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How were they raising any money when they were paying so much for the ambience?
The table that we followed Garrett Hughes, Kenneth, and Melanie to sat close to the front of the stage. I hadn’t noticed the others walking with us because my complete attention was on the ice. However, when we reached the table, I realized there were assigned seats. How strange these people were. Why were they telling people where to sit? It seemed controlling, but then I wondered if that was the point.
Trev led me to the seat that had a small rectangular piece of ice on a silver stand. My name was carved into the ice in an elegant script. I looked from the ice to Trev.
He grinned at me and raised his eyebrows, as if to say,What did you expect?
I started to pull out my chair, but Trev’s hand made it there before I did, and he pulled it out for me.
I whispered, “Thank you,” and he gave me a slight bow that caused me to laugh.
Once he pushed me in, I expected him to take one of the seats beside me and Sax to perhaps take the other. It made sense that they’d put the children together, so to speak. We weren’t here to do any business.
However, Trev walked around the table and took a seat beside a girl I’d never met. She wasn’t one of the friends who had come to his parties. He spoke to her, and although I couldn’t hear what he said, it must have been charming because she smiled at him. I felt someone beside me and turned to see Blaise taking the seat to my right. My spine instantly stiffened, and I gripped my hands tightly in my lap. Not what I’d expected. Of all the people at this table, why had I been placed beside him?
On the other side of me, I turned to see Garrett taking a seat. This was only getting worse. I wanted to sit beside Saxon, or Trev, or Melanie.
Why had I been placed here? Between these two men?
My eyes went to Saxon, who was sitting on the other side of the girl Trev was beside, and then on the other side of him was another girl I didn’t know.
I looked down at my hands and managed to take several slow, calming breaths. I could get through this. I had to, for Melanie’s sake. Glancing up to see where she was located, I found her sitting beside Trev, and on her other side was Kenneth. I didn’t study the rest of the table. My thoughts were all over the place, and I started wondering if I could claim I’d come down with a migraine and escape this.
I felt eyes on me and lifted mine to see Melanie watching me with a strange look on her face. She seemed confused and concerned. That didn’t help me calm down at all.Why did she look like that? Ididn’t understand the way these people chose seating, and I hoped this made sense to her. From the look on her face, it didn’t appear to.
Kenneth leaned in and whispered something to her, and I watched as she nodded and relaxed. I wished he’d say something to me to help me relax.
“At least try and act like you belong here,” Blaise said in a low, deep voice.
I turned to see his eyes on me, and the disapproval on his face was clear. Not that I cared. I hadn’t wanted to be seated beside him either. In fact, I would have rather been between his father and anyone else.
“You’re so fucking tense,” he said.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile in case one of the many people at the table was watching us.
“Because I don’t want to be here,” I said through my teeth.
He smirked then. “You’ll get used to it.”
No, I wouldn’t. I didn’t intend to live in this world that long. I had plans. When I didn’t reply, he looked to the lady on his other side and said something. At least he was done with me. I opened my hands in my lap and attempted to straighten them and lay them flat instead of fisting them so tightly that my nails were biting into my skin painfully.
“How are you liking Moses Mile?” Garrett asked me.
I lifted my gaze to his and prayed I could speak without stumbling over my words. He was just a man. He wasn’t someone I had to impress or be accepted by. Just because he had a demeanor that made one feel as if they should cower before him didn’t mean I had to. Garrett Hughes was nothing to me.
“I’m enjoying it. The Houstons have been wonderful,” I replied honestly.
He smiled then, softening the overpowering presence he seemed to exude. “I hear you’re warming up to the horses. I expected you would. Your mother loved them,” he said with a touch of fondness in his tone that took me off guard.
He had known my mother?I’d not made that connection or considered that. Melanie being her friend was one thing, but I hadn’t placed my mother any further into this circle of people.
“You knew my mother?” I asked then, always wanting to know more about the woman who had given me life.
Although he continued to smile, sadness flickered in his eyes. “Yes. Very well.”
I wanted more than that.How did he know my mother? Where had he met her?
I wasn’t sure where to start when servers arrived at our table and began placing a salad in front of everyone at the same time. As if it were choreographed.
