“Yes,” I said firmly. “I do actually want all those things I was always taught to want. If I found the right mate. I could still write. In fact, I’m meeting with an editor in the next couple of days. I do have some connections around New York from the fellowship.”
“Edward’s the right guy?” Jude muttered. Clearly his head was stuck on that and I sighed, scratching my head as he pulled over in front of the valet stand at The Orchid.
“I don’t know,” I said, as Jude handed over his keys with a charming smile. He gently took my arm and led me inside. “That’s what dating is for. I don’t want to talk about Edward anymore. I want to talk about what you’ve been up to for the last two years.”
We stopped at the host’s podium and Jude gave me that easy smile that never failed to make me feel better about life in general. “We can talk about whatever you want, Si. I missed you.”
“Missed you, Jude.” I said.
Things still felt off. But I knew they wouldn’t soon. We just needed to find that groove again.
An hour of drinks with Jude and I felt like we were maybe back in our old groove. We were a little closer to it anyway. There was still a bit of sadness about him. But then I guess there always had been since his mother had died. I was used to him covering for that with his usual charm and bravado. He was still the confident, cocky guy I’d always known but there was something a little melancholy about him now. Or maybe I was crazy, and he was just sad after hanging out with a bunch of super sick hospital kids. Who wouldn’t be?
I tried to put it out of mind as a taxi brought me back to my parent’s mansion way uptown. I hurried up the cobblestone steps to the stately white double doors and let myself in. It was strange how much it didn’t seem strange. After two years away, it felt as familiar as ever to walk into our big, narrow house in that rich old neighborhood with the trees lining the street. My parents butler, Rawls, greeted me at the door and I smiled as I came in. My mother had wanted to have tea with me but I’d insisted on seeing Jude first.
My parents had never liked Jude. I was ready to get an earful about that. But it was nothing new. I was also bracing myself to get an earful of a whole litany of things I wasn’t interested in hearing about but I bucked up as my heels clicked on the marble floor and I made my way to the sitting room where my mother spent a lot of her time when she was home.
“Mama?” I called out. I smiled at the familiar dragon sculpture on the antique side table that stood in the open foyer. It had always been one of my favorites as a child and now I traced my finger down its slowing tail. “You in here?”
“Sweetheart, don’t shout!” My mother called from the sitting room. “We’re just in here! Your father and I and…”
I took off my light jacket and my purse and took a breath as I walked into the sitting room where my father were sitting up straight on their favorite antique club chairs while lounging on the chaise like he had always been there...was Edward.
“Edward,” I muttered. I had never met him. I had only seen his pictures on Instagram. He was better looking in real life. He had the refined features of some male model with almost white blonde hair and stood as I walked in smiling wryly. “Um..hi? I didn’t think…”
“I just came to stop by.” Edward had a way of chuckling while he was talking as if constantly disarming people, raising his hands in surrender. “I knew you were coming back, I confess. I just wanted to stop by to see you in person after all our correspondence.”
He smiled at me, clasping his hands in front of him and I nodded, mutely. I hadn’t been ready for this at all. I’d wanted to prepare myself for meeting Edward. Truth be told, I wasn’t even sure if I was interested in him. I’d been dancing around his obvious interest since my mother had put me in touch with him. But now that we were both in the same place, it was going to be more difficult. I’d always sort of assumed that I’d eventually find a mate and start a family. I’d even sort of assumed that it would happen after I got back from London. Edward, on paper, was perfect. So why couldn’t I decide if he was even worth pursuing?
Edward stopped in front of me as my parents beamed behind him. He looked me up and down and shook his head. “Even more stunning than your pictures would suggest.” It should have sounded complimentary, I guess. But I did have the feeling of being appraised like one of Mr. Fairchild’s cars. It was probably unfair though. I was nervous, that was all. The responsibilities of my future was looming, and I wasn’t ready to embrace them yet. I was thinking the worst of Edward who was probably perfect for me if I was being objective. “I’m going to leave now,” Edward said, sighing. “We’ll meet up later, okay?” He kissed me on the cheek and it felt cold to me. I told myself it was my own nerves.
Edward left, and I swallowed. At least he’d been a buffer. Now I’d be left alone with my parents. My mother wasn’t likely to want to talk about much else but the potential of Edward as a mate.
Fantastic.
“He is a darling!” My mother said when I sat down to join them. I sat primly like I’d always been taught; knees together, hands clasped in lap. Aristocratic dragon shifter families can be quite old fashioned and my parents were no exception. They’d sent me to debutante classes to learn proper manners and ballroom dancing. I smiled at the memory of it. I remembered Jude cracking jokes about the whole thing and ballroom dancing with me to Van Halen in his old school metalhead phrase. He’d always been able to make me laugh and smile. “Sierra, I know I’m not supposed to say this so quickly but please marry him, darling. He’d make such a wonderful mate for you!”
I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I got back yesterday,” I said.
“I know, I know,” my mother said. “But you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot! It’s not as if there are a great number of eligible dragon shifter men in this town or...anywhere.”
“What if I were to marry a human?” I said, smirking to myself. I was only even saying it to see my parents’ reactions.
My father clutched his chest and my mother gasped. “Don’t even joke about that, dear! I know some families have no problem with that kind of cross-breeding. Oh, for instance, did you hear about David Kagen?”
I rubbed my temples. I knew the name David Kagen. He was a friend of Jude’s. It didn’t surprise me that they were gossiping about him. He was not much older than me but he had been a notorious hermit after coming back from some years long kidnapping incident where he’d been kept prisoner. Then he’d ended up marrying a less privileged dragon shifter who’d been the “brood mare” for some asshole in Boston.
“He married some girl with no home who was having this other man’s baby and she’d been sold to him!” My mother’s eyes were wide. “There’s just no telling these days.”
“Mom, you know, that’s really harsh.” I poured myself a cup of tea and scowled at her at the same time. I’d been scowling at my mother since diapers. “You’re so judgemental. She had a really rough life. I think it’s beautiful that she ended up David Kagen. And Jude knows him! They’re friends!”
“Well…” Now it was my dad looking at me darkly and I tensed up. “Jude… He was never very discerning.”
“Ugh.” My mother looked as disgusted with Jude as ever. She did have a point to some degree, or she would have if she was more objective. Jude had always been a trouble maker. He’d once thrown up in one of her antique vases while drunk. He’d made a scene or two at more than one Christmas party (though that kind of stuff had always amused the hell out of me). If anything, they shared Jude’s father’s opinion of him. Which was a sad though really. “I know he is your...dearest friend. I just…”
“He’s got no direction.” My father narrowed his eyes at me and I sipped my tea, inwardly seething.
He’d always said that about Jude and he’d said much worse and none of it as bad as what Jude’s father liked to say. Jude has always been the hot young rich golden boy who could never seem to live up to his potential. He’d been kicked out of schools and neve
r finished college. But none of them could see what I had always seen in him. It bothered me.
“I saw him at the track,” I said softly. “He was racing for those sick kids from the hospital like he enjoys.”
“Well, everyone’s got something going for them, I suppose,” my mother murmured. For her, that was a big compliment, and I just smiled and shook my head. “Oh! By the way, darling-”
“Oh God, what now?” I drank the better part of my cup of tea and inwardly braced myself. My mother had that look in her eye that meant I might have to go buy myself a new dress just to look pretty for old, stuffy people who I didn’t care about at all.
“Your father and I are going to that New York Good Citizens Awards Banquet tomorrow night?” My mother had a very blonde hair that she piles on top of her head and I could swear that every time she said the name of some fancy event she was attending or the name of some exclusive group she was a part of, her blonde got a little higher. Eventually it would touch the ceiling. she beamed at me with her coral colored lips. “You’re going with us, of course. Everyone has just been dying to see you again.”
“Everyone who exactly-”
“And Edward will be there,” my mother said significantly. “Your father and I are receiving a special commendation for our work with the homeless this spring.”
“Congrats.” I was already tired at the very idea of going off to an event. Plus, I knew they only wanted me to go because of Edward. Sometimes it seemed as if that’s all they thought I was good for; getting married and pushing out dragon babies. “You haven’t even asked me about London,” I said sadly. “I have connections, you know? I’m meeting with an editor. He wants me to write a piece-”
“That’s lovely, dear,” my mother said, but she was already looking down at her phone, probably talking to some important person about some other important social engagement.
It was typical.
I finished my tea and smiled tightly at my father before making my way up to my room. It was only then as I made my way up the sweeping white staircase, the banister of which Jude and I had slid down a million times, that I remembered that Jude had said his father wanted him to go to that banquet too. I smirked to myself and whipped out my phone, texting him as I made my way up the stairs.
Guess who else is going to the NY Good Citizen thing?
Jude replied immediately and said: Beyonce.
Ha ha. Me.
Jude replied: Guess I’m going to the NY Good Citizen thing after all then. ;)
Chapter Three: Jude
After hanging out at The Orchid with Sierra for a while, I’d returned to my loft in Tribeca. It’s not the kind of place people tend to see me living in, which always struck me as crazy. I go on lavish vacations, I race absurdly expensive cars, and my clothes are stupid and overpriced. Yet somehow the exorbitantly priced penthouses guys like me tended to live in always seemed silly. My friend Justin lives in a place like that. It’s gorgeous. It’s at the top of the tower and just the kind of joint people might picture me in. But I like my nice loft and I actually love being farther from Fifth Avenue where my dad lives. It’s hardly a world away and I’ve thought about moving to Brooklyn. But I haven’t bothered yet. I like my place.
I threw my door open and kicked off my shoes and didn’t react to the scent of my father who I now see sitting on my nice mid-century modern couch. He always liked to think he was taking me by surprise. But I’d expected him to come looking for me. I hadn’t bothered to answer his texts, and that banquet was coming up in a day. Little did he know that I was only too pleased to be going now. Now that I knew Sierra would be there.
“Down at the track again?” My father spoke without turning his head. He liked to think that was a real power move. I could just see the back of his head; salt and pepper gray hair slick back as he held one of my highball glasses in his hand. I couldn’t be mad at him for drinking my liquor though. He’d paid for it.
“Hospital kids,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. I was already tired just thinking about this conversation but I was planning on going to his little awards show. He had to be a little less hostile than usual. “Uh, sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ll be happy to go that banquet. Best behavior.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. It was like looking into an older mirror version of myself. I look exactly like my father just younger and, I hope, nicer. Now he gazed up at me with his usual amount of disdain.
“No complaints?” He said wryly, taking a sip of single malt. “No whining about how I’m showing you off?”
“Well, you do,” I said. “Somehow you manage to treat me like some prize stallion and at the same time make sure I know I’m worthless so-”
“For someone who’s happy to take my money,” my father says, “you sure do like to complain about me.”
I bit back the retort that wanted to jump right out of my mouth: A whole lot of his money was my mothers. The Fairchild fortune had been half hers. As much as my father had built up his car company, it wasn’t actually as lucrative as he liked to pretend it was. He was only a billionaire because my mother had been the wealthiest dragon shifter heiress on the East Coast.
I shrugged off the approaching fight and went to make myself a drink, though I was still a little buzzed from the couple drinks with Sierra at The Orchid. I could have made a whole night of it. I’d wanted to, but she’d said she needed to go talk to her parents and check in. She had always been so loyal to them. Sometimes I wondered why but then she was sure her parents actually loved her. That had to change things a lot. Sometimes I wondered what it was like.
“Do you need anything?” I said, trying to find some inner strength to withstand my father. He never missed a chance to take me down a peg or two.
“I was going to ask about the banquet,” he said, getting to his feed. “But I guess that’s resolved. Why have you suddenly agreed so readily?” He squinted at me as if he’d read the answer on my face. “You hate going to these things?”
“Not always,” I said lightly, pouring myself a finger of my best vodka just to take the edge off. “Sometimes one of your self-described nemeses shows up, and you get humiliated. That’s always fun.”
My father, the slick old dragon, whose hoard was said to be the most impressive in New York (although I doubted) cast me a bone dry smile. “Just don’t drink too much. You know how you get. I already have to talk you up. Pretend you’re actually doing something with your life.”
“Anyway! Bye, dad!” I said in a tone of artificial cheer. “Thanks so much for stopping. See you later!”
He smirked and made his way out and I didn’t watch him leave. I shook my shoulders and knocked the rest of my vodka. For the most part, I was used to dealing with my father and his keen and constant disappointment in me. But it had been getting worse...which was strange, because I had been taking on more responsibility. I had actually taken a hand in the design of some cars. I’d worked actual hours. Nepotism, sure. But I had been a sort of unpaid intern and I’d even been told I was good at it. It wasn’t like it was some natural intelligence. I’d grown up around my father’s company and I’d paid attention. I’d also been doing a lot of charity work but that never seem to count when it came to my father.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I smiled when I saw it was a text from Sierra.
See you at the ball, prince charming.
It was one of those flirtatious kinds of texts that she was prone to sending me. I always had to remind myself not to read too much into those. It played havoc with my heart if I was honest with myself. It was especially dangerous for me now with the prospect of this Edward guy on the horizon. But at least now I had something to look forward to: Sierra in a gown.
I wore a very good suit without a tie. It’s an acceptable look nowadays but one that my father absolutely despises, which was why I was wearing it. But I looked so good, it hardly mattered. I smelled good too as I stepped out of the car, this one driven by a chauffeur, and stepped out o
nto the sidewalk. I was known in the circles of business in New York and to some degree in social media circles just by virtue of being hot, young, and rich. I was just famous enough to show up in a magazine from time to time or on somebody’s Instagram. Tonight was one of those nights when I knew the pictures of my arrival would end up splashed around the internet, but not as much as other more notable guests. Still, I felt good walking down the carpet as the cameras flashed and I made my way inside to the banquet.
I met my father just inside. He was with his girlfriend, Lana. Lana, I had no problem with. She was beautiful and age appropriate and she had always been kind to me. My only suspicions of her rested with wondering how anyone who was actually nice could possibly want a relationship with my father. On the other hand, my mother had somehow ended up sucked in and she had been a wonderful person as far as I was concerned.
“No tie,” my father said. He sounded perfectly calm but I could see the flash in his eyes. He was actually pissed and his dragon was even a little angry. That was incredibly satisfying to me somehow. It was petty yes, but my father deserved some petty in his life.
“No tie.” I grinned at him and he took my arm, slapping an artificial grin on his face as he introduced me to some new Important People, whoever they were. The crowd was mixed between humans and different sorts of shifters, not that the humans realized that unless they happened to have a toe in the magical world. Of the shifters, dragons were most predominant. That was because dragons did well with money. It was a cultural thing more than anything. We wanted big hoards, and that made us do well in business. We also tended to be a very tight knit community, as aristocrats go anyway, and our networking between ourselves gave us a leg up.
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