AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turned from my observations to Maurice, who took a seat in the chair next to me and sipped what looked like brandy. I was surprised he was actually speaking to me; he'd barely acknowledged my presence all evening.
In a roomful of uptight New Englanders, Maurice looked irrevocably French. With his lithe, diminutive stature and a head full of salt-and-pepper hair, he wore a classic black tuxedo with a black tie instead of a standard bowtie. With a nose that was a little too long and dark eyes that sunk into his face with Gallic circles, Maurice was handsome in a patrician sort of way. However, I had yet to see him smile.
"What news?" I asked.
"That my stepdaughter is involved with Brandon Sterling," Maurice replied evenly in his thick Parisian accent. He watched me with cold calculation. "Janette," he said, "she told me that you knew him, but the way she talked, it seemed...how do you say...a dalliance?"
I frowned, unsure of what I was supposed to say here. I didn't consider Maurice family, even though technically we were, and I'd as much as admitted my relationship to Janette. But despite the fact that with a simple hand hold, Brandon had basically told everyone in the room that we were involved in some way, I didn't know what I was at liberty to say. I didn't know what they thought.
"No," I finally said. "Not a dalliance. I've never been one to...dally." The word sounded as awkward as it felt.
Maurice crossed one leg elegantly over the other. "I see. And what do you think of all of this?" His accent was incredibly pronounced, perhaps an effect of the brandy. "Are you interested in being a part of politics?"
I looked at the crowd of people who now surrounded Brandon. Tall and strong, with his head of gold hair, he was the sun to their orbit, a center of gravity that drew them all in. It wasn't hard to see why. He exuded both charisma and a kind of genuine goodness that would attract anyone. If he chose to run for mayor, I had no problem seeing it happen. Nor, it appeared, did anyone else.
"I don't know," I answered, and that was the truth. But I was willing to figure it out in the end. Brandon was my sun too.
"I see," Maurice said again as he swished his brandy in its sifter. "I see."
Before I could reply, a pair of white pants appeared in front of us. I looked up and gulped. Kieran, looking anything but happy.
"Hi-hi," I managed to stutter.
She didn't move, just peered grimly down at me.
"Hello," she said. "I was surprised to see you out there. I'm shocked to see you in here."
I had to force myself to maintain eye contact. Kieran's piercing stare was one of the most formidable I knew. She glanced at Maurice, who just held up his drink in a sleepy salutation.
"This is my stepfather, Maurice Jadot," I said, gesturing in his direction.
Kieran acknowledged Maurice with a curt nod before leaning down to talk to me a little more closely.
"You shouldn't be in here," she said bluntly. "It's not good for him to be seen with you."
"You make me sound like some call girl," I said bitterly.
"If his wife ever gets wind that you were here, and she will, that's basically what everyone here will think of you," Kieran retorted. "Skylar, I'm doing my best to get him out of this marriage so that you can be together the way I know you both want, but you are not making it easy by showing up here."
"He asked me to come," I protested weakly. "He said it was important. What was I supposed to say? No?"
A thin, raised brow told me that was exactly what I was supposed to say.
"You should know better than anyone else that Brandon has a habit of doing stupid things for people he loves," Kieran said. "So you need to think about his best interests better than he does. And right now, that means you should go before people get the wrong idea, and definitely before Miranda shows up."
I crossed my arms defiantly. "He said she wasn't going to come. I wouldn't be here if that were a possibility."
"Miranda has a habit of showing up in a lot of places Brandon thinks she won't," Kieran said dryly. With a flash in her dark eyes, she looked around the room. "You'd be better off to remember that."
As if her words were a clear omen, the door to the study burst open, and another magnetic field of charisma entered. The chatter quieted.
"Hello! Oh, hello, nice to see you, Henry! Love that ascot!"
I froze at the sound of a voice I had only heard twice before. Both times were burned into my memory. All the blood drained from my head.
Next to me, Kieran stood up to her full height and closed her eyes in anticipation.
"Fuck," she said so low no one else but I could have heard her. She looked at me. "You need to go." Then she darted through the crowd, presumably to distract the newest guest at the party.
