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“But easy to find out! You could go…over there, maybe!” I jut my chin in the direction of the back lawn. “Or there. Or there. Anywhere, really. Lots of people are no doubt extremely eager to ask you about, uh, world politics or the economy or who you think is gonna winNaked & Afraidthis season.”
Unfortunately, Prince Testosterone doesn’t take any of my suggestions. “Then they can wait.” He inches closer, which I really, really wish he wouldn’t do. “What’s your name?”
“Who, me?”
“No, theothergirl cowering in the corner.”
I force a laugh. “Oh, I’m nobody. Not busy or important in the least, and I don’t even watchNaked & Afraid!”
It feels like the walls are closing in. I’m making silent oaths in my head and hoping that some deities above are listening and will take mercy on me.I’ll wear only pants for the rest of my life if you get me out of this mess. Just please, for God’s sake, help me!
If anyone up above hears, they show no sign of it.
He edges closer still. I can smell his cologne now. Cedarwood and sage. It’s making my head spin.
Over his shoulders, most of the other attendees have turned back to their conversations, though I still feel a few stray eyes drifting in our direction here and there. It’s hard to look anywhere but at him, though. He’s just got this confidence, this magnetism, that brings me back to his gaze again and again.
For his part, he doesn’t seem to have any problem blocking out the whole world to focus on just me. “You’re a strange one.”
“You don’t even know the half of it,” I promise him. “Seriously. I’d run if I were you.”
I’d run if I were me, too,I add silently.
He still doesn’t smile or show any signs of a departure in the near-future. “I’ll ask you one more time: what’s your name?”
I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as lies and distractions go. Between that and the tickle of cold air on my bare skin and thetick-tick-ticksound-slash-sensation of more stitches giving way and my ever-growing terror that somehow, some way, this terrifying man knows who I am—who Ireallyam—I’m about this close to just telling him the truth.
Or maybe I’m just sick of lying. Of hiding. Of running. It’s been years of it now and it’s starting to get old.
So I open my mouth. My real name is right on my lips. “I’m—”
Then someone taps the man on the shoulder.
He straightens and turns with a scowl on his lips. The person interrupting us is slender and tall, with a wiry frame and a shock of brown hair. He’s got the same kind of serious composure in his face that Prince Testosterone has. Ado-not-fuck-with-me-ness.
The new man whispers something urgent in his ear. Both their scowls deepen. Their eyes flit out to the lawn.
I see that for what it is.
A window of opportunity.
With one last prayer to the heavens above just in case any of those celestial assholes have decided to tune in, I clamp the ruined halves of my dress together as best as I can, pirouette on my heel, and take off waddle-running down the nearest hallway before the two men turn back to realize I’m gone.
My plan is simple: I’m going to find somewhere quiet to fix my dress. Then I’m going to find Jorden and we’re going to get the hell out of here.
With any luck, I’ll never see that man again.
4
CORA
Bad news: this place is a labyrinth. I feel like I’ve been running for hours, twisting and turning down hall after hall. The one silver lining is that at least I’m leaving the super Hulk behind.
I shiver at the thought of him. He was too perfect to be real. His bone structure was brutally sharp. Those lips had a cruel slant to them. And thoseeyes—Lord have mercy, those amber eyes could hypnotize a girl if she’s not careful.
He hadn’t laid so much as a finger on me, but the way he looked at me was a physical touch in and of itself. It stroked the deepest parts of me.
As if I didn’t already feel plenty naked with a gaping rip in the backside of my dress.
