“But,” he let off and moved his hand back to my hip, “if you do what I want you to do, then I will do everything I can to protect you. And once this is over—”
“Lunch with the queen. I got it. Now get the fuck off me.” I pushed away from the bar.
“Stella!” Dylan shoved past a couple of guests and embraced me, picking me up off the floor and squeezing me to the point where I wished I hadn’t had that drink.
“You’re here.” I was starved for an honest touch, for someone who I knew cared about me and not because of some stupid game.
He set me down. “Yes.” His cheeks were red and his breath smelled of something strong.
“Are you drunk?”
“No. I mean, Cal shared some choice whiskey, but I’m not drunk.” He shook his head, the movement slow.
“You’re drunk.” A shock of pain hit my chest. “You came here and got drunk with these people?”
“I was just trying to play along. Calm down.” He put his heavy arms on my shoulders and pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m going to be the one, Stella. Tomorrow. It’ll be me.”
“You’ll be the one to what?”
He grinned, his perfect smile unnerving more than comforting. “You’ll see. But it’ll be me. I’ll take care of you.”
“I think that’s enough.” Lucius menaced from behind me.
“I can talk to my sister if I want to.”
“Your former stepsister, you mean?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“She’s not your blood. She’s no concern of yours.”
“She’s not your blood either, asshole.” Dylan had a point.
“She doesn’t have to be. I own her. Now step the fuck back before I drop you and kick you while you’re down again.”
“We’re just talking,” I said. “Can’t I talk to someone? Please?” I’d never tried asking him nicely. Maybe it would work.
“Yeah, you can talk to me.” Lucius put his arm across my neck, pulling me back into him. “Fuck off, Dylan.”
“Stop.” I elbowed him, but he didn’t let go.
Dylan glowered and dropped his gaze back to me. “Remember what I said.” Then he turned and moved away in the crowd.
“Get off.” I rolled my shoulders and Lucius lowered his arm, but not before grazing my breast.
I turned and glared at him. “Asshole.”
He smirked and took another swig. “So?”
“I’m going back to my room.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I need you to be seen.” He set his glass on the bar and took me by the arm. “Just smile and fucking nod. That’s all you have to do.”
He waded through the horde of people and dragged me with him. He knew so many of them, striking up easy conversations about childhood events, fun times in college, or how the sugar business was going. But no matter who he spoke to, the conversation always worked its way back around to me.
“Stella’s an artist,” Lucius said for the tenth time that night.
A woman, perhaps no more than fifty, and impeccably dressed in winter white, smiled and sipped her wine. “So am I. Several pieces on display in New York and Los Angeles. What sort of galleries have you been in?”
“A gallery in my hometown has, well, had a few of my pieces,” I said.
“Hometown gallery?” She raised a perfectly-drawn eyebrow and took a sip of her wine. “How quaint.”
Lucius smiled. “I heard one of Stella’s pieces was recently on display in New York at one of the hottest up and coming galleries. It sold for fifty thousand dollars just last week.”
I cocked my head at Lucius. He certainly knew how to spin a lie.
“Oh, is that so?” She simpered at me over her glass.
Lucius didn’t miss a beat. “It is. I don’t know if you know the piece, but it was called The North Star.”
Something was off. I did have a piece called The North Star, but it sold at the town gallery a month ago, not in New York last week. And definitely not for $50,000.
Her eyes widened. “That was you?”
“It was her.” Lucius squeezed my hip and crushed me into his side, pride written into his smile.
“Congratulations. I actually saw that piece in person at La Vie Gallery and was impressed. I had no idea someone of your—” she waved her hand at me like I was some interesting animal behind glass at a zoo “— situation could create something like that.”
“I would take that as a compliment, but since it wasn’t, I won’t.” I smiled at her, wishing for her death.
Lucius forced a laugh as the woman’s expression soured.
“Good luck tomorrow, dear.” She gave me a tight smile, and Lucius pulled me away toward another group of people.
“Bad form, Stella,” he whispered in my ear. “Try again.”
We visited several more clusters of people who chatted about mundane first world problems before turning to my enslavement like it was just another topic.
The next cluster we visited included Dylan’s mother, Marguerite. She didn’t speak, only listened to Lucius while the other ladies laughed. Her lips were pressed into a narrow line, and her gaze never left me. I wanted to speak to her, to ask if she knew anything that could help me. And, I admitted, I wanted to ask about my father. But her face was impassable, hard.