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“Wonderful to see you, Phee,” she says, and I wonder at her use of the word wonderful. It’s hardly that. But I smile. “You’ve never met Alec, my brother, have you?”
“No. Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking hands.
“Now about this big announcement,” Mr. Bennett says to me. “Sly tells me you’ve been keeping it a secret for a while. Very naughty.”
“There’s not going to be?—”
Ethan cuts me off. “Given all that’s happened with Phee’s father, you can understand we had little choice.”
“Of course. Sad affair all of that. But you’re not involved, and why shouldn’t you two be happy?”
“Mr. Bennett, how are you doing?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Doing all right, dear. Now, while my wife is busying herself catching up on gossip with your soon-to-be mother-in-law, may I have a dance? You don’t mind, Ethan, do you?”
“Of course not,” Ethan says, sounding relieved, if anything.
I’m grateful to be away from Ethan, honestly. I take Mr. Bennett’s arm as he leads me to the dance floor, and we make polite conversation as the orchestra plays a waltz.
“You’re light on your feet, Mr. Bennett.”
“It’s easy with a dance partner such as yourself, Phee.”
I try not to search the room for Silas. He won’t show up. Why would he?
Although he used to sneak into the parties. Every single year I’ve attended, I’ve seen him behind an unassuming mask he can easily blend into the crowd with. I think he used to do it just to show he could. Every time I’d catch him, he’d give me a wink and vanish into the crowd. I’d found it funny and never mentioned it to anyone, not even my father.
The last ball had taken place just before the charges were filed. The Foxes stopped having the parties then, putting them on hold, Mira said. At that party, though, Ethan had come home from college for the holiday. I’d been in my last year of high school.The Foxes had just assumed Ethan and I would attend as a couple. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Fox asked either of us. Or at least, they didn’t ask me. Maybe they asked Ethan. Things had been tense between Dad and Mr. Fox by then and I wonder how much he knew about what would happen just weeks after the event.
Mr. Bennett is speaking, but I’m only half listening, nodding now and again. I’m lost in my thoughts when his step falters and he turns. Someone is tapping on his shoulder.
“May I cut in?”
My heart drops to my belly. I look up at the man who stands a head taller than Mr. Bennett, dressed in a tuxedo that barely contains him—that, no matter how elegant, can’t hide the man beneath. The inelegance of him. The raw brutality of him.
Silas Cruz.
The man I’ve been searching for since walking in here.
The villain I want to hate but am drawn to like a moth to the flame.
I get the feeling he’s been watching me long before this moment and waiting for his opportunity.
“I knew it was a matter of time,” Mr. Bennett says, winking at Silas. He doesn’t even get a hint of a smile back. Silas’s turquoise eyes are locked on mine. He barely registers Mr. Bennett at all, and I get the feeling it’s not even conscious. A moment later, I am handed from one man to the other, pressed against Silas’s hardchest, his hand a brand on the bare skin of my back, the other warm and calloused swallowing mine.
My fingers graze his bicep, solid beneath his jacket as I raise my hand to rest it on his shoulder. There is a charge between us, something electric. Something wrong and right at once. I want to be held by this man. I want his arms around me. And being in those arms now, I am struggling with the duality of my own emotions. What I want and what I should want are two very different things.
“Isn’t that the girl Ethan was making out with a few years back?” he asks, not bothering with any sort of greeting. I guess we’re past polite conversation, if we ever had it at all. “Looks to me like they’ve graduated to fucking,” he says rudely, making me bristle.
I raise my eyebrows, but I don’t think he can see them under my mask.
“And you can see that in the minutes you’ve been here?” I ask. He always comes battle ready, and can I blame him? I glance toward Ethan and Anya and in a way, I hope Silas is right.
“Doesn’t take a genius. I mean, look at them.”
“If you’re trying to hurt me, it won’t work. I don’t care?—”
“And that right there, sweetheart, is the problem. You don’t care.”
