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Maybe it was because nothing in Minerva was wild or compelling at all.
She was bookish, and she was a tomboy, and she was ever injuring herself while running around outside imagining she was various literary characters that she found between the pages of her books.
She’d been called a dreamer more than once. Someone who didn’t connect well with the harshness of reality.
And so there was something about the darkness simmering beneath the surface of Dante’s skin that she had always found wickedly interesting.
Like he was a dragon in folklore.
And that was down to her rather dreamy nature, as well.
It had nothing to do with him. And it certainly had nothing to do with feelings of any kind.
If she had any sort of feelings for him, it was that sharp, tangled-up gratitude over his helping mitigate the shame of her being rejected in front of an audience and then, of course, the way he was helping her now.
“It doesn’t matter,” Violet said. “I haven’t really fancied him for ages. But he is handsome. You have to admit.”
Minerva felt her face getting hot, and she wasn’t sure why.
Violet shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Of course you already know. You’ve seen him naked.”
The temperature in her face increased. She had not seen Dante naked. And she would not.
But surely her sister knew all about these things. Violet was so lovely and smooth. She did so well at parties, mingling with important, high-powered people everywhere she went. Her ability to harness her image and control a brand was renowned.
She imagined her sister was much more sophisticated when it came to men than Minerva was.
Then, the average sixteen-year-old was slightly more sophisticated when it came to men.
Of course, no one could ever know that.
“Let’s get you fixed up,” Violet said.
And true to her word, Violet did fix Minerva up. Quite well, in point of fact.
And she had been right about the gold. It took her mousy brown hair and made it something else. It surprised Minerva that she had left her hair mostly unstyled. Letting it fall in waves down her back, though it seemed much glossier after her sister had sprayed something on it, and the gold leaf headband that she had woven into her hair made it all look very intentional, rather than that Minerva’s hair sat somewhere between curled and straight, and she didn’t know what to do with it.
The dress she was wearing made the most of her slight curves, and the plunging neckline looked elegant, and not trashy. A gift, Minerva supposed, of having a very small chest. If her more voluptuous sister had worn the dress, she would’ve looked stunning, but the effect would have been different.
“I love it,” Minerva said, but her stomach felt hollowed out, and her body felt unsteady. She lifted her hand to touch her hair and her sister caught it, examining her bare fingers.
“I do hope that Dante is planning on giving you a ring,” Violet said.
“Oh,” Minerva responded. “I hadn’t even thought of it.”
“You do want to marry him, don’t you?”
“I need to,” Minerva said. “Desperately.”
“Good,” Violet said.
Well, it hadn’t been a lie, she did need to marry him. It just wasn’t because of her emotions or anything like that.
Her sister had been kind to her, and rather than putting her in heels had chosen a pair of sparkling, pointed-toe flats that were actually quite pretty. They were also very comfortable. And made Minerva feel like less of a gangly, awkward deer than she might have if she had been up on stilts.
She left her sister’s bedroom, nearly ready to go down to the party, when she ran into her mom coming up the stairs.
“I was just coming to fetch you,” she said.
