“Not every day I get to meet the guy who fucked her over.” His face flashed with offense, but before he could speak, I said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”
“Dick,” Natasha shot, slithering up next to Brock again.
“Nice to meet you too, Miss Felix.” When I turned, I caught Lila’s gaze.
Fuck them. Don’t let them get to you, I told her without speaking. I’m here.
The tension in her eased, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
And with every ounce of my power, I left her there with those sharks, knowing she could hold her own and hating that she had to do it alone all the same.
My mind whirred with fury and spite as I worked on the table. The only way I survived was a continuous reminder that I wasn’t going to make this table look spectacular for Natasha Felix. But for Lila, I’d do anything. Even make that eel’s birthday look good.
I watched her move around the room, never still for longer than necessary. She greeted the Felix Femmes as they arrived with entourages in tow, directed her interns, fielded interruptions from the caterer, the DJ, hotel employees. And she did it all with that cool confidence, the control and command she ruled her environment with.
When the banquet table was set up and the garlands hung, I made my way around the room under the guise of double-checking the centerpieces. With Lila directing her interns, I had no doubt that they’d been done to the letter. But it gave me the opportunity to get closer to the Felixes and that fucking asshole Natasha had brought to parade in front of Lila like a prized pony.
I hated him, deeply and unreasonably. I didn’t even know the guy, and the honest truth was that I had no place to call him an asshole. All he’d ever done was hurt her.
But by that measure, he was irredeemable.
The Felix women quieted when I neared, shifting things on a nearby table without purpose. The men excused themselves for the bar, and the second they were gone, rustling whispers fluttered at my back.
“Excuse me,” one of them said. “I think this one’s wrong.”
When I turned, three-fourths of the Felix sisters eyed me hungrily, along with their mother, who I’d been sure I was going to marry when I was a kid, and I had a stack of Sports Illustrated with a bikini-clad Sorina Felix on the cover to prove it. The men of the pack gathered near the bar, sipping amber liquid from crystal glasses with flat, bored faces that said nothing short of, If we’re here, we might as well drink.
Sure enough, it looked like the centerpiece was missing one of its candles.
“I see,” I said with the smile I used to get women to smile back, belying my annoyance. No way had that candle not made it onto the table. Which meant one of the Femmes had taken it.
“I wonder if it’s back there,” Sofia said with a flick of her hand. “Maybe one of those interns lost it in the green stuff.”
The “green stuff” was fern, a spray of it large enough to hide a candle, it was true. Nestled in its fronds were three lanterns—one of them devoid of its lighting—filled with flowers and moss.
“Mind if I have a look?” I asked.
“Be my guest,” Angelika answered, recrossing her legs too widely to be considered modest by even the loosest definition.
Natasha glared, folding her arms as I tried to approach the tabletop. I say tried because Sofia and Alexandra didn’t budge, blocking my path with their crossed legs, elbows propped on the table in identical poses.
“Go ahead,” Alexandra said with a devil’s smile that made me regret my cheek in coming over here.
I’d thought I’d get some gossip. Instead, I had a feeling I was about to get my ass grabbed.
Sorina, their mother, leaned on the table with hot eyes and a salacious smile. “These are just so beautiful. You did a wonderful job.”
“Oh, I can’t take credit,” I said lightly, leaning over their laps to delve my hands into the fern, rooting around for the rogue candle. “I just grow them.”
“He works with his hands, Alex,” Sofia said.
“I’ll bet he does,” Alexandra agreed. “Bet he plants his seeds all over the place too.”
One of my brows rose, and I gave her a look. She returned it with an expression that belonged in a porno.
“God, it’s like no one has standards anymore,” Natasha barked.
Alexandra snapped back, “Fucking a doctor instead of a DJ doesn’t make you suddenly enlightened. You’re the same old slut you always were. Only difference is that now you’re with a guy who can prescribe you penicillin for your STDs.”
“Girls,” Sorina said apathetically.
“You’re the worst, you know that?” Natasha asked, standing in a huff, the action punctuated by a stamp of her foot and a bounce of her perfectly coiffed hair. “You’d think you’d at least be nice to me on my birthday.”
But Alexandra laughed. “I’m sorry. I love you even though you’re a desperate hag.”
Natasha’s cheeks flushed, her face screwed up with rage. “Whatever. I’m going to find Brock.”
This time, all of them chuckled.
“She’s so cute when she’s mad,” Sofia said.
“I hate you,” Natasha shot over her shoulder as she strutted away in a glide that defied physics, given the height of her heels.
“But we love you,” her sisters sang in unison, as if they’d had this exchange a thousand times.
She flipped them off without breaking her stride.
With a sigh, Alexandra stood. “I’ll go get her.”
“She’ll feel better once she opens the Chanel ring I got her,” Angelika said.
“Ugh, you bitch. I was going to get that for her too, but I wanted it for myself.” Sofia pouted. “I got her Gucci instead.”
Angelika perked up. “The sunglasses or the watch?”
“Both,” Sofia answered with a smirk.
Angelika’s eyes widened, her mouth opening up in wonder. “She’s going to die.”
“I know!” Sofia said on a giggle.
I’d moved out of the way a few minutes before, not wanting—or able—to interrupt as I waited to probe them for clues as to where the candle had gone. Their dynamic was as uncomfortable as it was understandable—if anyone got the sibling relationship and all its vicious colors, it was a Bennet. But they were spiteful and venomous while somehow also seeming to care for each other very much. It was astonishing really, just how godawful they were to each other by typical standards. And yet, they somehow kept on loving each other, despite their outbursts and jealously and general dreadful behavior.
I cleared my throat, and their attention swiveled to me again. “Any idea what could have happened to it?”
Sofia batted her lashes, playing at coy. “Have you checked under the table?”
“Oh, good idea,” Alexandra added.
Sorina just smiled, her blank eyes locked on a patch of nothing in the distance. I wondered how often she ran away to some sanctuary in her mind, going vacant just to endure the snipes she’d bred.
I reached for the tablecloth, gathering it up to check the very edge, taking the bait. But I found nothing.
“You should get under there,” Sofia insisted. “I’m sure it just fell, rolled underneath. I’d do it myself but …” She laughed rather than finish as if I could deduce the reasons myself.