by Maggie Hall
He pulled back, breathing hard, watching my hands undress him. His shirt fell off one shoulder, exposing the pattern of his translucent scars, beautiful, glowing in the low light.
A tiny knot of nerves blossomed in my stomach. I knew exactly where this was going if I didn’t stop. It wasn’t too late to button his shirt back up and keep this as the sweet kind of kiss. The kitten-bliss kind of kiss.
But did I want to?
Stellan’s hand closed on my leg, just at the hem of my skirt. He looked up at me, the same hesitation shining in his eyes.
I must have paused, because just as smoothly, with nothing more than a tender kiss at my jaw, his hand moved back to my waist, wrapped around my back. Safe.
And we were kissing again, just kissing.
The nervous butterflies in my stomach flapped, but he had misunderstood. That pause, the irregular pattering of my heart against my ribs—it wasn’t a bad kind of nervous.
I pulled back, just in inch. Just enough for him to take my face in his hands, for his eyes to wonder what I was doing.
I pulled the collar of his shirt through my fingers—then undid one more button.
Really? his eyes said.
His mouth didn’t have time to repeat it before mine was on it again. Telling him please, don’t think, don’t ask, don’t talk, for once, don’t make me agonize and decide and wonder whether I’m doing the right thing. Just do.
The kiss wasn’t quite so sweet after that. A while later, another of his buttons undone. Two. His shirt halfway off now.
I glanced toward the crisp white sheets on the bed across the room. So did he. I started to undo another button.
He stopped me, both our hands rising and falling with his uneven breaths.
“Avery, wait,” he said. The use of my real name was jarring, and my gaze snapped up. He gently brushed away a strand of my hair that had gotten caught in my mouth, tucking it behind my ear. “Have you ever . . . ?”
I’m sure he already knew the answer. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, and kissed him again.
After a second, though, he stopped, lips in my hair. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said, and punctuated it with another long kiss.
“Really sure?” he breathed.
“Really sure.” My fingers fumbled with his final button.
“Okay,” he sputtered against my mouth. “Wait. Stop. I can’t. You can’t.”
My eyes flew open. “What? Why?”
He sighed like it hurt him physically, and stepped out of my arms, cursing, colorfully, under his breath. “Kuklachka.” He perched on the arm of the couch, burying his face in his elbow. “You’ve had too much to drink. We both have. I just want to make sure—I don’t think we should—I don’t want to be something you regret.”
It hung over us like a wet blanket, and I shivered, despite the heat of my skin. “I won’t—”
“Just so you know, this is far more difficult than I’m making it look. Give me a second, okay?” He turned away from me, and I sat, staring. He was serious. And that was incredibly embarrassing.
My skin was hot all over, and then cold. My mind cleared all at once and the real world rushed back.
I jumped up and headed to the door.
The couch creaked behind me. “No, wait.” Stellan caught up with me at the door, blocking my way out. “I want you to stay. I just need to be able to think clearly. Okay?”
I pulled away. No. Not okay. It was the same as always. He was just like everyone else in my life, thinking they knew what was right for me better than I did.
“Move, please,” I said, not looking him in the eyes.
He ran both hands through his hair. “Avery . . .”
We both jumped when the door slammed open from the outside.
“Merde,” Elodie said, breathless, wearing a black evening gown and heavy eye makeup, her bleached hair slicked back from her face in a headband. “There you are. Why weren’t you answering your mobile—”
She finally noticed me.
I couldn’t imagine what I looked like right now. Stellan was hastily buttoning his shirt. Elodie pursed her lips, and under the humiliation of being rejected was the twinge of knowing I’d just done exactly what she’d said I was going to, and I’d promised I wouldn’t.
“Ah,” she said. “Of course. Well, sorry to interrupt, but there’s a small, tiny, actually very important problem.”
CHAPTER 29
When I got to the dining room, Elodie and Colette stood around the table, Elodie in her black dress and Colette in a gossamer white gown that looked like she was wearing the most glamorous bubbles I’d ever seen.
I kept my face down and fell into a chair. My whole body felt prickly, uncomfortable. My head wouldn’t stop spinning.
I’d stopped by the bathroom on the way down and tried to comb some of the tangles out of my hair, but I knew I looked as undone as I felt. My eyes were bright, my cheeks breathlessly pink no matter how much water I splashed on them, my dress wrinkled and crushed.
Stellan looked just as obvious as I did. When he sat up straight, I saw that he’d buttoned his shirt crookedly. Colette caught me looking at him, and I saw her eyes flick over both of us. She leaned over and whispered something in his ear, and he hurriedly fixed his buttons, then stole a glance at me that I didn’t return.
“Where’s Jack?” Colette said.
I rubbed my face. I told them the shortened version, ending with the fact that I’d told him to get out, and it appeared that he had.
“Unfortunately, that’s a small problem compared to what I just learned,” Elodie said. “We were about to head out to the red-carpet event when we found out that there’s been another attack. Something bigger this time. A bomb exploded at the Emir family’s compound. It killed their younger son.”
“What the hell?” I pulled at a handful of my hair. “Why are they still doing this?”
“Terrorism,” Elodie said calmly. “It’s exactly how Lydia explained it. The Circle will hail the Saxons as heroes when the mandate is fulfilled and the Order disappears. They’re escalating the attacks to stack the final outcome.”
“The second we get my mom, we tell somebody,” I said. “We have to stop them.”
“Then we’d better hurry and find this bracelet. At this rate, they’re going to kill half the Circle.” At the sound of Stellan’s voice, a sense memory came on so strong, it nearly knocked me over. Head pleasantly warm, leaning over his lap to grab his drink. Almost falling off my bar stool, my hand pressed to his chest.
“I know.” I couldn’t look at him. I told myself the renewed flush in my cheeks was just embarrassment at getting drunk and losing control, but the spark and sizzle in every bit of my skin that had touched his said something different.
Elodie stood up. “That brings us to tonight,” she said. “The bomb was the last straw. They’re canceling the rest of the film festival for security concerns. The red carpet tonight is already in full swing, but it’ll be the only event.”
“Which means,” I said, “tonight is our only chance to steal the bracelet.”
• • •
We were already late, so Stellan and I rushed to put on our formal attire. The plan had changed. Since we were now going to have to sneak inside to get the bracelet, we’d need all the distraction we could get. Suddenly, me being recognized had gone from a potential disaster to a necessity. I’d draw the eyes of all the Circle members on the red carpet, plus any regular guests and security who had watched the news in the past couple days, and hopefully no one would notice Elodie creeping in a back door to trip the electricity and steal the bracelet herself. Stellan would be with me and Colette, making sure nobody actually tried to hurt me.
“I’ll do it as quickly as I can,” Elodie was saying. She adjusted a strap on Colette’s dress. “I d
on’t want you out there for long. And when the lights come back on, you’ll carry on like nothing has happened besides an alarming moment of old wiring plunging the party into a temporary and unremarkable darkness, then you’ll say your good nights and get out before Avery actually gets arrested. And if you do get arrested . . . we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“That’s fine,” I said. Colette nodded, too. Stellan was tying his bow tie in the mirror above the bar. When he noticed me watching over the top of the little mirror I was using to put on lipstick, his finger snagged on the end of his tie. Both ends flopped to his chest.
“Hopefully we’ll be long gone before they know the bracelet is missing,” Elodie finished.
“It seems too . . . simple,” I thought out loud.
“The best plans are.” Elodie slipped into five-inch heels. “When you see a theft in the movies that revolves around bumping into just the right person at the exact right second to steal a key so someone can hang from the air-conditioning vent and unlock a padlock, you have to know it’s unlikely to work. What happens if the guy with the key has bad prawns and spends the whole night in the bathroom and we can’t find him?”
“All right,” I said. I put my own shoes on. I was wearing a dress of Elodie’s that hit me at midcalf, all intricate gold beadwork from the torso through the slim pencil skirt.
“In fact . . .” Elodie gestured with her red-orange lipstick at me, then at Stellan. “The most complicated part of this plan is that you two have to be a team. After what I saw earlier, I’m wondering if you can handle that.”
Colette’s eyes got wide. Stellan started to defend us, but I got there first. “Drop it, Elodie. Yes. We’ve got it under control.”
She just shrugged.
“Okay. We’re all set except—” I looked around automatically for Jack. The obvious hole in our crew lanced pain through my gut again. “We’re all set. Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER 30
The red carpet had been going on for at least two hours by the time we got there. Our driver wound his way through the paparazzi, and there were so many flashbulbs popping ahead, they could have been strobe lights. Bleachers full of fans waving and yelling and wielding their own cameras lined the opposite side of the road. The red carpet began where we were getting out of the car, then flowed up a set of stairs, where a dozen people, most of whom I recognized, stood smiling and waving.
“That’s the cast of Alejandro Ruiz’s new movie,” Colette said, leaning past me to look out the window. “I was supposed to talk to him on the carpet. I almost forgot this is actual business.”
Elodie nodded. “Colette, you get out first, I’ll come with you, and Avery, you get out a couple minutes later. Try to draw the whole crowd so nobody sees me sneak around back.”
“I know,” I said, peering out into the mass of people.
As soon as the car door opened, I was blinded by even more camera flashes. Colette, perfectly poised and practiced, smiled and waved and took the driver’s hand to step out of the car. Elodie followed and shut the door behind her, plunging Stellan and me back into darkness.
Colette turned into Colette LeGrand, A-lister immediately, posing and winking at cameras and giving cheek kisses to actors who, a few months ago, I would have freaked out about being this close to.
“People should notice me pretty quickly,” I said to Stellan. Since we wanted everyone to recognize me, I’d pinned my hair up, only pulling dark strands around my face. I’d also replaced my brown contacts with the clear ones. “But we should find someone in the Circle to talk to, anyway, and they’ll make a big enough deal to draw even more of a crowd.”
Stellan looked out over my shoulder. “There,” he said, gesturing to a middle-aged couple talking with a group off to the side of the carpet. “Cousins of the Fredericks. She’s a huge gossip.”
I nodded, and a silence more awkward than it usually was between us filled the car.
“Avery—” Stellan said. He was cut off by the door opening. We both jumped, and Elodie poked her head in.
“We have to go through metal detectors.” She pulled a gun out of her bag and dumped it on the seat, then turned to Stellan. “Maybe you should stay here, just in case we need the weapons.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving Avery and Colette alone out there.”
Elodie pursed her lips and looked over her shoulder. “I don’t like this,” she said, but slammed the door and hurried back to Colette.
Stellan removed his own gun from his tuxedo jacket and set it next to Elodie’s. “They’ll be here in the car if we need them,” he said, like he was trying to convince himself, and then we were quiet for a few seconds until he took an anticipatory breath.
I spoke before he could say anything. “It’s okay. You really don’t have to explain.” My breath fogged the car window. “You don’t have to pretend you care.”
He took my arm, turned me roughly to face him. “That’s what you think? I stopped it because I care.” He dropped my arm, scowling, and I fixated on the cuffs of his white shirt at the wrists of his tuxedo jacket.
I looked out the opposite window, at lines of limousines and the sea of flashbulbs from tourists’ cameras. This was feeling uncomfortably like my fight with Jack. “I remember someone telling me that caring doesn’t get you anywhere in the Circle.”
“You’re misquoting me. I said being nice doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s different. But I do care, which is why I didn’t want . . .” He huffed out a frustrated breath. Colette and Elodie were halfway down the carpet now. “I drank too much, too, and I wasn’t thinking straight. I shouldn’t have pushed you and now you’re angry.”
“You didn’t push me—” I could tell I was blushing furiously. I couldn’t believe we were talking about this. And talking about it now, of all times. Elodie glanced back at the car. “Is it time for us to get out?”
“Probably,” he said. He reached past me to the door handle.
“I’m angry because you’re just as bad as everybody else,” I blurted out. “You’re entitled to feel however you want, but I don’t need to be protected from making what you think is a bad choice. It wasn’t your choice. It was mine.”
Stellan stiffened, leaning halfway across my lap. The door opened, leaving Stellan’s arm floating in midair. The driver held out a hand for me, and I took it.
Cameras turned in our direction. Stellan stepped out of the car, buttoning his tuxedo jacket and grinning at the cameras. His hair was pushed away from his face, and he looked polished and comfortable and like he belonged here. Anyone who didn’t recognize me would think he was famous and I was a random plus-one.
He offered me his arm. I took it. “Smile,” he said, the stiffness contrasting with his own confident grin. “Pretend you belong, and they’ll believe you do. That’s half the game.”
I smiled. I waved. I saw a few people notice me, then do a double take. Then whisper.
I kept my hand firmly in the crook of Stellan’s elbow as we made our way toward the couple he’d said were Circle.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lean in closer. “Listen.” He smiled at a camera whose owner had run across the carpet to pause in front of us, and when it was gone, he lowered his voice even more. “I know your choices being taken away is your favorite point of moral outrage right now, but it’s not that simple. I’m pretty sure what we were about to do takes two people. That makes it my decision as much as yours. And I don’t feel comfortable taking advantage of a girl who was drunk and upset and otherwise not thinking clearly. And yes,” he said stiffly, when I tried to get a word in, “taking advantage is what it’s called when a guy has to get a girl drunk for her to look in his direction. Okay?”
“I wasn’t—” I glanced over my shoulder and smiled mechanically. A lady in an emerald-green dress was talking to a security guard, and they were both looking my way.
We were approaching the Fredericks. Wait, I wanted to say. How does that mean you feel about this? How does that mean I feel about this? Was it just because I was drunk and upset? If it was, would I still, right now, be thinking about what would have happened if we hadn’t stopped?
At least one thing was certain, though. My hand tightened around his arm, and I kept a bland smile on my face as I whispered, “I knew exactly what I was doing. There was no taking advantage.”
Stellan blinked down at me. “In that case, I don’t know whether you were doing it to make him mad, or to make yourself feel better, or you actually just had too much to drink . . .” Stellan leaned closer and sparks shot through me. “But if you’re upset because you think I didn’t want to, you should know that’s not true. Really not true.”
Flashbulbs went off in my eyes, and then the Fredericks turned.
“Mr. Frederick,” Stellan said, slipping right back into his role. “Mrs. Frederick.”
They looked annoyed at being interrupted until they saw me. Mrs. Frederick’s hand fluttered to her chest. Mr. Frederick said hasty good-byes to the knot of guests they’d been talking to. The security guard I’d seen earlier had a walkie-talkie to his mouth.
My pulse was racing, my arm still clamped in Stellan’s. Elodie and Colette were still on the steps. Anytime now, I thought in Elodie’s direction.
Before I knew what was happening, there was a crowd around us, hanging on my every word as I answered the Fredericks’ questions.
Yes, I am American, even though I’m part of the Saxon family. I grew up in the US. No, I didn’t know Eli Abraham before that night. It is horrible, yes.
Despite what the news was reporting, most of the group—who were likely all Circle, I realized—were looking at me like I was the second coming. They didn’t seem too ready to turn over one of their own, even if she was a wanted criminal. It was the guests on the periphery who hung back like they thought I might be hiding a gun in my tiny beaded bag.