Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“Please,” I choked out. “Please.”
He leaned close. “This is a kindness. Nothing compared to what I’m going to do to that brother-fucking cunt and the thief who stole my inheritance.”
Black at the edges of my vision.
I thought, absurdly, of the glasses. Of my mother’s hands wrapping each one in tissue. Of all the things I had traded away. Just to end up here, in this penthouse I’d clawed for, dying at the hands of a man I’d chosen.
A knock at the door.
Jameson dropped me.
I hit the floor and pulled air in, each breath a raw scrape.
My head throbbed.
I couldn’t feel my fingers.
“Get the door,” he said, and walked into the hallway.
I fumbled upright. Crossed the room and opened the door.
“Ms. Yarwood?” The man’s eyes went to my throat and stayed there.
“Sorry,” I said. “Chopping onions.” I wasn’t sure if that whole tear thing was true but that was what they said on television.
He handed me an ivory envelope. The thick cotton stock the same weight, the same texture as the invitations I’d ordered for my own wedding, years ago, before Pierce decided I wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping.
The Worthington crest was embossed in gold on the seal.
He left. I stood in the doorway and stared at it.
Jameson yanked me back inside and ripped the envelope from my hand.
“You are invited to the engagement party of Mr. Pierce Worthington and Ms. Madison Hastings,” he read. His voice was very quiet. It was terrifying. “Black tie. Dinner at seven.”
He crumpled the invitation in his fist and raised it to my face. “What the fuck is this?”
If Pierce were in a coma, there would be no engagement party. The invitation meant one of two things: either it had been sent before the poison took effect, or Pierce Worthington was very much awake.
“The invitations must have gone out before I poisoned him. Let me call the house.”
My hands shook as I dialed.
“Worthington Residence.”
“Tompkins, darling. There must be a mistake. There can’t really be an engagement party tomorrow.”
A pause. A sigh.
“There is no mistake, madam. Will you be bringing a plus one?”
I hung up.
Jameson stood across the room, teeth bared, skin mottled.
Eleven Waterford glasses left on my shelf.
My mother’s hands. And all the things I could not take back.
There was nowhere to run.
CHAPTER 57
MADISON
They had sent me up alone with it.
The dress was on a padded hanger inside a garment bag that smelled of cedar and something floral, lavender, maybe. I hung it on the back of the wardrobe door and stood in front of it for a long time before I touched it.
Downstairs, an orchestra was warming up. The resonant sounds of a bow being dragged across slightly off-key strings floated up the stairs, and beneath that, the first low rumble of conversation as guests began to arrive.
The party was already happening. It was happening whether I was ready or not.
I unzipped the bag.
The lace at the cuffs was hand-worked. I could tell by the irregularity of it, the slight variance in the pattern where a needle had been guided by a human hand and not a machine. Someone had made this. Had sat in good light and worked every loop of it, stitch by stitch.
I thought about my mother. Not the one who died when I was too young to hold the memory clearly. The one who raised me. Who kept my school photos in a frame on the mantle even when money was short and the frame itself was chipped at one corner. Who called me her miracle baby. Who was gone now too.
There was no one in this house who knew that about me. No one here who remembered me at seven years old, or sixteen, or my dress from the prom or my favorite Christmas cookie or how I cried when I lost my adoptive mom. I was about to walk into a room full of strangers wearing a dead woman's dress, and the dead woman's son was the reason I'd been in a jail cell only a few days ago.
I pressed two fingers to the bodice, just above the waist seam.
Pierce's mother had worn this. Had stood somewhere in this house in this dress and made some kind of promise. I didn't know if it had been a happy marriage or a cold one, whether she had been beloved or merely decorative, whether Pierce had inherited her eyes or her ruthlessness or both. I knew nothing about her except that she had loved Venetian chandeliers and that she was dead.
I put the dress on anyway.
My hips disappeared in the ivory silk and endless layers of tulle, and then the long curve of my back was shrouded in lace. I pinned my hair up into a simple updo and tucked the short veil in with a French comb, spreading it over my shoulders.