last saw them. Brando searched the crowd and pointed them out.
My mother watched him over her champagne flute, polite but reserved as usual. The two of us standing next to one another seemed to make enough of a statement that she didn’t comment or pry. Eunice had told me that when Brando sent the RSVP back, which he had never done, he had included my name as his guest.
After a man with a cigar in his mouth took my father by the shoulder, my mother took Brando by the arm and carted him around the room, introducing him to different people.
No doubt about it, my sister and mother were in cahoots.
Violet found me a moment later, as I watched my mother show off my date. “We’re just getting started.” Violet turned my body so that I faced forward.
Ace. Right behind him and his family was Travis and his relatives.
“What is Ace doing here?” I whispered, expecting Travis but not Ace.
“He’s wealthy, Scarlett. A thief doesn’t need to be poor to steal. It’s who they are, not what they have.” Violet snagged a cranberry drink from a server in passing. She put the cup up to her mouth. “Tonight should be interesting, to say the least.”
To say the least. Ace hid in dark corners most of the time, sipping on drinks and alternately giving me hot eyes (which actually made my blood turn cold) and a mischievous smile.
It was Travis who I couldn’t seem to shake, in the physical sense. He held my arm and brought me along with him to each of his stops—at some point he even asked me if now was “sometime later” because I owed him a game of chess “sometime later.” His group of friends laughed at this. Travis seemed to be taking advantage of the space between Brando and me.
There seemed to be an abundance of that, space between my date and me. He was the talk of the party, every woman whispering something about him at some point, and it seemed I was always in direct earshot. Or Violet, the scuttlebutt, would report the latest.
Brando’s lack of contact, quite honestly, grated on me. He made no move to approach me or save me from Travis and his “smart” friends, but his eyes were never far. Which made no sense. For him.
He was currently in conversation with my mother and father again, plus three Brazilian models, who were discussing his backside on the sly in their native language, Portuguese.
I snatched a flute of champagne from one of the servers, about to make my way upstairs, just to escape the party turned inferno, when the most attractive of the three said to the other two, “Vou levá-lo para a cama.” I will take him to bed. Then she touched him on the arm.
I tapped her on the shoulder, my heeled foot tapping against marble. When she turned, the entire group became silent, all eyes falling on me.
“Scarlett, darl—“ my father began.
“Se você quer seus olhos, você manterá suas mãos para si mesmo.” The grip I had on the delicate crystal felt brutish. It might just snap.
Cold child.
Is he hers?
Bitch.
That was the sentiment amongst the models.
My mother wanted to gasp. I know she did. As usual, she resisted, playing her part well, sipping her champagne to hide her embarrassment. She didn’t have most of the language, but she knew the tone well enough to gather the point.
In a dramatic sweep of silk, I held my head up higher and took the steps as if I were floating up them.
I had my pride.
Once in my own space, I sat at my vanity table, crossing my legs, tapping one in time to my irritation. After a few moments, my temper evened, and the pulse that had been drumming in my ears faded to nothing, allowing the music to fill the empty spaces of the room.
Looking up, I wished that the ceiling had been made of glass, so I could stare at the stars. Wishes… Of all the places that I longed to be, the abandoned house was the first on my list. A five-minute drive would have taken me there, but this place felt worlds away from that one.
“Tell me,” Brando whispered, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
Oh, now he wanted to know what she had said. It was eerie how we could do that though. He said the words and I instinctually knew what he asked of me.
Still, I refused to look at him. “She