Regina deserves my anger and more, but seeing her sad about my father, thinking for even a split second that she could have, in fact, had genuine feelings for him the man I viewed as a superhero and loved more than anyone in the world, makes me feel sympathy for the woman who’s kept me virtually locked away for going on six years now.
“I know, but when he did, he’d snore like a freight train,” I remind her with a small smile.
Her eyes brighten. She points a long white shiny fingernail at me. “That’s a secret for you, me, the housekeepers, and the old walls of the house to take to our graves. But yes, his snoring shook the house and probably several close by. When he died, they probably wondered why Manhattan stopped having minor earthquakes every night.”
We both chuckle, but the laughter dies almost as soon as it starts. Her glassy eyes are now clear and focused without a trace of sadness. She turns her icy blue glare to something in the corner of the grand room and adjusts her thin diamond tiara above her perfectly-styled platinum blonde hair. There’s no need for the adjusting; I’ve never seen the woman with a single flaw. Not lipstick on her teeth or a glob of mascara in the corner of her eye, not so much as a hair out of place.
“There’s Seth,” Regina says, pointing to a corner where Seth is standing suspiciously close to a woman wearing a blood red dress with a bodice even tighter than my own. Her auburn hair brushes against his cheek as she leans in to whisper something that is apparently funny, because Seth throws his head back in silent laughter, the sound absorbed by both the crowd and the music. “He likes you, and he has a lot of money. I’m not sure why you’ve never showed him any interest.”
I sigh. “Because I’m not interested in liking someone just because they like me, and I’m not interested in his money.”
It’s true. My interests are darker. Because I want someone to be watching me while I sleep. Touching me.
Hurting me.
“That’s a shame,” she sighs dramatically. “He’s from one of the richest families in the city.”
I open my mouth to reply but think again because there isn’t any use. Regina doesn’t do arguments. She’s single minded and can’t understand how someone with money wouldn’t interest me.
“Why are we doing this?” I ask, turning toward her. She walks ahead of me, and I find myself talking at her back. “You’ve never allowed me to go to parties or anywhere for that matter, so why now of all days?”
She turns on her heel, and I almost run into her chest. I crane my neck to look up at all of her six feet of perfection. “You may think me shallow and vapid, but you’ve been under my protection for years. You think it doesn’t matter to me that tomorrow you will be an adult, and I’ll no longer be the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever been?”
“A mother?” I ask, confused that she could ever see herself that way. I don’t remember much of my mother, but what I do remember is a feeling of love and safety, something I’ve never felt sharing a house with the Ice Queen herself.
She picks up a lock of my hair, running her fingers over the shiny wave before flipping it over my shoulder and flicking her fingers as if to remove something from them. “I’m not maternal, Neve, we both know that. But I’ve done my best to keep you away from the realities of this cruel world, and as much as I hate to admit it, this day has been weighing heavily on me for months and not for the reasons you think.”
She genuinely looks hurt. There’s an actual line between her eyebrows as she frowns.
“I’m…I’m sorry. I never looked at it that way,” I admit, feeling empathy for her for the first time ever. Tonight is my birthday, and at the stroke of midnight, I inherit everything my father left to me. His company. My trust fund. Regina will still be comfortable with the allowance my father has given her, but she will lose her temporary seat on the board to me. I thought she’d be upset about losing the seat, but I never gave a moment’s thought to the prospect that she’d be upset over losing me.
She swipes a finger under her eye across makeup that was never smudged to begin with. She then waves away her emotions with a swipe of her hand and a deep breath. “Of course, you haven’t. Nobody thinks I’m capable of more than beauty and spending your father’s money, but I assure you that just because people do not see what is underneath the high cheekbones and impeccable figure does not mean there’s nothing there. You may see me as cruel, but I’ve always viewed myself as your protector. You can judge me like the rest of them, but honestly, Neve, I thought you better than that.”
She’s right. I’ve never looked at her locking me away as protection. Then again, she’s never showed me so much as an ounce of affection, not even when my father died. How was I to know she viewed the relationship I saw as toxic as the closest she’ll ever come to motherhood?
She straightens her shoulders and turns with me by her side. “So, what boys do strike your interest, if not someone like Seth?” She asks.
I shrug.
The kind that watch me while I sleep.
“Come on,” she nudges my shoulder. “There has to have been at least one man that made you think thoughts that weren’t as pure as your pretty pale skin? Woman? Kitchen appliance? Anything?”
I look around the room, and again I get the feeling I’ve gotten every night. The shiver up my spine. The one that tells me I’m being watched. The one that has me fantasizing that the person watching me is one particular man with bright green eyes and an intensity about him that awakens a feeling deep within me that feels both wrong and right. Last night I imagined him standing over my bed, watching me sleep. He takes himself in hand…I shake my head and clear away the thought I don’t need to think of right now. I don’t need to play out the fantasy that stars the only man who has ever made me feel anything besides distrust and distaste. The only man who makes me…want.
I clear my throat. “I’m young. I have plenty of time for boys.”
“Plenty of time,” Regina sings with a smile that tells me she means more than the actual words leaving her mouth, but I don’t have time to question her because once the glamorous elite notice her, she’s enveloped in a crowd of admirers on which she gracefully bestows some of her benevolent time and fake laughs.
Seth spots me and smiles. Making his excuses to the woman in red, he makes his way over to us and says his polite hello to Regina, who steps away to talk to someone she knows. “Hello, beautiful, you look epic tonight,” he says, appraising my corseted yellow and blue gown that highlights my pale face and ebony black hair. “I see the wicked queen has let you out of your perch for the evening.”
“Something like that,” I say. Seth is tall at almost six feet. His medium brown hair is slicked back, perfectly highlighting his long straight nose and perfect jaw. His blue eyes twinkle as he leans down to plant a soft kiss on my cheek.
Seth smiles at me as he straightens like he’s waiting for me to swoon on his shiny designer shoes, but the feeling he’s waiting to elicit never comes. The awareness. The tingles. The yearning.
Nada.
I’m broken. How can I not feel attraction for a man like Seth? Or for anyone for that matter?
Only him.