novelxo Prince Of Greed: Chapter 6
It had been days of long nights at the office and sneaking away on my lunch breaks to shop for an outfit to wear to The Deacon. Nothing I owned would be up to Rhomi’s standards, but there wasn’t a store in the mall for highly secretive dance clubs. I’d finally given up and resigned myself to faking my own death and deleting all my social media accounts if I didn’t find anything by Saturday afternoon.
Perhaps I was being a tad dramatic, but it shouldn’t have been so hard to find an outfit.
I thought of my siblings often, but more so when I was stressed over social engagements.
Would my sister have been able to find the perfect little black dress? Would my brother have been the one our father wanted at his side at parties? Would my mother have stood up to my father about the ridiculous outfits and restrictions he set for his daughter?
I added those questions and too many more to the bottomless pit where I kept the rest of my memories.
Missing them came in waves, even all these years later.
On Friday evening, as I dressed, I thought back to the last party my parents had thrown. Our mother and father had been on the phone all day. My siblings and I had been dressed up and shuffled around by our mother, who took each compliment about our appearances or gentle natures and attributed them to our father’s hand in raising us.
When the ghost of my family had quieted and my hair was perfectly starched, I headed downstairs to where my father and Becky were waiting. I was quickly sent to welcome guests as they arrived.
“You look lovely tonight,” said a faceless, balding man with a younger woman on his arm.
“Thank you, and welcome,” I answered and directed them and another two couples into the house. “My father is so pleased you could make it this evening. He is in the living room.”
After what felt like hours later, I was relieved of my duty and was free to roam around until I could genuinely say I had met every guest and could slip out without being noticed.
Becky and my father cornered diplomat after diplomat in the living room, their toothy smiles plastered on their faces as they schmoozed. I had no choice but to mingle and would never get away with hiding upstairs in one of the guest rooms. Becky had made sure they were all locked after I’d gone missing at a party and my father had given a toast to his family. I hadn’t been there to look misty-eyed.
A round-faced CEO of a banking firm cornered me near the finger foods. I was ten minutes into listening to him tell me the current stock rates when a man caught my eye.
Actually, two men.
I knew one was Oro, a business associate of my father’s. Oro made my skin crawl and vibrate all at once. The way he looked me up and down felt thick and slimy.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he had said in his deep, gravelly voice the last time I saw him. Then he’d shared a knowing look with my father that set every one of my hairs on end.
Now, he was standing with a man who looked as if he had been carved from marble by the gods. His dark hair was teased and gelled to the side. Not one strand looked like it dared to be out of place.
The short stubble on his jaw darkened his features, but his sapphire eyes blazed from across the room to me.
No.
Through me.
This beautiful man couldn’t have been looking at me.
The room around me went still in the lifetime I spent staring back into his depths. But when he looked away, back at Oro, my stomach dropped, and I was forced to swallow down the disappointed whimper that had amassed in my chest.