Whatever.
It was either stay and relinquish myself to Brandon’s scrutiny or leave and be free of Brandon and Nash. I chose the easy choice. The right choice.
Snatching two shots of top-shelf liquor from the bartender, I downed them both in front of Chantilly, arched a brow, then left. I kept close to the walls as I snaked my way out of the ballroom, cursing when someone spilled an entire glass of vodka on my dress.
I dabbed at it with a cocktail napkin before giving up and continuing my path to the elevators. I’d nearly reached the lobby when Ida Marie cut me off.
“Ugh.” Matching my stride, she groaned with each step. “My feet are killing me. I need a break.”
Precisely why I wore Chucks over heels. That, and I no longer owned heels. Mother would disown me if she knew.
Ida Marie flicked lint off her frilly dress and asked, “You going up?”
Out of the four others on the design team, I liked Ida Marie most. The only one who didn’t view our coworkers as competition in the quest for a promotion. Everyone wanted to be the person assigned to the following hotel so much, they lost sight of the fact that we were supposed to be focusing on this hotel.
This job.
Not some fancy upcoming Singapore location Nash’s company had sent a memo about.
“I’m headed to the fifth floor. I have to grab my work bag from the office,” I lied. “But Chantilly said I can leave after that.”
The design team had made a makeshift office out of the fifth floor. It consisted of an oversized couch, a TV, some company-owned laptops, and two desks that went to Chantilly and Cayden.
Ida Marie’s white-blonde curls bounced as she walked. “You mean she was actually nice to you?”
“I threatened to introduce myself to Nash Prescott.”
She laugh-snorted.
I stalled near the archway where the ballroom met the lobby, not quite wanting her to follow me to the elevators and realize I wasn’t headed to the fifth floor.
“Chantilly has been salivating over Mr. Prescott since she heard he would be here tonight.” Ida Marie lowered her voice after a few heads turned our way at the mention of Nash. “Last year, she managed to get someone to take her as a date to the annual company party so she could meet Mr. Prescott. Hannah told me she got so wasted, security had to escort her out. The lone reason she wasn’t fired was because the company parties are always masquerades. They didn’t know it was her.”
The alarm on her phone beeped out before she muted it with a curse. “Shit. I have to be back. I’m on drunk assholes duty. Chantilly has me bringing them water and begging them to return to their rooms before they make her look bad in front of Mr. Prescott.”
She paused for a second as the lights flickered, courtesy of the wicked storm gathering force outside the hotel. “You don’t think…” Alarm dilated her pupils. She shook her head, dismissing the idea of a power outage, as if rich people and their parties were untouchable. “Nah. You guys don’t get, like, power outages down here, right? There are fail-safes and stuff.”
Ida Marie had grown up in the SoCal high desert. The storm last week had been her first in decades. First storm. First lightning. Being around her reminded me of witnessing a child experiencing the world for the first time.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I offered, hoping she’d leave already because the last thing I wanted was to share an elevator with a guest. The longer we stalled her, the more likely it got.
“Knowing my luck, the power will shut off, and we’ll be stuck here all night.” She leaned forward for a hug. “Better get out while you can. See you in the morning?”
“Wait…” My fingers latched onto her upper arm before she slipped away. “The morning?”
As far as I knew, we worked Mondays through Fridays.
“Yeah.” She nodded her head.
I released her. The wilting flowers on a nearby table caught her attention, and I repeated my question before I lost her to the melaleucas completely.
“Eight in the morning. Sharp,” she said. I followed her to the table and watched her fingers flutter around the flower stems. “Some last-minute meeting. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“Must have missed it,” I lied.
Chantilly also hadn’t told me about the dress fittings the company had set up for us, which meant I’d ended up pulling this outfit together with minutes to spare while Chantilly had strutted into the ballroom wearing in-season Versace.
Pushing past servers, partygoers, and a holier-than-thou Chantilly talking up an investment banker who’d once had an affair with a classmate’s mother, I made my way to the exit.
I left, my eyes holding Brandon’s the entire time.
I backed away slowly before a flash of something green peeking from his pocket snagged my attention.
I recognized it.
The same mask worn by the man I’d caught staring at me all night.
My singular near-death experience had come on the eve of my ninth birthday. My nanny cried as the storm rattled our private jet. She cried harder when the pilot announced an emergency landing.
Mother sipped the glass of Château Margaux she shouldn’t have owned. (Money bought things like famous wine once belonging to a founding father.) I didn’t know whether she was a badass that couldn’t be fazed or the ‘preventative’ Botox had smoothed her face to the point of no expression.
The landing flung my head against the leather headrest until the only stars I saw were the ones blurring my vision. Dad held my hand, telling me stories of a war he’d never been to, the analogy being we were warriors fighting a storm or some bullshit I no longer believed but had clung to at the time.
Our private jet shook against the pavement in some podunk Southern town Mother deemed too gross to step foot in. The emergency landing hadn’t budged her face, but my nanny wore streaks of mascara on her cheeks as she helped Mother to the back of the jet for a nap until we could leave for Greece again.
I stood to follow, but Dad tugged at my hand and led me to the emergency exit. The slide inflated within seconds of the door opening. I didn’t have the opportunity to scream. Dad pushed me, and I flew down.
Wind whipped hair against my cheeks. Rain made my teeth chatter. Sharp lightning lit up the sky. Sparks of thrill sent delicious electricity through my body that reminded me of staying up past my bed-time and not getting caught. And I swore, I’d never experienced magic before that day.
Dad slid down after me, singing the lyrics to “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” so off-key, I enjoyed his version more than the real one. When he grabbed my hand, we danced to no music, switching from ballroom to 80s moves, feeling reckless, happy, like a two-person family was greater than a three-person one.
I laughed until I collapsed onto thick mud, making lazy angels with my arms and legs as I told Dad I wanted to move here forever. I didn’t even know where here was.
Dad tapped my chin and fell to the mud beside me. “It doesn’t matter where we live, Emery. We can balter anywhere.”
I scrunched my nose, inhaling salty rainwater that shotgunned to my head and rendered me dizzy. “Balter?”
“To dance—artlessly, with no grace, no skill, but always with enjoyment. All you have to do is ask. I will always be here to balter with you.”