Page 258 of The Heart You Kept

“No,” she fires back. “You made the bed, Edward. Remember?” She raises her voice in the hope someone hears us. “There were three of us in it.”

I grab her elbow and bring her to me as I drag her farther into the garden. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

“Why am I not invited tonight?”

“Because you are threatening Hermione and I won’t stand for it.”

“So you’re just going to erase me from society?” she gasps.

“You asked for this, not me. I have no problem with you. However, I do have a problem with you threatening Hermione.”

“If I tell everyone about you and her.” She smiles sarcastically.

“Then you are dead.” I look her fair and square in the eye and step forward so that we are only millimeters away. “What do you think King Volter is going to do to you if he finds out what you’ve done?”

“He’s going to kill you,” she fires back.

“After he kills you.”

“He wouldn’t touch me,” she spits.

“Are you sure about that?” I fire back. “It’s one thing to betray a girlfriend, but I did not betray her. I engaged in some extracurricular activities with her and her friend. But you…. You’ve threatened to sell sex scandal stories about the Crown Princess of Switzerland to the media….”

Her face falls as she stares at me. “Did you tell him?”

“Be very careful, Isadora,” I whisper. “Or he will find out.”

“Let me in.”

“Go. To. Hell.”

“Is Hermione inside?” she replies. “Is that why I can’t come in?”

Yes.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her,” I lie. Hermione was the first person I saw when I walked through the door with Alora.

“So let me get this straight,” she fires back. “You get to break Hermione’s heart and use me for all your deviant kinks and then you get to walk away scot-free with a new shiny girlfriend that we all know you are going to dump as soon as this blows over.”

My eyes flicker red.

“Hey, this has nothing to do with me and my life. I’m doing my job and protecting my ex-girlfriend, Hermione, from you. If you hadn’t been threatening her, trying to blackmail her and ruin her life, you could have come to any party you wanted to.”

“Fuck you.”

“Get. Out,” I sneer.

“You’re going to pay for this.” She steps onto her back foot. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

“Don’t play with matches, Isadora, and then cry when I arrive with the fucking kerosene.”

“Is that a threat?”

“That’s a promise.”

“Everything alright here?” Theodore approaches us in the darkened corner of the garden.

“Edward isn’t letting me into your party,” Isadora replies.