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“I’m happy to get whatever you need to make this right. I can get a towel for you to kind of”—I gesture roughly to her midsection—“tie it around your waist.”
Frustrated, she whirls around and looks at Mr. Zaitsev. “Kirill,” she purrs in a pathetic little whimper, “do something.”
Kirill holds his own glass out to her. “Here, Viktoria,” he says with the subtlest smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. “Have mine.”
Viktoria stares at the glass like she wants to slap it out of his hand. Then her expression shifts into an exaggerated pout. “You’re… you’re joking. Right? You’re joking. She ruined our night!”
“Not my night.” He shrugs. “Your dress didn’t factor into my plans for the evening. It wasn’t going to last long in any case.”
His voice is deep and rich, with just the faintest hint of a laugh on the edge of it. I swear I feel those baritone vibrations between my thighs. The not-so-subtle suggestion of what he had planned after this event also vibrates through me.
I recognize the timbre of jealousy in my chest. I know it well.
I spent a good deal of my childhood being jealous of girls like Viktoria. They had perfect new clothes and perfect pink bedrooms and perfect butterfly hair clips. Viktoria probably had a drawer full of butterfly hair clips. And now, she has Kirill Zaitsev.
As for me… what do I have? Let’s see: a dead mom, an absentee father, and two sisters who take turns hating and pitying me. I have no home, no prospects, no future, no hope.
And just like that, I suddenly have no fucks to give, either.
“My mother got this on loan from the designer,” Viktoria is spitting to anyone who will listen. “This dress was on the runway in Paris. I had to go on a juice cleanse for two weeks to fit into it. And now, it’s destroyed.”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Kirill drawls as if he couldn’t care less. “You have plenty of other gowns. We don’t need to take it out on the working class.”
Embarrassment coils around my spine. They’re talking shit about me right in front of me like I don’t even exist. I guess, in their minds, I don’t. I’m just some floater in the corner of their vision. Part of the background.
What does it matter to them that I’m working on my dead mother’s birthday when poor Viktoria has wine on her dress?
What does it matter that I’m living in my sister’s guesthouse and scrambling from paycheck to paycheck just to keep my head above water when they’ve been faced with the slightest inconvenience?
What does any of that matter to them?
Answer: not a damn thing.
“So because I have nice things, I’m supposed to let myself be demeaned?” Viktoria snaps. “It’s not my fault the help is jealous of me.”
“Working class” was rough. But “the help”? That right there is what does it.
Suddenly, I don’t care that the most attractive man I’ve ever seen is right in my line of sight. I don’t care that I’m supposed to be tripping over myself to apologize to this woman and make amends. I don’t care about my job or my reputation or any of that nonsense.
I just want things to be fair, for once in my entire freaking life.
Sorry, Mom, I’ve got a new phrase. When you can’t rise above, sink below—and drag them all down with you.
“I’m really sorry, ma’am,” I say, amping up the sincerity in my voice. “It’s just that your personality is so flat and lifeless, I mistook you for the table.”
The man at Kirill’s side with a dark buzzcut nearly snorts wine out of his nose. He has to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from spewing everywhere.
Viktoria, on the other hand, looks like fire might shoot out of her eyes. The expression of serene, I’m-too-good-for-you detachment she’s maintained most of the night has twisted into white-hot rage.
“How dare you, you… you… you bitch!”
I arch an eyebrow, but I don’t back down. There’s nowhere to go but forward. “You’re really proving me wrong. How creative.”
Her nostrils flare as she squints at me in outrage. “People like you don’t get to talk to people like me that way.”
“Honestly, you mean? Okay, fine, then I’ll lie: you are a delightful person. I’m sure you’d still have friends even if you didn’t have money and fake tits. People love you for your charm and pleasant demeanor, and your farts smell like roses.”
She raises her hand like she’s going to slap me. I brace for the blow, but before it can land, a tanned arm shoots past me to grab her wrist in mid-air.
