But it bores me. The whole scene bores me. I’m nineteen years old, and being around the fashion crowd is the last thing I need. Bunch of vapid users is what they are.
“Blaise,” Pascal says to me as I approach the front doors to my family home, tightening the mask around my head as I go. “Not so fashionably late,” he remarks.
I haven’t seen my brother for five months. For a moment I wonder if that warrants a hug or the shake of a hand, but then I remember what side of the Dumont family I’m on.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to come,” I tell Pascal, stopping in front of him. “Do I need an invitation?”
He smirks, and I know by that smirk that he wishes he could keep me out of the party. I’ve always been a third wheel, one reason why I’ve been rolling along on my own way. “I’ll make an exception for you.” He looks around my shoulder as if he’s expecting someone else. “No date? Again?”
I shrug. “Can’t help it if I’m picky.”
“Picky with men or picky with women?” He’s grinning again. He’s always teased me for not having a girlfriend, and honestly, I like to play up the fact that he thinks I could be gay.
“Let’s just say I don’t waste my time with people who are beneath me,” I say, brushing past him.
“Very noncommittal,” he calls after me as I step into the house, but I don’t acknowledge that I hear him. I barely do, anyway—the place is absolutely roaring with laughter and music and the sound of chatter and champagne glasses clinking.
The good thing about being fashionably late is that it’s easier to blend into the crowd and everyone is well lubricated. My father will probably be too sauced to want to spend much time talking to me. I just need for him to see me, need to strike a few poses for the tabloids, and then be out of here.
But for the life of me, I can’t seem to find my father, not right away. I do have a few giggling models coming up to me, asking how I am, teasing me for having no date, doing their best to get under my skin. Other than that, I don’t see any of my family.
Until . . .
I have to do a double take. I’m walking past the dining room, which has been cleared out to make room for guests, and heading to the back doors where the party has spilled out into the yard, when I see a familiar face.
Seraphine.
But familiar is a vague term. I haven’t seen her in nearly two years—she wasn’t at last year’s ball—and she’s like an elevated version of the younger cousin that I knew.
Yeah, cousin, I remind myself. Your sixteen-year-old cousin.
This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to remind myself of who Seraphine is to me. Memories of being in Tuscany come flooding back as I stand here and stare at her. I kissed her in that fucking chicken coop. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but I can tell you I thought about it for a long time after.
Thoughts I never should have had.
Thoughts no one should probably have about their cousin.
I’m frozen in place. She hasn’t spotted me yet because she’s hanging off the arm of some guy in a yellow mask. He’s tall, though not as tall as me, with a strong jaw. I immediately hate him. I’m no stranger to jealousy, and I don’t try to bat it away. I already know she’s too good for him.
I mean, she doesn’t look sixteen, that’s for sure. Maybe my age, maybe even older. Her height helps. Her hair is up, exposing her long neck. She’s filled in a lot, and even though her limbs are still long, she has hips now and an ample amount of cleavage, both of which are accentuated by her yellow, curve-hugging dress.
I hate the fact that she matches the guy she’s with, the yellow making him look sallow and jaundiced while making her darker skin glow. I also hate that she won’t stop staring at him adoringly beneath her own mask and that his own eyes are roving all over the party.
Until they meet mine.
I stare right back, waiting.
Finally Seraphine tears her eyes off him and follows his gaze.
I can’t tell if she’s surprised or not, but she does mouth something to the guy, perhaps reassuring him that I’m not a threat, even though I feel like I am. She at least tells him that I’m her cousin, which immediately makes him stand up straighter.
He walks away from her, right across the crowd in the hall and over to me.
“Are you Blaise Dumont?” the guy asks, his accent German, or perhaps Austrian. He sounds refined or at least like he’s trying to be.
“It depends who is asking,” I tell him.
Seraphine comes up beside him. “Blaise, this is my . . . friend Emil.”
I stare at her, brows raised. “No ‘hello, dear cousin’? I haven’t seen you in over a year. Just, this is your friend Emil.”
Her eyes narrow beneath her mask, and I know I’ve struck a nerve. Ever since I kissed her, things have been kind of strained. I’ve acted like nothing happened, but I feel like that just pisses her off. But what does she want me to do? Act on it again? She made it more than clear that I was out of line. And perhaps I was. But what can I say, being out of line runs in my blood.
My eyes linger, just for a moment, on her chest and the low-cut lines of her dress, and I feel a painful thrill run through me. The kind of thrill that’s rife with taboo and flirts with danger. The kind of thrill that I have never felt around any other woman before (or, for Pascal’s sake, any other man).
“Yes, of course,” Seraphine says with a sigh. She straightens up, raising her chin. “Hello, dear cousin. I haven’t seen you for over a year, and this is my friend Emil.”
Emil smiles at me. His teeth are way too straight. “I am such a big fan.”
I frown. “A fan? Of what?”
“Of you. Of your label. I’ve wanted to work in fashion for years. I already design my own clothes. This suit, I made it. I grew up in Vienna, helping my father become a tailor, but I’m already far better than he is, and he’s been doing it all his life.”
I eye Seraphine, and I can tell she’s trying not to look embarrassed. What a charmer, my look says.
“Oh, well, I have nothing to do with any of this bullshit,” I say, waving at the crowd of idiots. In other words, I’m guessing you’re just using Seraphine to try to get ahead.
Emil starts laughing, the kind of laugh I’ve heard my mother use. It’s fake and it’s loud and it’s entirely for my benefit. “You’re hilarious. I had no idea.”
He looks at me with an odd glint in his eyes, something almost heated, and I realize that Seraphine was his stepping-stone to me, and then I’m his stepping-stone into the business.
Times like this, I really do wish I’d nipped those rumors in the bud.
I glance again at Seraphine, feeling sorry for her. She really seems to like this guy, as far as I can tell, and yet he’s using her, just as everyone at this party is using everyone else.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” I tell them, “I have alcohol to drink and people to ignore.”
I hear him laugh as I continue toward the backyard, but I get as far as the shorn grass of the lawn before someone grabs my arm.
I turn, not surprised to see Seraphine. Emil is somewhere in the background, perhaps looking for another Dumont ass to kiss.