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I push open the swinging doors and stride into the hall without another word. If Burn has a reaction to my words, I don’t hear it.
Grabbing my coat, I quickly head for an exit. The door I choose puts me out in the back of the house, between the hedge maze and the beautiful sculpted gardens, brought in to remind my grandmother of the Palace of Versailles. Pulling on my coat, I see that there are a number of guests out here, stepping on the immaculately cut grass and trampling the trailing roses.
It disgusts me, the symbol of what our family once was or could have been if all these greedy gold diggers hadn't destroyed it. Remy loves them, loves entertaining these sycophantic strangers. Meanwhile, his own family can hardly bear to look at each other; the only goodwill toward him stems from the possibility of inheritance.
I am the only one of my family that is left with any kind of common sense or basic fucking decency. According to Daisy, I am emotionally closed off and pathologically unable to listen or compromise. She told me so right before she wrenched the promise ring off her finger, called me cheap, and left me for my twin brother.
Now I’m just walking around with a massive hole in my chest, hoping that my common sense and ability to look fucking forward will see me through the rest of this year.
I look toward the driveway, which is just out of view around the front of the house. If I can just get out of here, past the sea of Morgan wannabes, I can make it to my car and get the hell out of here. Even if it means taking a late-night flight, I need to get out of this house, this town, and this whole fucking state.
Squaring my shoulders, I use my height and my musculature to my advantage. It’s often useful in crowds like this, where people turn and scoot out of my way as soon as they see me coming. I’m sure that my scowl doesn’t seem inviting to them either.
Out of my eyes, a few people ahead, I can make out the outline of a young woman in a dark gray wool coat that is obviously a dozen seasons old. Owing mainly to the way that it has worn the patches at the elbows and on the bottom. I cock my head as I walk, thinking that even from this distance I can see that her coppery hair is piled up in quite a disheveled looking bun. Her shoes are honest to God army boots that hover just below a plain brown skirt.
What on earth is someone who is dressed worse than the help doing out here?
As I push past the last person in front of her, I can hear her arguing with one of our suited security guards, whose head is shaved bald and whose colored shirt has an earpiece sticking out of its ear.
"Miss?" the man says. "Miss, are you an invited guest? If not, you need to go."
The redhead turns, a panicked expression on her bright blue eyes. She is young, probably just out of school or college, maybe. And beneath that disheveled hairstyle, she has a proud nose and high cheekbones, she’s quite beautiful. Like a diamond that has yet to be polished, I suppose. She heads full speed towards me, barely looking where she is going.
I have about three seconds to process that she is on a collision course with me before she comes crashing into my arms, the glass of red wine that she is clutching dashing against my white shirt and spreading like a blood stain. Her mouth opens in a silent scream.
She looks up at me, blinking. There is a moment of recognition, before she curls her lip out of some sort of distaste.
She thinks I’m Burn.
It’s not the first time that I’ve been mistaken for my twin brother, to say the least. Not even the first time that she has been somewhat repulsed and wanted nothing to do with me or Burn.
She looks up at me, her slight frame rests against mine. "What are you doing here?"
A fleeting thought comes over me. If this woman knows my brother as I think that she does, it could be useful to me. She could be the key to embarrassing Burn and crushing his relationship to dust.
Smiling down at the woman, I slip my arm around her waist and pull her closer. "Don’t you know? This is my house. And now you have come to me, haven’t you, darling girl?"
The disgust in her bright blue eyes gives me hope that I am going to hear exactly what I want to hear from her lips.
ChapterSix
TALIA
Looking around the gala at the Morgan estate, I am immediately certain that I don’t fit in. My clothes are too shabby. My hair is quite tousled. My smile hasn’t been straightened by orthodontics, as I am sure that the smiles of everyone here in their gowns and tuxedos certainly have. I feel downright dowdy, up until the point when the security guard calls out to me.
I turn, clutching my glass of red wine, my heartbeat soaring. All my attention is on the guard behind me, and as I begin to run, I barely look at the people before me. They are surely too elegant and refined to even deal with an intruder like me.
My run is short lived, because I soon crash into a wall of a man. I peer up at him as I spill red wine across his tuxedo shirt, my eyes widening as I take him in. He is very tall, with dark, slicked back hair and insanely carved cheekbones. An aristocratic nose and a set of lips seemingly made for the sneering expression they currently wear which complete his visage.
I crumple into him and look up into his piercing blue-green eyes. He is none other than Burn, whom I never thought to see again. Especially not here, when I am sneaking into a party. I brush my messy hair out of my face and look up at him with wide eyes.
"Oh. It’s you." The comment slips from my mouth before I have a chance to think about it.
Burn’s eyes narrow on my face, and I have the strangest feeling that I am suddenly in a much more dangerous situation than just running from the security guards. He looks down at the wine dripping down his shirt and scowls at me.
"So it is," he says. His expression is as dark as a thunderclap.
I raise my hands to his chest, uncertain. The visions are dancing before my eyes, memories of the last time I saw him. Quiet sighs, the feel of his burning hot lips, the exquisite way he tastes, the way he touched me, the sounds of our exultation.
