Butterflies erupted in my middle, and I forgot about the embarrassment of getting through the door as I stared at the back of his blond head and the way the hair at the back of his neck flipped out.
“Ander,” I called out, stopping several feet away.
There seemed to be a collective pause of everyone around him. I felt the eyes of many, felt rather than saw drinks lowering from lips as people studied me.
Ander’s shoulders tensed just slightly as he straightened from the bar. His head cocked to the side, and then he turned.
High cheekbones. Straight nose. Strong shapely brows arching gracefully over eyes that looked like uncut sapphires. His skin was flawless, creamy and unlined. His full mouth pursed a little as his gaze flicked over me.
An odd feeling overcame me, something akin to disappointment. Why wasn’t he smiling?
“Do I know you?” he asked, voice bored.
My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Ha-ha. Very funny,” I said, taking a step closer.
The way his eyes narrowed made my feet pause. “Who said I was joking?”
The air around us turned tense and stiff. I could practically feel it vibrating around us. The crowd that stood nearby was still and watchful, quietly taking in every single moment.
“You do look a little familiar,” Ander said, looking at me again. “Have we met?”
Someone off to the side snickered.
All the humiliation I’d been pushing away rushed me, so strong it would be impossible to shove down once more.
“Considering I’m your date, I’d say so.”
A flicker of confusion crossed behind his eyes, but it was gone before I could fully register it, and he smiled. “You’re my date?” he mused. The crystal glass he’d been holding was handed off to a man beside him with lustrous dark skin.
Straightening away from the bar, Ander took a step closer, eyes never leaving me. His stare was intense. Something about it made me want to squirm.
“If you’re my date, then who is this?” Stretching out his arm to the side, he held his hand palm up, and the group of admirers around him parted so a young woman could step through. Her long, graceful fingers slid over his palm, and I watched as his much wider ones closed around hers. Before lowering their now-clasped hands, he lifted hers to press a kiss to the back.
She preened as though she’d been awarded something great and then turned her head to settle the weight of her green-eyed gaze on me. Her hair was blond and done up ornately with a freaking tiara sitting on her crown. Her dress was gold, falling in perfect waves all the way to the floor. There wasn’t one average thing about her, and just seeing her next to him made me feel like the worst kind of wilted flower.
“But you invited me,” I said stupidly. Oh, how I was going to regret those timid words later.
“Oh, sweetie,” the blonde at his side said. “Why on earth would Ander invite someone like you when someone like me is already by his side?” A flash of something cruel glinted in her green gaze. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Those around us laughed.
Under my ribs, my heart started pounding heavily. The burn of shame was back, tingling my toes and rushing up my legs to pool in my stomach. “But you did! We’ve been talking for weeks!”
“Ander, have you been playing games in the slums again?” the man at his side asked. His voice was not at all reproachful. It was instead amused. The ice in his glass clinked as he lifted it to his lips. “Didn’t you say you’d stop?”
Ander’s upper lip curled, and he shot a look at the man. “Shut it, Garret.” Turning back to me, he said, “I don’t know what you’re playing at here, but that’s enough. I don’t know you. I’ve never spoken to you.” His eyes roamed over my outfit, clear distaste in his gaze before settling back on my face. “I definitely wouldn’t ask someone like you to be my date.”
My throat burned. Behind my eyes felt scratchy and dry. The tightness in my chest was nearly unbearable, but that wasn’t the worst thing.
The worst thing was realizing I’d been played. I let him make me believe there was no line between us and it didn’t matter I wasn’t from his world.
Furious rage bubbled up inside me unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
Was this all a sick game to him? Flirt and sweet-talk me for weeks just so he could humiliate me in front of people I didn’t even know? Did he do this just to prove how much of an outcast I really was?
“You’re scum.”
He paused in turning away, glancing back at whatever he heard in my voice. “What?”
“You’re rich, dress up in these fancy clothes, drink your fancy champagne, and probably don’t even have a clue what real life is like. But that’s not enough for you people, is it?” As I spoke, my voice grew higher and higher, my words drawing more attention. “Everything you have still makes you empty, so you have to embarrass and reject people like me to make yourself feel full.”
Something tumultuous flashed in his gemlike eyes. “I don’t make the rules.” He spoke almost menacingly. “I just live by them.”
Just then, security broke through the wall of people watching us as if we were some kind of prime-time drama. “Let’s go,” a man said, laying a hand on my shoulder.
I shook him off, stepping closer to the man I’d come here thinking of as my date who now was more like my enemy.
Words fell off my tongue. Words in a language I didn’t often speak but considered the language of my soul. My grandmother told me to never be anyone’s doormat. To never let anyone get the best of me.
I spoke rapidly, my sharp tongue guided by the anger and hurt I felt so profoundly.
“Que el sabor de la humillación te manche tu lengua y el reflejo que me obligaste a mirar se refleje en ti multiplicado por diez. Que lo que está dentro brote de tus poros para manchar tu apariencia impecable con una verdad brutal. Cualquiera de aquí en adelante sabrá de qué estás hecho con solo una mirada. Deja que las llamas de mi ira te marquen eternamente para que nunca puedas olvidar tu rechazo a un corazón honesto y arder para siempre en arrepentimiento.”
The feeling of my head flopping on my neck was what brought me back and paused my tongue. Blinking past the hazy, intense emotions gripping my mind, Ander’s cruelly handsome face swam in my vision. So close. Much closer than he’d been before. My heart leaped for a fraction of a second before everything that was happening crashed back over me once more.
Painful pressure dug into my upper arms, and my head still lolled. He was shaking me. His fingers gripped me so tight I knew my skin would bear the bruises from his unrelenting grasp.
“Let go!” I roared. Outwardly, it sounded more like a gasp.
“I could say the same to you.” He snarled.
My hands were curled into the lapels of his jacket. Every joint in my fingers ached and strained from the pressure of my grip. I tried to release him. I tried to shake free, but my fingers seemed to have a mind of their own.
“What did you say?” he demanded, eyes narrowed into glittering slits.
“W-what?”
His hands flexed around my arms as if he could squeeze the knowledge from my pores. “What did you just say to me?”