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It was another test.
I didn’t know how many would be chosen tonight, but some would go home empty-handed. How many, I also didn’t know.
What I did know?
If I was going to go through with this, it had to be with the right man.
They paraded us in front of them, round and round, the eerie stomping of wooden canes the only noise. It felt like a pagan ceremony, a throwback to something ancient but very, very primal.
Keep your head, Grace. I just had to be analytical in my choice of a man. They thought they were choosing, but this was my choice, too, damn it.
I could do what they would ask of me. I hoped I could, anyway. But only with the right man. There would have to be trust. Otherwise, I didn’t think I could endure three months of being mistreated and come out all right on the other side okay. What woman could?
I wanted the future I glimpsed this afternoon when I described it into the recorder. Speaking my dream out loud had made me want it more than ever.
But I wasn’t so confident as to pretend I couldn’t be broken.
Yes, I could only do this if I chose the right man.
My gaze was drawn to one man standing among a group of young men.
I immediately dismissed him. He was too good-looking. Jaw-droppingly handsome, actually. And okay, yeah, I stared at first. But seriously, how often do you see guys like this in real life?
His blue-gray eyes were so light, they almost went translucent when light caught them. He had casually mussed blond hair but heavy, dark eyebrows that shadowed those intense eyes. All the other men had carefully groomed and slicked-back hair, but his was stylishly unruly. Was it an act of rebellion, or was he so rich that even amongst the most elite of the elite, he was still allowed to break the rules?
Surely, he had to be a jerk. Nobody rich enough to be here and also that gorgeous could be a good guy. He never would have had any reason to be. He must’ve been given every single thing in life and how could a man develop compassion when he’d never known need?
I searched every other face. Mostly it was white guys, but there were some men with actual melanin there, too. From what I could see, it was the younger men wore white tuxes, and then the rest of the older men leered on from beneath their silver hoods. How many men were being initiated tonight? I couldn’t tell and no one had explained the specifics of this “choosing ceremony”.
Surely there’d be more than just one man for so many women to be presented tonight.
Some of the guys watched as if they were already undressing me. A few looked bored.
I tried to focus on one of the other men. There was a shy-looking one standing behind the others. He wasn’t handsome but he wasn’t ugly. Plain. I could handle plain.
But my gaze was pulled toward the blond Greek god. For some reason, I felt as if he had the most power. It was as if he knew he would be given first choice, the equivalent of being granted the first round draft pick, I imagined—and then there was just something in the way he stood. He had presence.
But then I felt his eyes on me.
I swear electricity tingled on my skin everywhere his gaze caressed. It was a completely inappropriate reaction for the situation. What the hell was wrong with me? This was a business deal of sorts. It was no time for… for…
“Montgomery Kingston, it is time for you to choose the belle.”
The older man in the silver cloak spoke the words and yet I only had eyes for what those words evoked.
Oh my God! It couldn’t be and yet it was. It was him! The man Mrs. Hawthorne had called her boy. Even his name was ostentatious: Montgomery Kingston.
It was a name that said we have old money and you should bow at our feet.
No, I could never allow Montgomery Kingston to be the one.
But then Montgomery started walking around each woman, caressing the identical pearls at each of their necks.
And it took everything I had to stay where I was standing and not go jerk the bitches backwards out of his grasp.
When he reached for the pearls of the belle beside me, I was close enough to hear her gasp of delight.
She wanted him. She was a pretty brunette. Catalog model pretty, not stunning. But her breasts were all but falling out the top of her gown, and I’d yet to meet a man who wouldn’t choose a great rack over everything else.
Still, I watched on. Maybe even glared on.
Don’t pick her. Don’t pick her. Come to me.
Wait, where had that come from? Hadn’t I just decided he was the one man I didn’t want?
