me are nothing more than a silly fantasy I nurtured as a child. My mother died before I reached the tween years, and after that, well, the darkness that clung to my father before became all-consuming. My mother’s light tempered him. Without her, he has no conscience. No soul. And since it’s my fault my mother is gone, I have to try to be that for him. Even when it earns me bruises more often than patience.

Sal laughs at something one of his greasy friends says. The same friend who latched on to Rose the second he joined our table. I need to find a way to rescue us both. Get us home before Sal gets too drunk to remember he cedes to my father until we marry.

I gently peel Sal’s hand from my waist and give him a smile. “I’ll be right back. Just going to powder my nose.”

Rose takes the hint and squeezes away from the handsy guy whose name I don’t bother to remember.

We link our arms and press into the crowd before Sal can think to call us back. The bathroom is likely the only safe place for us right now. We make a beeline across the marble foyer and past the elevators to the little alcove that indicates the restrooms. The facilities are just as lovely as the ballroom. I’m impressed by the velvet sitting room and the crystal chandeliers in front of each solid wood door leading to the toilets.

I don’t actually need to go, but Rose does and rushes into one of the little rooms while I take a seat on a dove gray settee. My feet are already aching from these shoes, and I feel like Sal’s hand has made a permanent mark on the curve of my waist. Like the ghost of a pool’s water after a long day of swimming.

I wait for Rose but catch the sound of raised voices outside the door to the ladies’ room. Worrying it’s Sal about to embarrass me, I rush out of the room to intercept him before he can storm in to find me.

But it’s not Sal standing in the foyer. It’s an impossibly tall man in a very expensive black-on-black tuxedo, and he looks pissed. He’s watching a man and a woman in red lead another woman to a stairwell, but it appears the other woman doesn’t want to go. I’m about to say something, but when I focus on the other man again, he’s moved several feet closer to me—like only a few inches separate us. I catch the notes of his cologne, something smoky maybe with a hint of ginger.