by KB Winters
To me, it seemed obvious. Blackmailing your children, bad. Being honest and somewhat vulnerable with them to express your wishes, good.
Call me crazy.
“Miles, you don’t take well to orders. A fact that has perplexed me considering your long standing service in the military. Negotiations like this are the only things that have ever reaped us benefits in the past when it comes to dealing with you. Would you even be standing here if you’re appearance at the gala wasn’t tied directly to how much money flooded into your bank account each month?”
I clenched my jaw. There wasn’t a good response.
My father didn’t wait for an answer. “Exactly. You consistently make us push you into all of the things in your life that have turned to positives. After the fiasco when you were sixteen we sent you to reform school—”
“Reform school? I forgot that’s what you called that child boot camp.”
My father snarled but didn’t take his term back. Of course not. “But had we not sent you to that program, you might be in jail—or worse. Instead, it opened up an entire new world to you and led you into joining the military and having a successful career.”
“Which, let’s just be honest here, you hate,” I interjected with a scoff.
My mother latched on to my forearm and squeezed tightly. She looked up at me with her soft brown eyes and said, “We don’t hate it, Miles. It just wasn’t the choice we would have made for you. But we see now that it’s brought positive things to your life.”
I tore from her grip and flung my arms up as far as the monkey suit would allow. “That’s exactly my point! I made the decision to join the military, you argued with me about it for six months, and now, nearly eight years later, you’re finally admitting that maybe it wasn’t the end of the world that you’d predicted. So why do you insist on rewriting history to make it look like you’ve been the ones puppeteering my entire life and are therefore solely responsible for all of the good things that have come my way since I left this house?”
They stared at me, unblinking.
I continued, “And now on top of that, you’ve decided the life I’ve built isn’t good enough anymore. Now, it’s not enough because I’m not married or even anywhere close to being married.”
My mother took a step back to rejoin my father. She glanced up at him and shook her head. “Jeremiah, this isn’t going anywhere and our guests will be arriving soon.”
I held back an eye roll. Whose genius idea hadn’t been to pull the pin on the family drama equivalent of a grenade a mere twenty minutes before a giant spectacle of a party was about to begin?
My father’s expression hardened. “Our mind is made up, Miles. We’ve already consulted our attorney.”
“Attorney? What the hell does this have to do with an attorney?”
“If you are not married within the next twelve months, by Christmas Day of next year, to be exact. You will not only lose your trust fund but you will also be removed from our will. Instead, it will be dispersed among a list of the charities that we support.”
I reeled in horror at his proclamation. Before I could find words—helpful or hurtful—to say, my mother added, “This isn’t meant to be an attack, Miles. We simply want the best for you and don’t know how else to make you see our side without this.”
I shook my head, words still failing me. The entire thing was so absurd that it felt like something from a wacky nightmare. My parents had pulled some stunts in the past but I hadn’t seen this coming.
“I need to go downstairs and check in with Marilyn,” my mother said to my father.
“Of course dear. I’ll be right down to greet our guests.”
My mother swept from the room, not pausing to offer me so much as a nod on her way out the door. Once she was gone I turned my attention back to my father. “If this is really what you want then I see no reason to stay for the party. Tell mother I had to leave.”
“Leave and forfeit your trust starting immediately.” My father took a few brooding steps to close the distance between us. “This is your mother’s masterpiece. Every year, this gala is what she looks forward to the most. If you do anything to mess this up for her, so help me Miles…”
“I’m not going to mess anything up,” I hissed back. “I’m just choosing not to be here. There are other people that I’d rather spend my holiday with. People who aren’t going to try to blackmail and strong arm me into making decisions that I don’t want to make.”
“Stay for the party and make your decision later. You have a year to make up your mind.” With that, he pushed past me and walked out of the room to go downstairs and greet the first batch of guests who I assumed would be arriving at any moment.
I marched out of the drawing room and down the hall to one of the twelve bathrooms in the estate and barricaded myself inside until I figured out how the hell I was going to endure a night filled with vapid people and an endless chorus of Christmas carolers without snapping someone’s neck.
Chapter Two
Penny
Ladies and gentleman, we are currently pulling into our fourth stop on the high-society-holiday train wreck express. AKA Jeremiah and Ruby Warren’s annual Holiday Gala.
I could only hope there was room at the open bar for me to plant my ass all night long. ‘Because I had no intention of actually talking to anyone.
I couldn’t. One more conversation about investment options, which charity functions were going to be hot in the new year, and oh em gee, if I had to hear about one more lucky find at a pop-up, sample sale in Brooklyn, I was going to vomit. All over the proclaimer’s bargain priced designer stilettos. In a perfect size five thank-you-very-much.
Ugh.
When did my life turn into a nightmare factory? Two weeks of mind numbing socialite status and I was ready to pull all of my hair out. Which, was saying something, as it had taken my mother’s stylist three hours to construct my fine, pin straight locks into a towering mountain of blonde curls. If I was lucky, I could find some bored cater waiter to play with who wouldn’t mind the alarming amount of bobby pins he’d find in his bed the next morning.
Yes, that’s exactly what was missing from my life. A good, old-fashioned, one-night stand.
“Penelope!”
I jumped out of my skin at the sound of my mother’s shrill call and all fantasies about a sweat coated, muscle bound, soon-to-be med student paying his way by passing out hors d’oeuvres on the weekend, vanished in a puff of unsatisfying smoke.
“Yes, Mother. I’m right here,” I replied, my teeth grit and my nails digging into my palms.
My mother, Wanda, swung around to face me. We were halfway up the half a mile-long walkway that led to the Warren’s front door and I looked around her at the impressive wooden double doors. It was the last place I wanted to be, but as soon as I got inside, I could get the hell away from my mother and be left alone for a few hours.
“Pay attention to me,” my mother snapped, wrenching my gaze from the front steps back to her.
Sweet, sweet salvation. So close, and yet so far.
“I am, Mother,” I replied, desperately clinging to my last shred of resolve before I hauled off and bitch-slapped her across the face. She’d been riding me like an overworked circus pony for days and I was rapidly reaching the end of my tether.
“You will not embarrass me at this event. These people might not be your friends, but they are mine and you will respect that.”
I sighed. “I understand.”
Why she’d bothered dragging me along to this party—or any of the other three holiday parties we’d attended in the span of the past two weeks since she insisted I make a visit home—was still a mystery to me. All I knew was that it was the last one on her agenda and if I kept my mouth shut, my clothes on, and my blood alcohol levels in check, I was golden. She’d hand me my plane ticket, fill my bank account, and send me on my way.
“Good. We don’t want a repeat of the fiasco with the Martin’s daughter.”
<
br /> Yes, heaven forbid. I nodded my agreement and she started back up the walk.
I followed one pace behind her and waited as she rang the bell and was ushered inside the warm home. Well, home didn’t seem the right word. It was more of a modern day castle in the middle of upstate New York. My parents’ luxe, six thousand square foot mansion in Connecticut was like a studio apartment by comparison.
My mother kept me close by as she made her initial rounds, fluttering from group to group with an ever-growing smile and warm welcomes and “oh-my-gawd-I-haven’t-seen-you-in-ages” small talk that was doing nothing to improve my mood and actually made me nauseated.
Eventually, she cut me loose with another death stare meant to sear in her previous warnings—the ones at the house while we got ready, the ones that filled her speech during the chauffeured ride over, and of course, that lovely chat on the front walk.
I mouthed “I got it” and disappeared into the crowd, using my built in antenna to locate the nearest bar and then headed in that direction like a heat-seeking missile.
“Vodka cranberry, please,” I said to the bartender who was a middle-aged man with a portly belly hiding under his crisp white shirt and bald patch large enough to make me wonder why he didn’t just give in and shave it all. Definitely not a contender for my hot night of mindless sex. Damn it.
Moments later, an incredibly well-suited candidate took a place opposite me at the bar.
Seriously, it was almost scary how well he lined up to the images in my head. Tall? Check. Dark hair, dark eyes, and probably an even darker smile? Check. And although I’d have settled for a caterer or waiter, this man appeared to be of a little higher station. He was dressed in a suit that looked like it had been stitched onto his body, cut like a dream, and highlighted his broad shoulders to perfection.
“Here you are, miss,” the bartender said, returning with my drink a minute later.
And blocking my view of the hot man I’d been undressing with my eyes.
“Thank you,” I purred, smiling demurely up at him. Now, move, move, move!
Instead, he nodded and leaned in closer. Shit. Really?
“I can’t help but notice that you’re alone. If you’d like to fix that, stick around and we’ll have our own little after party.” He added a wink and my stomach rolled. Ew.
Was my “desperate for a distraction” sign really that bright? There had to be a way to add a must-be-attractive clause to that thing.
I’d work on it later. In the meantime, I had to get Mr. Bad Breath Bartender out of my grill.
“Hmmm. No, I think just the vodka cranberry will do,” I offered, tending to go light on my first rebuff in case the guy was just clueless. If he pressed the issue, I’d bring out my claws.
He smiled wider.
Damn it. Eviscerating a pervy bartender who was old enough to be my father was so not on my to-do list tonight.
“I could do things to you that would make you scream,” he added, lowering his face even closer to mine, engulfing me with the stench of his cologne and foul breath.
I smiled sweetly. “I’m sure you could. You could also probably do things to me that would make me wanna blow a rape whistle right here, right now. And if I’m on the money in my assessment of you thus far—you need this job, for the money and easy access to drunk socialites who get bored and booze-goggled enough to give you a ride. So if I were you, I’d back the fuck off.”
His eyes went wide and he jerked away like I’d threatened to dump acid down his drawers.
Which, had in fact, been my next line. I was glad to see it hadn’t been necessary.
He scurried away and left me with a clear view of my original target, who was now staring at me, and proving my theory about the dark, devilish smile right.
Excellent.
“You all good over there?” he asked, flashing that instant classic grin that set off fireworks in all the right places.
I nodded and took a sip of my drink. “Absolutely.”
“I know the host if you want me to get that asshole fired,” he offered, still grinning.
I shrugged. “He’s not my problem anymore.”
The guy nodded and looked down into the amber liquid in the tumbler before him. Whiskey? Scotch? I couldn’t tell. Either way, I bet it would taste amazing on his lips.
“How do you know the host? What pitfall led you through the rabbit hole and into all this…” I glanced around the decked out room that some poor event planner had probably spent months designing under the eagle eye of Ruby Warren, a woman with a formidable reputation and the fastest turnover rate for household staffers of anyone I knew. We’d had one of her cast off maids once upon a time and while she hadn’t said a lot about her previous employer—no doubt locked into some iron clad non-disclosure agreement—she had an eye tick anytime the Warren’s were mentioned around her.
The guy laughed. “I used to live in this rabbit hole. I’m Miles Warren.”
Oh. Shit.
I reached to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, before remembering that it was all twisted up into an intricate style on the back of my head. I played it off like I was smoothing a flyaway, though I wasn’t sure that was even possible considering I was coated with enough hair spray to be a walking fire hazard. “Sorry. It’s a nice party.”
Miles dropped his head back and laughed. “Hey, don’t go backpedaling for my benefit. I don’t give a rat’s ass about all this.” He glanced around, as though realizing the volume of his proclamation. He grabbed his tumbler and slid over to take the seat beside me. “This isn’t my scene.”
“You’re in the military, right?” The tidbit came up from the recesses of my mind.
He nodded. “Yeah. Spooky that you know that.”
“I’m Penelope Laken,” I said by way of explanation, offering him my hand. “Most people call me Penny though. Well, not these people, but real people.”
Miles laughed again and took my hand. He shook it and held on a beat longer than necessary before releasing me. It was just enough contact to leave me wanting more. “All right, Penny. I know your family, but I don’t remember seeing you before. Are you like me and only come out of hiding once a year?”
I grinned. “Something like that.”
“Come on, give me the details. What’s life like in the bubble for you?”
I sipped my drink, not missing the way his eyes dropped to my lips as they slid around the edge of my glass. “I live in New York, so I’m a little too close for comfort to all this madness. However, I only make my appearance at these things when forced.”
“And you’re currently being forced?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Doing penance, shall we say?”
Miles laughed. “Gotcha.”
“Let’s just say that I did something stupid and if I want to stay on my mother’s good side—assuming she has one—I needed to do the holiday party circuit round. Luckily, this is the last stop and tomorrow I’ll be going back home.”
Miles nodded. “That’s probably for the best. Get out of this place. Run fast, run far. That whole thing.”
“What about you?”
“I’m supposed to be here through the weekend but I might duck out early. Luckily, they can’t question me too much. If I tell them the Army is calling me back, there’s not a lot they can do to argue with that. Although, I’ll hear about it later.” As he finished answering, his mood shifted, and a new, decidedly less sexy, darkness fell over him.
“You okay?”
He forced a smile. “Yeah, of course. Just got some stuff on my mind.”
I nodded understandingly and took another sip, polishing off my drink in case he wanted to move this conversation to a new venue. “You wanna talk about it? Or forget about it?”
Miles glanced up at me and then drained what was left of his drink. I caught a whiff. Whiskey. When he set the tumbler down he smiled at me again and reached over to place a hand on mine. “Listen, I’ll be straight with you. Normally, this
is where I’d ask you back to my place, but as it is, I’m a little…out of sorts and not sure I’d be at my best and a girl like you deserves the best.”
I considered him with a lengthy glance below his waist. “Everything all right with the plumbing?”
He barked out a laugh and I raised my eyes to meet his, which were brimming with surprise and amusement. “You’re something else, aren’t you?”
“So I’ve been told. Mostly by my mother and a string of ex-boyfriends,” I replied with a bored sigh.
Miles chuckled. “I see. Well you can rest assured, everything is fine. I would just rather give you a proper night out. Besides all that, if I duck out now, my parents will probably send a hitman after me.”
I laughed. “I know that feeling. Another time then.”
Miles smiled but didn’t commit to a yes or no answer.
“Do you come to New York often?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I try to avoid it actually.”
My heart sank a little at his reply. My whole life was in New York. If he never came to the city, then there was no way our paths would cross in the future. Unless I screwed up around Christmas next year and found myself back at the Warren Holiday Gala.
“Penelope, there you are!”
I winced at my mother’s shrill voice. Miles looked past me and I watched his face twist into a genteel smile that he obviously saved for his parents’ friends. I waited until the last possible moment before turning around to meet my mother’s steely glare. She didn’t even appear to notice that I was sitting beside the hosts’ son. “I’ve been wasting time looking for you! I told you to stay in my line of sight!” She sighed as though I were so stupid I couldn’t comprehend simple orders. “I have people I want you to meet.”
“Great,” I said, pushing off of my stool. I smoothed the back of my navy blue gown. “Goodbye, Miles. It was nice shooting the shit with you.”
“Penelope!” my mother hissed at me.