I was still stupefied, gaping at Mia as I tried to figure out how I even felt about this.
“But… how do you know Iain will be there?” I asked, earning myself a look from Mia that said please.
“The party’s hosted by Drew Maddox and that’s his client-slash-bestie according to the tabloids, so yeah. There’s no way he won’t be there, and there is no way…” She disappeared back into her room, returning to chuck something short, white and slinky at me. “That he won’t need to fuck your brains out when he sees you wearing that.”
Catching the dress against my chest, I looked down at it, then back up at her. She snorted.
“Oh, don’t even give me that wide-eyed look,” she said. “We both know this is happening, so get your ass moving, ‘cause we still need to find shoes.”
7
HOLLAND
I went with the plan—but for three reasons only.
Bed. Futon. Job. That was it.
That is all you want or need to talk about tonight, and once that’s done, so are you, I reminded myself.
Still, my decision didn’t feel real. Nothing was sinking in, even as Mia zipped me into her dress and helped with my makeup. Even as we rode uptown in the Lyft, eventually pulling up along the water to an absolutely massive venue with humongous arched windows on each side of the building, and purple spotlights beaming up the limestone walls.
There were flashing cameras, a red carpet going up the grand steps and not one, but two lines of beautiful people snaked around the building that I couldn’t even see the ends of.
It was beyond intimidating, and easily the fanciest thing I’d ever been anywhere near. But before I could even groan or doubt our ability to get in, Mia grabbed my hand, marching us to the front of the line and cranking up her bartender charm to about a thousand-and-one. And before I knew it, we had gotten past the wall of suited bouncers—as Adam Maxwell and Adrienne Tan.
“Wait… did that really just work?” I burst out laughing, gasping for air as a gleeful Mia pulled me hastily into the building, our twin ponytails swinging in the air as our heels clacked away on stone.
“Yes, but only because he knew I was lying!” she hissed, giggling nervously and forcing us to run as if the bouncer might change his mind any second.
She only let us stop only once we’d gotten far enough inside, and though we’d been yelling back and forth just a second before—her about how I needed to run faster, and me about how I physically couldn’t due in my nearly four-inch heels—all conversation quickly screeched to a halt.
Because once we were fully inside, our eyes went starry, and all we could do was look all around at the soaring ceiling, the giant bar, the gorgeous crowd and the handful of faces that I swore I recognized from seeing somewhere at some point, be it on television or Instagram.
Silent, still squeezing Mia’s hand, I stared at all of it.
And only then did it all sink in.
I was actually here—in the glamorous, upper-crust world of Iain Thorn that I normally couldn’t know, and normally had no access to whatsoever. It was a place for only the rich and famous, where Iain thought he could avoid me forever, which was cold and unfeeling, and so fucking arrogant it made my toes curl in my heels.
The prick.
Just knowing that he was somewhere in here, laughing it up with his friends, leisurely living his life and giving exactly zero shits about what he did to me had me quickly and completely riled up again, and I was pretty sure Mia could tell, because suddenly she squeezed my hand back and nodded toward the roped-off stairs.
“Fuck getting a drink first. Let’s go up there,” she said, referring to the upper floor that we had the VIP bracelets for.
So off we went.
I was in eighth grade the first time I ever laid eyes on Iain Thorn.
It was December, and I’d known all day that I’d be coming home from school to find my brother home for winter break, along with his best friend from Stanford Law.
For a full week prior, Mom had fought Dad about hosting “this boy.” “This boy” was wild and reckless just like my brother, and one Adam was hard enough, Mom argued, so two would be unmanageable, and letting him stay even in the pool house was completely out of the question.
But Dad spent days going out on a limb for Iain, arguing that he didn’t have anywhere else to go, and by whatever miracle—despite the fact that he never did—he won the argument.
Which meant that all
day at school, my heart pitter-pattered at the idea of going home and getting to meet somebody new. Somebody who was older, and probably cool like my brother. Being thirteen, I’d obviously thought about the prospect of him being cute—how tall he was, what color his eyes were. For days on end, I’d hyped myself up with hormonal fantasies about how hot my brother’s best friend could be.