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."

CORA

The draft in this jacket is unbearable. It's made even worse by the bedroom eyes the owner of the jacket keeps tossing my way.

Come to think of it, those bedroom eyes are exactly why the draft is so unbearable. No underwear, arousal, a draft-it's a bad combo.

As I see them, the problems are several-fold. One, I'm butt-naked in a borrowed suit jacket. This is not what we in the female empowerment business like to call "the command position."

Two, I don't know this man. He could be head of security, he could be a clown out of costume, he could be a spy on a secret mission from the Kremlin. Who knows? Not me.

Third, and most importantly, I am butt-naked in a borrowed suit jacket. I think that point bears repeating.

My brain keeps drifting to how much Francia's Vera Wang must've cost. Every time it does, I make myself take another sip of disgusting, expensive cognac and wonder how on earth I'm going to pay her back.

"More?"

The man's huge hand is already halfway around the glass when I realize what he's asking. His fingers brush mine and I jerk my arm back like I've been electrocuted. The only reason the glass doesn't crash to the floor is because the man has Superman-like reflexes and snatches it out of mid-air.

"No, that's okay." I shake my head, cheeks burning. "Thanks, though. For the drink. The first one."

And for sending my groper off with his tail between his legs. And for the jacket. And for not kicking me out the door in my birthday suit.

The debts between us are piling up. I should thank him for everything he's done, but I can't bring myself to do it. Because I could have gotten myself out of this mess.

I should have, anyway. Sitting back and letting a man swoop in to rescue me is so not my story anymore. No Prince Charmings. No Happily Ever Afters.

Admittedly, I do have one too many evil stepparents, but that's as far as the similarities go.

Prince Testosterone is tinkering around behind me at the bar as I step over the destroyed dress and further out onto the balcony. The evening air is warm and balmy. A babble of cross-talking voices rises straight up from the crowd below.

"Where is he? I heard he might be watching in from the security cameras. Do I look okay?"

"I haven't seen Ivan once since I got here. I doubt he's even here. Men like him never come to their own parties."

"Portia got her boobs done. As if that is why Ivan has never looked twice at her. Forget her horse teeth and beige personality; she thinks it was the boobs. Get fucking real."

The Ivan talk is really blowing my mind. It's like he could snap his fingers and give every female on the property an instant G-spot orgasm. I've been around plenty of pompous, overstuffed peacocks in my time, but none of them have ever drawn this kind of devotion.

Maybe I should stick around and find out who this guy is.

No sooner does the thought cross my mind than do I see a man separate from the crowd below. He steps out, then cranes his neck to look up at the string lights hanging overhead.

"Boris must be hoping he can liquor Ivan up enough to convince him to marry. Why else would there be endless trays of champagne without a bite to eat in sight?"

I duck back out of sight and hold my breath. I hope to God I hid in time. Saying my heart is in my throat isn't a metaphor. I can taste the blood. The iron tang of fear.

Because I'd recognize that voice anywhere.

And if my monster of a stepfather sees me here, there's no telling what he'll do.

"Either that," he drawls, "or he's hoping a respectable woman will get drunk enough to forget that Ivan is a fucking sadist."

My stepfather's voice fades away as he moves through the crowd, but I stay put. I can't move. I can barely breathe.

It's been years since I've been that close to him. Could he sense how near I was? Did his skin crawl with disgust like mine did?

I doubt that very much. Why would it?

Monsters never run from their prey.

7

CORA

"You look spooked."

The voice behind me upsets the delicate balance I'm striking in these heels. I fall forward, catch myself on the railing, and then jerk myself right back to make sure my stepfather doesn't catch sight of me. The breeze is cold in all the wrong places.

I sort myself into something resembling stability. "Huh?"

"That look on your face. Like you just saw a ghost."

"I'm fine. No ghosts. I'm just having second thoughts about that drink." I've already had a bit more than my usual night out allowance, but I'll do anything to spend a few more minutes in this room, safe from the boogeyman of my past.

I need time to come up with an escape plan.

"Alcohol is not going to improve your situation," he remarks as he turns to the bar to pour me a second drink anyway.

"What situation is that?"

He looks back over his shoulder, dark eyebrow arched. "Do you actually need me to explain it?"

I grit my teeth. "You wanna know something? You play the hero type-saving me from a drunk man downstairs and offering your jacket-but you're kind of an asshole."

"Only 'kind of'?

"Oh, I'm sorry. Would you rather be a full-blown asshole?"

He walks over with a smirk and a fresh drink. "If you're going to do something, you might as well commit."

I grimace, but I take the drink and throw half of it back. The alcohol burns going down. It still tastes terrible, but I'm not in this for the flavor profile. If I'm going to walk out of this room with my bits and bobs hanging out of a borrowed suit jacket, I need a little liquid courage.

"Now," he continues, "are you going to keep trading barbs or are you going to tell me why you looked so scared just now?"

I shake my head. "I'm not scared."

Not anymore, at least.

I have no desire at all to see my stepfather or relive any portion of my past, but I'm not scared of him. I escaped and he hasn't caught me yet. As far as I'm concerned, that means I've won.

"You saw something. Or someone. I want to know who it was."

"No one. It was nothing. I just, uh...tripped." I lift one leg to show off my heels. "It's what I get for wearing impractical footwear. I should always remember to wear shoes I can run in."

"You say that as if you're always getting ready to run."

I turn. He is so much closer than he was a second ago. The world fades away as he shifts into stark focus.

His lips are curved and gorgeous. I didn't notice it before, but black ink marks swirl out of the collar of his shirt, whirling around his thick neck. "You have tattoos."

"You're changing the subject."

"So did you. Earlier. It makes me think you're hiding something."

"I am," he admits freely. "But I'm not lying to you. Are you lying to me, Francia?"

The false name lands with an awkward clunk between us. "No."

He moves even closer. "Did you see your boyfriend down there in the crowd? Maybe a husband? You have a guilty look about you."

"You recognize that look, hm? Maybe that's why you know so much about everyone else's affairs-because you're the one causing them."

"I don't know a thing about you or yours." His gaze drips down my face like honey, slow and sweet. "Who are you?"

I bite my lip and turn back to the doorway. I take a slow step forward. Then another. My stepfather is gone, so I can let myself relax against the doorframe like I don't have anything to hide. "I'm no one's wife or girlfriend, I can promise you that. And unlike everyone else here, I have no desire to be. I'm okay on my own."

"I don't believe you."

I snap my attention to him. "Excuse me?"

"I don't believe you. You saw someone in the crowd. But if you don't want to tell me, so be it. I don't care who it was."

I should deny it, but he can see straight through me. "Why not?"

"Because there's not a single person at this party who can stop me from doing what I want."