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.
Someone I’ve never even conversed with. Someone I’ve only seen in passing. Sure, we’ve locked eyes a time or two in the years since we met in the third grade, but nothing else.
Nothing but fantasies.
As if on cue, a dark shadow of a man crosses behind a group of people, and instantly I know it’s him. He slowly steps around the partygoers and our eyes lock. Immediately, I’m throbbing everywhere, and the awareness turns into a snake slithering over my body, touching me in secret places. Chase Huntington is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful person.