“Just dancing?” He’s incredulous.
I need liquid courage, so I raise the glass of champagne and tilt it backwards. Before I can get a sip, Luke crosses the patio and wrenches the glass from my hand.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
His lips spread slowly into a wicked grin as he turns the glass upside down. The liquid splashes against the stones, and a droplet hits my dress, spreading a stain across the delicate fabric.
“You took my drink and ruined my dress.” My voice is flat. “Any other humiliations planned for tonight?”
“You’ve already had enough champagne for one evening. You’re making a goddamn spectacle of yourself, Stella. You must have danced with half of the men at that party, all of whom are much too old, and much too married, for you. You shouldn’t have been...”
I can’t listen to this anymore. I cut him off. “I suppose you and Jack have never had a glass of champagne at one of these things. Or danced with any women who are much too married for you.” I smirk at him, knowing full well that dancing with married women doesn’t even scratch the surface of their salacious behavior.
“Not at your age.”
“No, you were much younger. But tell me, Luke. Where exactly have I been led astray?” I clasp my hands together. “Help me to get back on the path to righteousness by presenting me with a list of my sins.”
He glowers at me, but to my very great satisfaction, he can’t seem to come up with anything that I’ve actually done wrong.
“Flirting?” I suggest, arching one eyebrow.
That was the wrong thing to say. He clenches and unclenches his fists and I take a step back, waiting for it.
“Dancing!” he yells.
I match his glare. Screw my plan. Screw his outbursts.
“It’s a pretty simple thing, really, dancing. You start moving to the music, and someone helps you do that by taking your arm. If you’re unlucky, the dance ends with a few bruised toes. If you’re lucky, you find Prince Charming. If you’re looking to do further research, motion pictures often features scenes where a man and a woman dance together.” I pause, and let out a long sigh. “Oh, no. That’s right. You don’t like movies. The commercial nature of the film industry causes a taint on what was once entertainment.”
“Smartass.”
“Mule.” I’m perilously close to smiling, so I go back to my original point. “It’s just dancing, Luke.”
“It’s not just dancing,” he hisses.
“What is it, then? Skateboarding? Ski jumping? What the hell do you think I was doing in there?”
“Making a fool of yourself.”
“Excuse me for trying to have a good time.” I giggle and raise my voice a couple of octaves. “Oh, that’s so cute. You wanted me to sit in the corner, waiting for you and Jack to come over and pull one of your stupid pranks so that I could feel like even more of an imbecile. That sounds great. I’ll just go back in and do that now. I’ll drink orange juice instead of champagne and wait for either one of you jackasses to bestow a smile upon me. Ooh, I’m so lucky.”
“You’re a monster, Stella. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“You tell me that. All the time.”
“Not often enough.”
He opens his mouth to say more, but instead of speaking, he runs a hand through his jet-black hair, revealing perfectly chiseled cheekbones. Damn it. I love it when his hair gets all disheveled. I shift my eyes lower, focusing all of my attention on his mouth, in the hope that his ugly words might prove to be a better distraction.
Bad call. He has these full, red lips, ones I’ve always thought were far too luscious for a man to possess. Because I want to touch those stupid, beautiful lips, I throw his words back in his face.
“A monster, huh? Better than an uptight grandpa.”
He is neither uptight nor a grandpa. For someone who likes to fight, I have to develop a better arsenal of insults.
He laughs, but it’s a bitter, cruel sound. Just as I’m about to turn away from him, he catches my arm and spins me around. His eyes fixed on mine, he spits it out:
“You are a preening, self-absorbed, hot-blooded, vain, spoiled, tempestuous monster.”
He calls me a monster all the time, but it’s usually affectionate. Brotherly. Not this time. There’s venom in his voice and face. Each insult is clearly designed to leave its mark.
“I hate you, Luke,” I say softly, knowing that it isn’t true, not even a little bit.
“No, you don’t.” Heat radiates from him. I brace myself for another explosion, but his words are quiet, soft. “You don’t hate me, Stella. Not even a little bit.”
He knows then, about my silly, stupid, dumb crush. My mother, Luke, Jack, even our housekeeper, Rose—everyone knows. I’m stuck between humiliation and anger, and the tenderness in his voice brings me perilously close to seeking comfort in the arms of my tormentor.
Then, he reaches out and touches my cheek with the backs of two fingers, a gesture so kind and so uncharacteristic that it’s the one thing I can’t withstand. I’m livid—at him, but mostly at myself. A torrent of words, untrue and awful, fall into the void between us.
“Get this into your head. I hate you. Stay out of my way. I would tell you to stay out of my house, but since my parents like you better than me, I know that’s a moot point. Maybe Jack will finally wake up and realize that his best friend is nothing more than a poor little rich kid whose own family doesn’t want him around. This is my house. My family. And you stole it from me before I even had the chance to know what it might be like without you. I do hate you.”
I’m about two nanoseconds away from bursting into tears, but I bite them back. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him see me cry. He deserved it, for smashing my hopes to smithereens with little more than a flick of his hand.
“Tell me how you really feel, Stella.”
I suck in a breath when I see his stricken face. That, plus his weak attempt at a comeback, tell me that I’ve wounded him deeply, more deeply than I thought he could be wounded.
I need to repair the damage. I ignore the tear that falls from the corner of my eye and say, desperately, “It isn’t how I really feel, Luke. I just said it. I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t mean it. You just made me so angry. You always make me so angry.”
His laugh is short, stunted. “And I wasn’t angry? Those men, with their hands all over you, touching you like they shouldn’t be touching any woman, let alone a little girl...”
I see the anger rippling through each and every one of his glorious muscles. He would never hit me, but there’s something else in his face, some unreadable emotion, that forces me to reconsider my next words.
“I already have a brother, Luke. I don’t need another one,” I say softly.
When he wrenches his face to mine, his expression is inscrutable. “I’m not feeling very brotherly at the moment.”
For the first time in all the years that I’ve known him, there’s a raw, vulnerable need in his expression—his always-mocking eyes are unguarded and achingly human.
I don’t understand. Does he hate me? He’s just stripped me bare, laid all of my flaws out on the table. I am a monster, a vain, spoiled, selfish monster. No one will ever love me.
The breath hisses between his teeth.
“Stella.”
He says it softly, gently, beautifully, in a whisper that’s every bit as fierce as the loudest scream.
There aren’t any more steps left to take; our bodies are already too close. He touches the bottom of my chin and lifts my face to his. Our eyes meet, and in my infinite wisdom, I can’t tell if he wants to kill me or kiss me or knock me to the ground.
Before I can say a word, he touches my cheek with a reverence that stuns me into silence. The angry lines of his face smooth and soften, but the intensity in his gaze continues to pulse. I’m terrified by it—until I realize what it means. Desire is etched into the planes of his face, unleashed yearning tugging at the corners of his taut mouth. Luke wants me.
He brushes his lips to my temple before dragging them across my jaw in light, feathery kisses that threaten to release fireworks and explosions and ripped nerve endings.
As his lips hover over mine, my muscles cease their motions. The moment is too big. I need time to think. We’ll kiss and he’ll apologize and then I’ll go back and forth in endless circles until I eventually chalk it up to the candles and the champagne and the need to forget the ugly things we said to each other. And then everything—everything—will be ruined.
But reality wipes away abstract regrets. I must be an idiot. I am an idiot. Luke Dixon is about to kiss me, and I’m rejecting him? No. It’s either a beginning or an end, but this has always been inevitable. Preordained.
I lean into his body, burrowing myself into the crook of his neck, and as my breasts brush the thin fabric of his shirt, he lets out an incoherent moan. He slides his hands around me, fingers roaming over the exposed skin on my back.
His breath hot on my face, he whispers, “Stella. We...”
The lilting sound of my name on his lips snaps the last vestiges of my control, and I wind my fingers into his loose curls, tentatively bringing my lips up to touch his—only once, and far too briefly. Pulling back slightly, I look up at him, a question in my eyes—we shouldn’t? Really?
We both know that it’s already gone too far. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t already have his answer. In one sleek motion, he yanks me against him, pressing his mouth over mine, kissing my mouth deeply before retreating to play with his tongue and lips, tempting me until my gasping breaths become too ragged. I feel the rumble of a low laugh starting in his chest, and I kiss it away, needing to taste every inch of his beautiful skin, laying soft, wet kisses over his jaw and cheeks and face.
His hands tighten around my waist and start to rove upwards, sending a tantalizing shiver up and down my back. I return my mouth to his, exactly where it belongs and as our kisses deepen, the waves of pleasure start to course through me. I feel the corners of his mouth quirk under mine as he slides his hands over my ribcage, only pausing to tease my aching breasts. I let out a small gasp, more from pleasure than surprise, and push myself against his hands, not caring about anything other than letting him take everything that is rightly his.
“Luke, please,” I murmur.
Just as quickly as it began, it’s over. At the sound of my voice, he jerks his face away, but not before I see the desire in his eyes fading into clarity. I know what’s coming, but even that doesn’t stop me from reaching for him one last time, from sliding my hand down his cheek and touching the beautiful angles of his face.
He pushes me away roughly, muttering a string of inaudible obscenities and putting more distance between us with each passing second. The magic shatters and I fall back to earth, knowing that we are again the familiar versions of ourselves, the dorky little sister and the unobtainable rogue. There are a thousand words on the tips of my lips, but I know that I’m too late. He won’t hear me now.
“Damn it,” he curses, the words pouring out in low, husky streams. I manage to catch only a few as he spins away from me:
“That thought never should have been born.”
So, that’s it, then. I can’t bear to see the regret in his face, so I stare into the glittering lights and wait for him to yell, to scream, to unleash some of his pent-up anger on me.
It doesn’t happen. He’s inside the door before he turns back. I search his face desperately, but there’s no sign of any emotion whatsoever. Anything, including anger, would be better than ice-cold indifference, but that’s exactly what he gives me.
“Forgive me, Stella.”
Forgive him? For what?
I call the words out after him, willing him to hear them and to come back to me, but he’s already long gone.
* * *
3 ½ Years Later
I
chased after him, of course, but by the time I made my way through the crowd, he had left the party. I needed to apologize, to repair, to revise. At the time, I thought there would be a thousand chances to do those things. I even thought there was a chance for something more.
But life never works out the way you think it will, even when you have a plan. Especially when you have a plan.
We’ve seen each other once since then, but there were no words shared between us, at least from my end. Catatonic states and heartfelt conversations don’t exactly go together like peanut butter and jelly.
I stare into the mirror, at the black crud and impenetrable eyes and the truly hideous black dress. No wonder he didn’t recognize me. I don’t recognize myself. When I decided to escape from the person I once was, I could have chosen to be anyone, a vixen or an angel, gregarious or mysterious, exuberant, or calm, cool, and collected. Too many choices to count, really.
In my infinite wisdom, I picked Elvira. Nice move, Stella. Nice move.
I
t takes me a great deal longer than five seconds to get my bearings and to reassure myself that my world has not been reduced to a vacuum of air. When I finally calm down enough to pick myself off the floor, I pull some paper towels from the dispenser and wipe at least some of the black crud from my face. Then, I put one foot in front of the other until walking feels normal again. Like something I do every single day of my life.
I’m going to have to worry about cleaning up the cheap Elvira look later. For now, I’ve got bigger problems. Avoiding Luke Dixon for the rest of my life is at the top of my list, and unfortunately, that one requires some cooperation from Dr. Delicious.
I push on the door to the lecture hall. He’s at the front of the room, looking exhausted as he shuffles some papers around. All of his obsequious admirers seem to have disappeared. Small mercies.
“Excuse me? Dr. Evans?”
“It’s Holden,” he replies automatically, adding a brief, distracted smile. “I meant to tell your class to call me by my first name earlier, but it must have slipped my mind. How can I help you?”
His voice hovers on the edge of politeness and impatience. I can only imagine that he’s just dealt with an impressive number of inane questions from simpering freshman girls who’ve grown up on some movie where the heroine sleeps with her professor and discovers something new and exciting about herself. Unfortunately, Dr. Delicious happens to be a pretty good candidate for that particular fantasy. I should feel sorry for him. And then I remember: “A beautiful journey into the human mind.”