I cross the distance, find the back of Stefanos's collar, and rip him to the ground. He shrieks and hits hard enough to shake the nearby sculptures on their pedestals.

A champagne flute crashes to the floor and shatters in a million directions. One of the jagged pieces cuts Stefanos's ear. His blood starts to pool out onto the white marble.

I plant a knee on Stefanos's chest and bend down close enough for him to hear every word I breathe in his face. "I think you are the one who ought to 'listen here,' my friend. The lady told you no. She asked you to keep your hands to yourself, but you did not. So now, I'm putting my hands on you, and I won't stop when you ask me to. I won't stop when you beg me to. I won't even stop when you scream and plead and cry for me to please God just have some fucking mercy."

Stefanos's eyes are wide and still now. His lower lip quivers. The cold fear sweat beading in his mustache disgusts me. "P-p-plea-"

"Shh." I press a finger to my mouth. "I just told you that begging won't help." Then, sighing, I release my weight from off his chest and stand again. I pull my tuxedo cuffs into place as I look down on him from above. "But I don't feel like getting your blood on my suit tonight. So for now, I'll let you go. Get the fuck out of my sight."

He doesn't have to be told twice. He scrambles away on his hands and knees, leaking blood, until he can gather himself back upright. Then he goes bumbling away, down the corner and out of sight.

When he's gone, I turn to the girl.

3

CORA

I'm still standing where that asshole left me backed into the corner. My hair is mussed and sweaty and my jaw is aching from biting down so hard. I'd like to get out of here, but I'm stuck for two main reasons.

One is that the man who just rescued me from Mr. Handsy Douche Bag is currently smoldering down in my direction. He looks like if testosterone had a face. Pure, rippling masculinity. Eyes like preserved honey. Hands that, even now, are flexing and unflexing like they're capable of doing so much more.

The second reason is that, if I move out of this corner, Prince Testosterone and all the rubber-necking onlookers will get an eyeful of my bare butt.

That's because, when the douche bag tried to paw at me, he ripped my dress all the way up the back seams. I can feel the cold breeze of the air conditioning blowing where I really wish it wouldn't.

Not good.

So that's my predicament in a nutshell: hottest guy I've ever seen plus one hell of a wardrobe malfunction. I'm a waitress, not a mathematician, but even I know that that doesn't add up to anything great.

"Relax," he rumbles. "You don't have to worry. I handled it."

"Yep. Relax. Working on it." It's difficult to talk, given how hard I'm trying not to move for fear of ripping the dress further.

I have a delirious mental image of just staying planted right here for the rest of the night. They can use my arms like a coat rack. The clean-up crew will have to get a crowbar to pry me out of the corner in the morning.

"I'd advise you to start by inhaling," he suggests. "In through the nose, out through the mouth. That sort of thing." There's an undercurrent of dark laughter in his voice.

I wrinkle my nose. "Which part of this is funny to you?"

He doesn't seem bothered in the least by my sharp voice. "The part where you look like you're about to have an aneurysm if you don't take a breath in the near future."

He's right-I really am clenching dangerously hard. For medical reasons, if nothing else, I sigh and take a big sip of air.

As I do, I feel another stitch in the seam give way.

Things are going well.

"You know, you look like a busy, important man," I say, doing my best to keep my ever-growing desperation out of my voice. "I'm sure other busy, important men and women would very much like your attention somewhere else in the party, right?"

He shrugs. "Maybe. Hard to say."

"But easy to find out! You could go...over there, maybe!" I jut my chin in the direction of the back lawn. "Or there. Or there. Anywhere, really. Lots of people are no doubt extremely eager to ask you about, uh, world politics or the economy or who you think is gonna win Naked & Afraid this season."

Unfortunately, Prince Testosterone doesn't take any of my suggestions. "Then they can wait." He inches closer, which I really, really wish he wouldn't do. "What's your name?"

"Who, me?"

"No, the other girl cowering in the corner."

I force a laugh. "Oh, I'm nobody. Not busy or important in the least, and I don't even watch Naked & Afraid!"

It feels like the walls are closing in. I'm making silent oaths in my head and hoping that some deities above are listening and will take mercy on me. I'll wear only pants for the rest of my life if you get me out of this mess. Just please, for God's sake, help me!

If anyone up above hears, they show no sign of it.

He edges closer still. I can smell his cologne now. Cedarwood and sage. It's making my head spin.

Over his shoulders, most of the other attendees have turned back to their conversations, though I still feel a few stray eyes drifting in our direction here and there. It's hard to look anywhere but at him, though. He's just got this confidence, this magnetism, that brings me back to his gaze again and again.

For his part, he doesn't seem to have any problem blocking out the whole world to focus on just me. "You're a strange one."

"You don't even know the half of it," I promise him. "Seriously. I'd run if I were you."

I'd run if I were me, too, I add silently.

He still doesn't smile or show any signs of a departure in the near-future. "I'll ask you one more time: what's your name?"

I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as lies and distractions go. Between that and the tickle of cold air on my bare skin and the tick-tick-tick sound-slash-sensation of more stitches giving way and my ever-growing terror that somehow, some way, this terrifying man knows who I am-who I really am-I'm about this close to just telling him the truth.

Or maybe I'm just sick of lying. Of hiding. Of running. It's been years of it now and it's starting to get old.

So I open my mouth. My real name is right on my lips. "I'm-"

Then someone taps the man on the shoulder.

He straightens and turns with a scowl on his lips. The person interrupting us is slender and tall, with a wiry frame and a shock of brown hair. He's got the same kind of serious composure in his face that Prince Testosterone has. A do-not-fuck-with-me-ness.

The new man whispers something urgent in his ear. Both their scowls deepen. Their eyes flit out to the lawn.

I see that for what it is.

A window of opportunity.

With one last prayer to the heavens above just in case any of those celestial assholes have decided to tune in, I clamp the ruined halves of my dress together as best as I can, pirouette on my heel, and take off waddle-running down the nearest hallway before the two men turn back to realize I'm gone.

My plan is simple: I'm going to find somewhere quiet to fix my dress. Then I'm going to find Jorden and we're going to get the hell out of here.

With any luck, I'll never see that man again.

4

CORA

Bad news: this place is a labyrinth. I feel like I've been running for hours, twisting and turning down hall after hall. The one silver lining is that at least I'm leaving the super Hulk behind.

I shiver at the thought of him. He was too perfect to be real. His bone structure was brutally sharp. Those lips had a cruel slant to them. And those eyes-Lord have mercy, those amber eyes could hypnotize a girl if she's not careful.

He hadn't laid so much as a finger on me, but the way he looked at me was a physical touch in and of itself. It stroked the deepest parts of me.

As if I didn't already feel plenty naked with a gaping rip in the backside of my dress.

I shake off the memory just as a door with a thin slice of light at the bottom beckons. It looks like a bathroom, so I push through-

And come to a screeching halt.

A trio of girls is clustered around a hand mirror balanced on top of the sink. Their hair is expertly curled, their dresses flawless, their manicures glistening in the candlelight.

Two of them don't notice me enter. The third looks up from where she's bent over the mirror with a straw pressed to her nostril. Her face is reflected on the surface below, although it's broken up by five or six neatly arranged lines of white powder.

When she sees me, she frowns. It's not a frown of surprise at being barged in on, though.

It's a frown of recognition.

"Cordelia?" she says in shock. "Is that you?"

Cordelia. A dead name. A nobody name.

My heart jumps into my throat. One thought blares through my head like a tornado siren: run.

This time, I hold nothing back. I run and run and run. High heels be damned. Ripped dress be damned.

I keep running, down hallways and up stairs, until my breath burns in my lungs. Then I burst through the nearest door I see and slam it shut behind me.

Inside the darkened room, I keel over, elbows on my knees, and try to inhale. I'm so tired I don't give a rat's ass about the fact that anyone who comes up from behind me could get a high-def view of where the sun don't shine.

I stay there for a while. Even when I catch my breath, though, my heart continues to pitter-patter in my chest.

She saw me. She knew me.

I shudder again. Cordelia. God, I hate how that sounds.

I'm Cora now.

Cordelia is dead.

Eventually, my heart calms down, though the tang of fear never truly leaves my mouth. When I'm as at ease as I'm gonna get, I look around the room.

I'm in an office of some sort. Very masculine, dark palette, brooding. It's shadowy in here, though there's light coming through a set of French doors. When I walk over, I realize the attached balcony looks out over the rear lawn. Most of the crowd has shuffled outside, so it's a maze of bodies. The sound of laughter and clinking glasses rises up to meet me. There's no sign of Prince Testosterone or his friend.

I turn my back on the balcony and fish my phone out of my purse. I press Jorden's contact and hold it up to my ear. It rings and rings, and then:

"Heeeey! Girl, where'd you go? This party is crazy!"

Oh jeez. Jorden is blitzed beyond belief. I know that looseness in her voice, that cackle. The girl is D-R-U-N-K. She isn't coming to save me.

I'm all on my own.

"Uh, never mind," I mumble into the phone. "Butt dial. I'm coming to find you. One sec." I hang up and drop my phone onto the nearby couch.

I find a lamp in the corner and click it on. The rip is in the back, so I need to get this dress off and try to finagle some kind of safety pin stopgap solution good enough to get me out of here without mooning every partygoer in attendance. With a grimace and a prayer, I start trying to peel off the dress while doing the least damage possible.

The back where the drunkard's hands went is pretty ruined, but if I can just wriggle out of it carefully and find a safety pin around here somewhere, there's a chance I'll be able to-

Riiiiip.

Never mind. I'm screwed.

My oh-so-careful efforts have just extended the rip even further. As soon as I let my hands go limp, the dress parts in two like wilted flower petals and pools around my feet. I'm left standing there, in the middle of some stranger's office, in nothing but high heels and nipple pasties.

Which, of course, is when the door opens.

For a second, I hold out hope that it's Jorden, here to provide backup.

But it's not Jorden.

It's not Jorden at all.

IVAN

It'd be a mistake to call her the girl in the green dress-mostly because she's not in the green dress anymore. It's puddled around her feet and she's not wearing a stitch of anything. Just high heels and nipple covers.

I close the door behind me. "No one is supposed to be in here."

"I'm hiding," she blurts, trying her best to cover herself up, not that it does much good. I'd have to be Mother fucking Teresa to keep my eyes off of her body.

Fucking hell, she's stunning.

I swallow down the rush of desire. "Stripping, hiding, I don't give a shit what you call it-but you can't do it here."

She levels me with a glare that rivals the one she gave the Greek mutt outside. "And who are you? Security?"

"You must be joking."

She doesn't know who I am? I call bullshit. Everyone here knows who I am.

She's blushing from head to toe-I can see every inch of flushed skin-but she doesn't shy away. "So, not security, then? Probably some trust fund baby who thinks you own every room you walk into."

"Big words from someone skulking through a stranger's house naked."

"Hiding!" she yelps again. "And believe me, I would give anything to be clothed right now. Preferably in sweatpants and a hoodie with a parka on top, but beggars can't be choosers. I'd accept that strappy, skin-tight monstrosity on the ground right now if it would just cooperate."

She hates this party, she doesn't know who I am, and instead of bragging to me about who designed her ruined dress, she's longing for sweats.

She can't be real.

A breeze blows through the open doors and the woman in front of me shivers. Before I can second-guess the instinct, I shrug out of my jacket.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

Good question. It might be the first time in my life I've voluntarily asked a woman to put on more clothes.

Her eyes are wide and shockingly green as she shrinks away from me. Like a dog that's been kicked so many times it's sure that the only thing the future could hold is more pain.

"Beggars can't be choosers." I dangle my jacket in the air between us. "Take it or leave it."

She watches me warily for another long breath before she lunges for the jacket and slips it on.

Her skin disappears beneath the long sleeves and broad shoulders. The jacket absolutely swallows her, but I'm not laughing. Somehow, the image of her swimming in my jacket is even more tantalizing than her taut, naked skin.

She tucks the material around her middle and crosses her arms to secure it. "Thanks. For a second, I thought you were going to parade me out of here naked as punishment."

"Don't tempt me."

"Don't threaten me," she retorts.

"Don't act like it would be all bad. You'd be the center of attention."

"Don't act like all women want the same thing."

I arch an amused eyebrow. "Don't they? You got all dolled up and marched in here to sell your soul to Ivan Pushkin. Just like the rest of them."

"Not you, too?" she murmurs. "Ivan this, Ivan that. Everyone can't get enough of the guy. Who even is he?"

I join her at the window, gazing down at the partygoers below. "Everyone is here because they want to marry him."

"I'm sure he thinks so." She wrinkles her nose and points at a paunchy man standing by the shrubs. "What about that one?"

I clock the person she's pointing at immediately. My mind whirrs and conjures up the relevant facts. Valmor Shundi. Albanian underboss. Likes his whiskey aged for seventeen years and his women for less than that.

"Him, too. The poor bastard has a nasty drug problem and is about to get caught for stealing money from his clients. He needs his daughters to secure a good match now before his name turns to shit."

"How do you know that?"

"I know everything." I point out the scrawny Italian man next to the stage. Again, my mind hums and pulls up what I need to know. Alfonso Marciano. A Rossi family underboss. Cokehead. "That one is into group sex with his boss and his wife."

"No way," she giggles. "He's wearing a pink polo with a popped collar. How is he having threesomes?"

"Foursomes, actually. He brings his own wife along." I point out the woman in the brown bedazzled dress who is scanning the lawn like a vulture. "Though I'm not sure you can criticize anyone else's appearance, all things considered."

She glances down at my suit jacket and winces shyly. "Fair enough. But I looked better before that asshole ripped my dress."

"Agree to disagree," I murmur.

I didn't actually intend to speak out loud, but that slipped out before I could stop it. Her blush is bright enough to see in the gloom.

"What about that one?" she asks, obviously changing the subject.

I follow her finger to see her singling out the emaciated blond hair of the one man I would have most preferred not to think about. The laughter disappears from my voice. "Konstantin Sokolov," I say quietly.

"You don't have any dirt on him?" she teases. "He's not, like, a terrible poker player or secretly into dressing up like a furry in his free time?"

No, I think to myself. He's the father of the woman I was supposed to marry.

"He's no one," I said out loud instead. "No one at all."

"Hm. Okay." She turns her head to the side, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. "Final question: what's your name?"

I have to admire her tenacity. She is really claiming she doesn't know who I am. I'm still not sure I believe her, but it is nice to be anonymous. If just for a few minutes.

"Tell me yours first."

"Or what?" she challenges.

"Or I'll kick you out for trespassing."

She narrows her eyes. "Are you sure you aren't head of security? You're on a real power trip."

My gaze doesn't waver from hers. The world shrinks around us. "I'll answer when you tell me who you are."

She hesitates for only a second. "Francia Delacour."

I flip through my mental rolodex of names and contacts and allies and enemies, but there is no Delacour as far as I can remember.

Frowning, I turn to the bar cart and grab two glasses. "Care for a drink, Ms. Delacour?"

"God, yes. But you don't get off that easily. You're supposed to tell me if you're the head of security or not."

I hold up my glass and take a sip. "If I was head of security, would I be drinking on the job?"

"If you were bad at your job, you might."

I pass the second glass to her. "I'm not bad at anything."

"I hate that I actually believe you." She tastes the drink and winces. "I also hate cognac."

"That's a three-hundred-dollar bottle."

"Ah. Well, in that case, it's the best thing I've ever tasted." She pastes on a big, fake smile. "Better?"

I'm sure I'll never see her again after tonight, so what the hell? Marriage is looming, and after everything that happened with Konstantin and Katerina Sokolov, I'm positive it will be an absolute fucking hellscape. Might as well enjoy myself while I still have the chance.

I clink my glass against the edge of hers in a toast to wherever this night is going to take us. "Much better."