by Lily White
Quiet as a church mouse, I walk down the hall, my head angled down and my red hair covering my face.
When I reach the bathroom door, I have another moment of indecision, just a few seconds when I can rethink what I’m doing and remember every reason it’s a bad idea.
This is stupid.
I can’t do this.
I don’t even make it one step away before the door pulls open and a hand locks over my bicep. I’m dragged sideways with one hard tug, the door closing again as my back hits Ezra’s chest.
“You were going the wrong way.”
Trembling at the whisper against my ear, at the way his fingertips brush my neck when he moves my hair aside, I close my eyes and summon the will to leave.
“Probably because being here with you is the dumbest thing I can do.”
He laughs, the sound soft and dark, mocking me in a way that sets my nerves on edge while setting all the girlish parts inside me on fire.
“That’s not what you said yesterday. Or the day before that.”
There’s always a distinct growl to his voice, a rough quality like someone has taken sandpaper to his words to scrape up the edges.
He turns me around and dips his head to capture my eyes with his. He always does this...traps me before I can regain my senses enough to escape.
Fingers soft against my chin, he tilts my face to his. I stare wide-eyed at the green flecks in his amber gaze.
The problem is, I have no idea who I’m staring at. It could be Ezra. It could be Damon. I could be part of the typical game they play without ever knowing it.
“Who are you?”
It’s the same question I always ask.
He answers it with a mischievous grin. “Does it matter?”
To most girls, the answer to that question is a resounding no. All of them clamber to be with one of the Inferno.
I’ve always found it ridiculous on their parts.
Pathetic, really.
So, while it wouldn’t matter to most which twin they end up with for a few hours, to me it does.
“Yes.”
Confusion rolls through his eyes for a split second, there and gone with one blink.
“Ezra.”
“You promise?”
His feet move slowly as he walks me back to a wall, my bag falling off my shoulder as his body cages me in place.
Dipping his head again, his eyes remain locked to mine as his teeth nip at my bottom lip, an electric spark shooting through my body at the contact.
“Why do you even care? You have one of us.”
A shaky breath rolls over my lips. It feels like he’s stealing the air from my lungs as his mouth slants against mine, a quick lick of his tongue across my lips before it dips inside my mouth to taste the frayed edges of my nerves and the chaotic thrum of my pulse.
I shouldn’t be scared.
More excited.
More turned on.
But still, my fingers curl into my palms, the nails indenting the skin.
Strong fingertips scrape up the outside of my thighs. The hem of my pleated skirt lifts with the punishing pressure of his aggressive fingers.
I have to flatten my palms against the heavy, grey fabric to hold it down.
A grin against my lips, those amber eyes flicking open to trap mine again. “Something wrong?”
“I’m supposed to marry Mason.”
There it is, the truth that hangs around my neck like a noose.
He blinks, his body going so still that it makes me nervous to be standing here.
Ezra is a live wire that can snap at a moment’s notice. He’s like an attack dog that gives no warning before going for the throat. Everybody eyes him and Damon warily because you never know what might set them off.
I don’t think he’d actually hurt me, but after seeing him fight, it’s difficult not to remember just how quickly he can go from easy and carefree to heart stopping in his violence.
“Do you want to marry Mason?”
I laugh at that. “No.”
He grins. “Are you married to him now?”
I shake my head, a lump in my throat preventing me from answering again.
“So what’s the problem?”
There shouldn’t be one. It’s just unfair that my entire life has been planned for me already.
Being promised to Mason is like having a chain attached to my leg. I can’t think of my future without considering him. I can’t have a career. I can’t care about college or a degree, knowing I’ll never use it. I can’t fall in love without knowing it will never lead to anything.
My destiny has already been written as the wife of a man propped up by a trust fund.
I’ll be a jewel.
An ornament.
A pet to be pampered and nothing else.
That’s who I am.
I can’t have secret trysts with dangerous men. Can’t fantasize about darker desires that are too scandalous to discuss in polite society.
And Ezra is everything the good little girls are warned about.
“We’re just having fun,” he reminds me, his finger twisting a loose strand of my hair that hangs down by my face. “I already told you that.”
Just fun.
Nothing serious.
The bell rings, and I shove away from him to grab my bag.
“I have to go.”
Ezra threads his fingers with mine when I try to step away, his eyes shimmering with humor.
“You can’t run far. I know you want this.”
Yanking my hand from his, I duck my head and leave the bathroom without answering.
Because how can I answer?
Especially when he’s not wrong.
Emily
A knock at my door barely grabs my attention. It’s a gentle rap of knuckles that does little to breach the ground-shaking thump of bass in my room, a quick tap that I wouldn’t have heard if I wasn’t standing next to the door when it happens.
Blowing out a heavy breath because I can’t find the shoes I want in the pile haphazardly tossed on one side of my closet, I slam my hand on the knob of the door, twist and yank it open.
My mother’s blue-green eyes stare back at me, her face so pale I swear I can trace the line of small veins beneath her skin. I get my coloring from her. My red hair, alabaster complexion and turquoise gaze, but beyond that, we’re nothing alike.
She’s meek and mild, never stepping out of line, while I have a fiery temper that nobody guesses about until I’m angry enough for it to explode.
Like now.
I have places to be, and I’m already late. Plus, my mother never comes into the children’s wing except to check on my eight-year-old brother, and even then, it’s only for a few minutes until she leaves him with the nannies again to go wait hand and foot on my father.
“What?”
She winces at the snap in my voice, but regains her composure, her hands fluttering like butterflies, her lips stretching into a thin line.
“I need to talk to you about a rumor spreading among the families.”
Damn it...
I open the door wider to let her through.
Turning my back to her to keep searching for the silver sandals that will match my white Grecian style dress perfectly, I groan to hear the volume on my stereo lower and the faint squeak of mattress springs when she sits on the side of my bed.
“I don’t think I need to remind you that you’re promised to Mason Strom.”
Bile shoots up my throat to soak the back of my tongue. Not because Mason isn’t beautiful. The opposite happens to be true. He’s too beautiful to be fair.
All of the Inferno are, really, and I have to wonder about the odds that nine boys who grew up together could all have such fortunate genetics.
It’s not Mason himself that makes me sick, it’s the idea that I have no choice in the matter when it comes to who I’ll marry. I’m not even entirely sure why the marriage is so important to my family and his.
The
Stroms are old money. Wealthier than even Gabriel and Tanner’s families. But they’re not as powerful. Not the center of it all when it comes to the social circle I was born into. I often think that my father believes combining this family with the Stroms will somehow center more influence for him and knock Warbucks off the top.
I feel like an object more than a human being every time I’m gently reminded to whom I belong.
Not that Mason wants me either.
Being forced together has only made us hate each other.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask, relief dripping down my shoulders when I finally spot my shoes poking out from under the bed. Snatching them, I sit down to pull them on.
“There are whispers that you’ve been acting inappropriately with the Cross twins.”
My head wrenches her direction. “Where did you hear that?”
She’s not wrong. I messed around with Ezra for a few days, but after running away from him in the bathroom at school, I’ve dodged him. That boy is the most decadent of desserts, one who can be sliced open, only for poison to leak out of the center.
How much I want him can’t matter. I’m not dumb enough to lap the poison up just to die on the inside when it’s over.
Ezra kept pursuing me over the next few days after that incident, but then school let out for the weekend, and when he returned, his knuckles were busted and his face bruised.
Both Damon and Ezra looked like they’d fought an entire biker gang, their tempers so easily triggered over the past week that everybody avoided them.
Jackson Porter made the stupid mistake of saying something about it. He left the school with three missing teeth, a few busted ribs and a broken ankle.
As far as the story goes, he tripped and fell down the stairs. But we all know what really happened.
Even if Ezra is at the party tonight, there’s no way I’ll go near him. Not after that reminder.
My mother’s expression doesn’t change. It’s the typical haughty elegance, a required distance between her and anything real in the world. She has children but didn’t raise them. She’s eaten food but never truly tasted it. She preens and polishes everything with a strict adherence to a prim and proper reputation.
The same is expected of me.
“It shouldn’t matter where I received the information, just that I don’t appreciate what the information is. You are to remain chaste, Emily-“
“Oh, drop it, Mom. I have been chaste. I haven’t had a boyfriend, haven’t had sex, haven’t let anybody touch me, just like you’ve demanded. Although, I think it’s unfair considering Mason runs around and does whatever he wants with whoever he wants, and nobody says a thing about it.”
Not that I care.
The last thing I’ll ever feel for Mason is jealousy.
“He’s a boy,” she insists, her voice a whisper because, even to her, it sounds wrong. “You know how it is.”
Before I have the chance to remind my mother what century it is, my phone vibrates from the bedside table. A quick glance at the screen tells me it’s time to go.
“Ivy and Ava are here.”
She’s says nothing as I push to my feet and cross the room. Before I can walk through the door fully, she speaks at my back.
“Keep your legs closed, Emily.”
My eyes roll so hard I can see the back of my skull.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ten minutes later and we’re on the road. Ava is driving, and Ivy is riding shotgun. I don’t mind having the entire backseat to myself, it gives me the ability to focus on the trees passing by instead of their excited conversation.
It isn’t until Ava says my name and lifts her eyes to the rearview mirror that I blink and snap out of my thoughts.
“Did you hear anything we just said?”
Not a word of it.
While they were discussing the latest school gossip and planning the rounds they would make at the party tonight, I was imagining what my future would look like as Mrs. Mason Strom.
We won’t be officially engaged until after graduating college, which gives us another ten years before I have his ring on my finger. But that just means I have to behave like a modest, appropriate, future wife while he gets to be the playboy.
Again, not that I care.
Mason could fuck every willing hole on the planet - both male and female - and it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.
I just hate the idea that every day is one step closer to the grand finale of my life as Emily Donahue. I can’t even be excited about giving up my last name, or choose not to like some wives do.
Our engagement will be my funeral, and I decide right here and now that I’ll wear black on that night to mourn the loss of my identity instead of white like I’m sure my mother is planning.
“She wasn’t listening,” Ivy answers when I don’t. “Which means I have to repeat myself and say that one of the twins was just seen making out with Hillary Cornish. Can you believe that shit? She’s a walking STD factory.”
I know what she’s doing, and it won’t work.
Ever since finding out I had a few weak moments with Ezra, these two have been all but tying me up and dropping me on his doorstep.
Ava was against the idea at first, but Ivy came out of left field with the opinion that having a secret fling with him would be good for me.
Ivy knows I can’t fall in love. And when you can’t fall in love, your heart can’t be broken. Ava knows it, too, but she wasn’t immediately convinced I can have a few months of fun without developing feelings.
Blue eyes meet mine.
“Wouldn’t you like to know which twin it was?”
“I don’t care,” I lie.
And it is a lie. Just the thought of Ezra with someone else is trapping my stomach in vicious claws, talons tearing at the flesh.
If anything, this feeling is only a confirmation that I need to keep my distance. I’ve only kissed Ezra a handful of times, and already my heart is dragged into the mix.
Maybe it’s because I’m chaste that I feel like this. And by chaste, I mean so desperate and bothered to be like all the other girls that I feel naive and vulnerable when it comes to boys.
I’m not allowed to date.
I’m not allowed to know any boys.
Unless, of course, that boy is Mason Strom.
Every dance in my life has been with him, a perpetual, unwanted date to the cotillions in our youth, plus every homecoming in high school.
We stand stiffly beside each other for all the photos, our mothers cooing at how great we look together, our fathers drinking scotch and smoking cigars.
After we’re whisked off to where the event is being held, Mason and I immediately unlock our arms as he goes to find his real date and I stand pathetically against a far wall.
It happens every time without fail. And maybe that’s another vein of dread I’m feeling tonight. Prom is in a few weeks, and it will be the same story again.
Except, if I let this thing with Ezra go further, I’ll still hold up the wall at prom, I’ll just be doing so while watching him dance with another girl.
Only a stupid person would continue on with this and unnecessarily add to her misery.
“We’re here,” Ivy shouts, a note of excitement in her voice.
I have no idea why she’s looking forward to this. Gabriel still hasn’t gotten her back for the sex lube stunt at school, and parties are always his favorite place to target her.
One would think after her sweet sixteen party, she’d have learned her lesson.
Nobody knows how Gabriel managed to replace the net of balloons that were reserved to fall on Ivy when she walked into the room with a net full of dildos.
There stood Ivy, surrounded by everybody who mattered, all our parents applauding how beautiful she looked in her empress gown and sparkling tiara, only for that applause to stop suddenly, every jaw slack, when we watched her get pelted on the head by a hundred rubber dicks.
&n
bsp; Gabriel’s silence during the incident was so pronounced even the adults in the room glared his direction, the rest of the Inferno standing with red faces and thin lips, tears leaking from their eyes from restraining their laughter.
Sadly, that was just the beginning of what he did to her that night.
Ava pulls the car up behind a long line of early arrivers, but only by our standards. We never show up to any event until it’s been in full swing for several hours.
As usual, Kevin Landry’s house is filled wall to wall with a frenzy of high school students, all drinking or smoking, dancing or practically fucking right out where anybody can see them.
His place isn’t as large as most of the typical hot spots, but his parents are out of the town the most, which makes it possible for there to be a party every weekend.
Ivy grabs my hand and shouts for people to move as we walk through the main part of the house en route to the backyard. They part on either side of us like waves, a sea of random faces smiling and calling out to say hello as we pass.
It feels like I can’t breathe until we reach the French doors in the back of the house and escape onto the pool deck.
Thankfully, this area isn’t as crowded.
Several kids are skinny-dipping in the water, a few couples making out, but we navigate the perimeter to reach the pool house, a thousand square foot mini replica of the larger mansion.
Only those sitting at the top of the food chain are allowed inside, my stomach already twisting at the thought of who I’ll see.
It doesn’t help that as we’re heading in, Hillary Cornish and two of her friends are walking out, her hair a mess and lipstick smeared.
She smirks at me, the expression not lost on Ivy and Ava. Ivy sneaks a side-eyed peek, and I can feel the protective energy rolling of her.
Sadly, Hillary doesn’t know Ivy like I do.
Dumb girl.
Hillary’s smirk becomes a broad smile when she speaks to her friends, but with a voice loud enough for me to hear.
“Ezra said I’m the only girl he’s actually wanted in the past few months. The rest he played. In fact, the last girl was so frigid-“
“Is that why your breath smells like cock?” Ivy asks as she pushes past me to stare down Hillary. “I was wondering, but then again, it always smells that way.”