“My point remains, Morgan. You need to get laid. And taking out your sexual frustration on my submissives clearly isn’t helping you scratch the itch.”
Oh yes. That’s why. “I’ll admit,” I say, still staring at the sprawling houses outside, “it’s been a rougher dry spell than usual.”
“Given the state of Blanche’s ass last week, I’d say that’s an understatement.” Mark leans forward and braces his elbows on his thighs, his hands dangling between his knees. Hands that have thrilled and killed. “Tell me, old friend, about what’s been holding you back. You’re beautiful, you’re rich, you’re the vice fucking president...”
I don’t answer. I’m painfully aware of the Secret Service car behind me, of the eternally-buzzing phone in the silk-covered clutch next to me.
“Ah, is that it?” he asks. “Are you worried about taking a lover because of the potential scandal?”
“I’m not afraid of repeating my brother’s mistakes, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
“Hmm,” Mark muses with a curling, monster’s smile, “but which brother? Current stepbrother president? Or former real brother president? Are we having Freudian feelings? Jungian feelings?”
“Stop psycho-analyzing me.”
Still the monster’s smile. “Then stop terrifying my submissives.”
“Fine. It’s not about Embry—or Maxen. And it’s not the vice president thing either. Are you happy?”
He leans back again, a satisfied look on his face. “Nearly. I still want to know why, and I want to know why you came to me for help. Not that I don’t enjoy playing Emma for my friends.”
“Emma was famously bad at matchmaking.”
“And still you came to me. Why, Morgan, if you didn’t trust I could help you?”
This—this is the heart of it. This is why I’m in a limo tonight headed for Bishop’s Landing and a masquerade so lavish and exclusive that it already had a security detail my Secret Service people could liaise with. This is why I’m in a costume that I didn’t choose, being stroked and caressed in places that can’t be seen by silk so expensive even I’d have trouble affording it.
I debate telling Mark the truth, and then I decide it doesn’t matter. He’ll see it eventually anyway. That is the problem with Mark Tintagel, if you really want to know. He sees too much. Especially when it comes to what people secretly want.
“I knew you’d—” I clear my throat. Fuck, this is hard to admit. And it shouldn’t be. But here I am anyway, trussed up in the silk and tulle a stranger sent me in a box yesterday. “I knew you’d find someone suitable.”
“So, you did trust me?”
“Yes.”
“This is still not an answer to my original question, Morgan.”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of a glare. “I think you already know, and you just want me to say it out loud.”
A slight hook to the corner of his mouth lets me know I’m right.
Mark and his fucking head games.
“This conversation is over,” I pronounce. “I think I’ve already humiliated myself enough for one evening.”
At that, Mark raised an eyebrow. “What, by wearing what your future paramour sent you?”
Heat—half embarrassed anger, half something else entirely—curls in my chest.
“Yes.”
Last week, I had finally admitted to Mark that I’d like to find a lover and did he know anyone—someone discreet, someone of any gender but with absolutely no connection to politics? He’d studied me in that cold, former killer way of his, and then proclaimed that he had just the person in mind.
And then came the invitation to the Constantine masquerade. Next had come the dress, the wings, the mask. The delicate, hand-sewn underthings. All shipped to my residence on the Naval Observatory grounds in a box the color of emeralds—the same color as my eyes—and shipped not from Mark, but directly from an atelier on behalf of my date.
As a Domme, I couldn’t remember the last time a lover had requested I wear anything for them—it was I who did the requesting, it was I who set the scene, selected the costumes, and tread the stage. But I couldn’t muster too much unhappiness about it because everything had fit perfectly. Exquisitely.
When I put on the dress, when I was all pale skin and black hair and green silk and gold wings, I looked like the ethereal woodland fairy my ex-husband used to tease me about being.
Morgan le Fay.
Even after everything—the divorce, the loneliness, the regrets—the memory still brings a smile to my face.
So no, I couldn’t be wholly upset by the costume. It was and is objectively perfect.
And the masquerade as a location for my blind date is actually a stroke of genius, as much as I was initially reluctant to admit it. Other than Lyonesse itself, there is no more perfect venue for anonymity than the Constantine estate—not only because all the guests will be masked, but because it’s also one of those rare, exclusive gatherings where a sitting veep will be one of the less interesting guests anyway.
Also, I’ll have plenty of chances to escape if I feel like Mark has set me up with someone I can’t stand.
So, if I’m not actually embarrassed or fearful for my privacy, then I suppose Mark was right all along, and I am nervous.
Fuck him for being right again.
As if he’s reading my thoughts—which he probably is—he takes hold of my hand. The limo turns down the long, curved drive leading to the Constantine’s Georgian mansion, and the fresh glow of lights sends glimmers dancing off my dress and wings.
“I will take you home the minute you want to go,” Mark promises. “Understood?”
We’ve been friends a long time, him and me. And in him, I’ve always recognized something of a kindred spirit; I may not be a monster, but I’ve been called a witch more times than I can count.
I muster a smile back at him, feeling like a girl going to her first dance and not a forty-two-year-old world leader. “Understood.”
The front of the massive house is decked with flowers and lights, and guests in masks are laughing their way up the stairs. “How will I know whom I’m supposed to be meeting?” I ask Mark as our limo finally rolls to a stop. Mark had kept the name of my date a secret, claiming that it went against the spirit of a masquerade to reveal such things too early.
“I think your date is arriving much later than us,” Mark says, tying a simple black domino around his head. With his sun-bronzed skin and dark blond hair, he needs little other ornamentation to look dashing and dangerous as hell. “Until then, you are under strict orders to enjoy yourself.”
Now I finally do glare. “You know I don’t take orders.”
Mark just laughs at me, his eyes dropping down to my dress, to the ridiculous wings spreading behind me. “Oh, is that right?”
I’m ready to deliver a scathing retort when Mark’s bodyguard opens the door for us, and it’s time for us to get out. “Thank you, Tristan,” I say as the silent ex-soldier hands me out of the car.
He’s got the same lightly suntanned skin as Mark, but dark, dark hair and beautifully tragic features cut right out of a Victorian fairy tale. And when he helps Mark out of the car as well, I don’t think I imagine that Mark keeps his hand in Tristan’s for a beat longer than necessary.