I scowled at him as he set down his squirming youngest. Prudence came running over to me and I picked her up. She was the youngest of my nieces and nephews and, for some crazy reason, I was her godfather. Even after five years, I couldn't believe Samuel had managed to talk Hannah into it.
I focused on the girl's chatter as I went to join everyone else in the dining room. The other kids, ranging all the way up to Cecily's oldest, Tabitha, were sitting at the 'kids' table, though the older ones were looking quite unhappy at their placement. I sighed as I handed Prudence off to fourteen year-old Jonathan. He took his sister and then I was forced to join the adults.
My brothers-in-law both looked bored, but everyone knew how this worked. When my father said mandatory family time, he meant it for everyone. Both Gerald and Hamilton had money and prestige, but that was part of how this whole thing worked. All of the high society families in the city had to stick together. They'd talk behind each other’s backs, criticize and ridicule, but heaven forbid anyone try to infiltrate the circle.
I'd barely sat down when the doorbell rang and the butler showed the Stirling family in. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stirling had on the usual fake smiles that people in our social circle wore when they tried to pretend they were friends rather than just admitting it was all about the money and the name.
I did smile for real when I saw her though. Rebecca was hot. Light blond hair and hazel eyes. She was tall, but I was tall enough that she could wear heels and still need to tilt her head to look at me. She was a bit thinner than I liked. Not because I disliked slender girls, but because it was obvious it wasn't her natural build. I'd seen Ashlyn try to starve her curves so she looked more like our older sister Caitlyn. Rebecca didn't look healthy, but for all I knew it was stress. Considering the whispering I heard from my siblings, Rebecca had been put in charge of one of her family's companies when her older brother took off for Europe after some chick dumped him. Stress was a good possibility. I wondered if she knew why she was here.
“So you're Rebecca.” I gave her my most charming smile and pulled out the chair next to me. That earned me an approving look from my father and prompted an urge to flip someone off. I behaved myself though.
“And you're Blayne.” She smiled back, but it didn't reach her eyes.
That answered my unasked question. She knew our families had been discussing us getting married. I didn't blame her for being pissed. I was getting blackmailed. She was getting offered up like some sort of prize. Had to suck for her. Then again, she was getting me. It wasn't like I was repulsive.
Neither was she, I thought as she sat down and crossed her legs. Even on the thin side, she was hot and there was something about her that told me she was probably good in bed.
“I've heard of you,” she said as our parents started in on some conversation about mergers and the economy. “The Westmore's wild child.”
“Really?” I smiled and angled my chair so that my knee brushed against her thigh. “All good things, I hope.”
She cocked her head. “Depends on what you mean by good. I've heard you like to party.”
“True,” I said.
“And that you'll sleep with pretty much anyone who opens their legs.”
“Ouch.” I put my hand on my chest as if I was hurt by the claim and then I laughed. “Not entirely accurate, but not really inaccurate either.”
She reached for her wine glass and took a long drink. “I'm just wondering what would make someone like you agree to settle down.” She gestured to herself. “I'm far from unattractive, but agreeing to marriage seems a bit out of character based on what I know about you.”
I considered lying, but I figured she'd find out sooner or later. Better she heard it from me. “My father threatened to cut me off if I didn't straighten up. Part of that was getting married to a 'suitable woman’.”
Her laugh was brittle. “Nice that two families with money have to make it all about money.”
“What are yours using against you?”
She shrugged and drained her glass. “I wasn't my parent’s first choice to run their company. It had always been Reed – the chosen one. For the past month, I've been running things, but that's not enough for them. They want a merger with your family and I'm just a chess piece to be used.”
Wow, there was some serious bitter in that.
“Don't worry, Blayne,” she said with a tight smile. “I accepted my place in this world a long time ago.”
I didn't have a response for that. Rebecca didn't seem like the nicest girl in the world, but she certainly deserved better than a forced marriage. Especially to someone like me.
“Attention, please.”
My father's voice cut through all of the chatter. All eyes turned to him as the butler refilled our drinks.
“I'd like to propose a toast.”
Spiders crawled up my spine. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like what was coming next.
Dad held up his glass and everyone else followed suit, including me. I hoped this would be a generic speech about friendship and building bridges, but I doubted I'd be that lucky.
“To our future,” he said. “The Westmores and the Stirlings, joined together in business and in love. To Rebecca and Blayne.”
Judging by the startled expressions on my siblings' faces, Dad hadn't told them the plans.
“We're thinking a spring wedding,” Mrs. Stirling said with a smile toward Rebecca. “Pastels, of course.”
“We'll want to make the announcement in a couple weeks,” my mother added. “Benjamin and I were thinking we'd do something tasteful for the public, with specialized invitations for everyone who matters.”
“The guest list is going to be a nightmare,” Mrs. Stirling said. “We're going to have to find a huge venue if we want all the important people to be there.”
“Maybe a small reception then,” my mother countered. “Something personal, with just our closest friends.”
I couldn't keep the laughter in at that one. Everyone glared at me.
“Something funny, Blayne?” my father asked.
“Are any of my friends even going to be invited?” I asked. I glanced at Rebecca. One corner of her mouth twitched in an effort not to smile. “I'm assuming Benjamin and Samuel would be my groomsmen, but I don't suppose I'd get to choose anyone else. You're going to do that for me, right?”
“Blayne.”
I heard the warning note in my father's voice, but I didn't care. The anger I'd been keeping back bubbled up. I stood.
“You know what,” I said. “I don't think this is going to work for me.” I looked down at Rebecca. “Nothing personal, Becca. In fact, I think you deserve to be someone's first choice, not a bargaining chip.”
“That's enough.” My father slammed his hand down on the table.
“You're right,” I agreed. “That is enough. You can force me into marriage, but I'm not going to let you force anyone else into marrying someone like me. I'm a screw up, remember?” I made a decision and didn't second guess myself. “I'm not marrying her.”
Before anyone could react to my statement, I turned around and walked away. I was at the door before my dad started shouting at me to come back.
Four
Katka
I stretched out on my sister's bed as she dressed for work. We were quite the pair, the two of us. She was the older sister, the one who'd watched out for both of us since our parents had died. Actually, she'd watched out for me even before that. Livie Dusek was the perfect big sister. Me? I was the wild child, the younger one who sometimes needed her big sister to bail her out. Never out of anything serious, but I did have a knack of leaping before I looked.
“Katka.” Livie turned to look at me. “I just made that bed.” Her tone was faintly chiding, her accent thickening as it did whenever she spoke to me.
We'd been born in the Czech Republic, raised there both before and after our parents' death. When Livie turned seventeen, she'd gotten a modeling job and everything changed for us. She'
d toured Europe for a few years, getting us both out of the orphanage we'd spend most of our lives. That's when we'd finally had enough money to get to America. We'd been here for three years and I knew I'd never go back. It wasn't home anymore. My sister was home.
“Katka!” she spoke more sharply. “My bed.”
“I’ll make it again for you,” I promised. When she raised her eyebrow at me, I grinned, grabbed her sheet and pulled it off the edge of the bed.
“Fena,” she said affectionately.
“Must you go to work today?” I asked and faked a pout. “It’s a beautiful day. We should spend it together. It’s supposed to snow later this week.”
Livie's dark green eyes narrowed. “You know I cannot do that.” She scowled at me as she pulled her caramel-colored curls back into one of her usual ponytails.
“If you had taken the job with the modeling agency, you would not need to work at that place.” I pointed out. I twisted my own curls up so they cushioned my head.
“I am not starving myself for the American standard of beauty,” she countered. “We have already had this discussion.”
I sighed. She was right. We were both slender, but not gaunt. She exercised, but for health rather than weight. She had learned rather quickly that here, it wasn’t good enough. I sat up. “Maybe I should come with you.”
“That is a bad idea.” Livie said as she smoothed down her shirt. “Do you remember the last time you accompanied me to work?”
I laughed. I did indeed. It hadn't been at Livie's current place of employment. She had worked at a bar and grill as a waitress. I had gone in to see her and had a drink while I was waiting. One drink had turned into more and I accidentally slept with her married boss. His wife – and part-owner of the bar – had been so angry at what I'd done, she had fired Livie as retaliation.
“I do not believe that was an amusing story, little Kat.”
Despite her words, I heard the humor in her voice. Plus, she never called me by my nickname when she was truly angry. She had not liked her job there. The man I had slept with had always been hitting on her and she had threatened to out him to his wife, but had never followed through. I loved my sister, but she was often too soft about certain things. If it had been me in trouble, she wouldn't have hesitated, but to defend herself... she rarely acted.
“You didn’t think it was amusing to watch his wife catch us?” I asked.
There was a hint of a smile playing about her lips now and I knew she was remembering how the woman had screamed and cursed, throwing things at us both. I'd narrowly missed being hit in the head with a bottle of very expensive vodka. Her husband hadn't been so lucky. The bottle had hit him right above his eye and he'd been knocked out cold.
“Will you please behave yourself while I am gone?” She turned toward me. “No parties, no bringing men back to the apartment.”
“Would I do that?” I smiled and blinked, all innocence.
She raised an eyebrow, trying to maintain a stern look that didn't last more than a few seconds before she laughed. I loved making her laugh. It reminded me of her as a child, before everything bad happened, back when she had been as happy and carefree as I still was. After we had been sent to the orphanage, she had changed. She’d taken it upon herself to ensure she had the means to care for us both. She studied rather than played, taught herself everything she could learn, searched for every opportunity to make it. She hadn't even wanted to be a model, but the money had been too good to pass up. She had known it would be our best chance of getting to the United States. Girls like us, if we didn't have the money to come, ended up in a sweatshop or worse. We were pretty enough to be mail order brides, as we had been told more than once, but we knew that the chances of that ending well were not good. Modeling had been risky enough. I had offered to do it instead, but she had refused, saying I was her responsibility.
I had told her more than once that I didn't need her to care for me, that I was quite capable of caring for myself, but she always put me first. I tried to return the favor, but she never allowed it. I wanted, more than anything, for her to be able to live her dreams. Unfortunately, there was only one thing that I knew she wanted. From a young age, the only thing she had ever truly wanted to do was design clothes. And that, I knew, was not a realistic dream.
Livie was talented. She had designed clothes in the orphanage for all the children, reusing the material from the government-issued drab uniforms we had all been given. While nothing had been able to make those things stylish, Livie had managed to make them more bearable. She had tried to pitch her designs to the people she modeled for, but they had never wanted to hear it. It had been her job to stand there and look beautiful, not to think.
That was part of the problem, I supposed. In Europe, she hadn't been just a pretty face. She had been an orphan, a ward of the state as was the common term here. We had all been educated, but no one ever truly saw kids like us as the kind who would contribute to society in any true way. In America, I had hoped things would be different, but I saw that while some of the details may have been different, the results were generally the same. It always made me angry when people assumed that because we had accents, we were unintelligent. Okay, so I hadn't done well in school, but I wasn't stupid. Livie, however, was brilliant. She had gotten straight A's and was even looking into online or night courses to receive a business degree. No one worked harder than my sister.
I just worried that this was something that couldn't be accomplished by sheer determination and hard work. There were many types of occupations that relied more on who you knew, how much money you had or who you were willing to sleep with to get ahead than they did on real talent. I had seen enough American movies to know this to be true. The fashion industry was similar. I loved my adopted country, but there were plenty of people who looked down on foreigners – ironic, I had always thought – as well as those who had more respect for those who had been born into money than those who worked hard to earn it.
“Do you ever wish we had not come here?” I asked Livie, curious.
“No,” she answered immediately. “We needed a fresh start, away from the bad memories.”
“We could have gone anywhere in Europe,” I pointed out. “Paris is known for its fashion, and you had liked it.”
Livie frowned. “As is New York. And that’s where I want to work.”
“But we do not live in New York.” I pressed the matter. “Perhaps, instead of working as a bartender here, we should move to the city and find work there.”
Livie shook her head. “We have discussed this. Philadelphia is the best location. Close enough to New York that travel is easy, but less expensive for us to live, which means more money to finance my studio.”
Ah, yes, the studio. My sister and I had talked about it many times. She was convinced that she could rent a studio and start making her own clothes, fine dresses and evening wear. Perhaps even wedding gowns at some point. She had an entire business plan that if I knew anything about business, I was sure would look impressive. Then again, none of the banks she had gone to seemed to think she was a good investment.
I climbed off the bed and wrapped my arms around her, resting my chin on her shoulder. “I just do not want to see you hurt.”
“I know.” She squeezed me once before releasing me and stepping away.
I tried not to take it personally. Livie not only didn't smile like she had as a child, she rejected most forms of physical contact. She didn't freak out or anything like that, she just didn't like physical shows of affection. She had when we were kids, before our parents had died. I still remembered us racing to our father when he'd come home from work, competing to see who would get to him first. She had won more often than not and he would pick her up, spinning her around until she was shrieking with laughter. I missed that.
“I do not want to be late,” she said.
The way she worried about her appearance and promptness, one would think she had a job in some prestigious office an
d not serving alcohol to entitled rich kids. I'd thought she'd been joking when she'd told me where she'd gotten a job. I hadn't been able to imagine my reserved, serious sister being any good at bartending. I hadn't taken into account that her desire to be the best at whatever she did overcame all other personality traits. I'd asked her once, a couple weeks after she'd gotten the job, how she did it. How did she make small talk and act friendly enough to get the generous tips she brought home? Her answer was simple. She said she merely asked herself what I would do in that situation, and as long as it wasn't sleeping with someone or burning down the bar, she went with it. I sometimes considered sneaking in to watch her work if only to see her behave in such an uncharacteristic way.
“I am closing tonight, so do not wait up,” she said. “Behave.” She pointed a finger at me and raised her eyebrows. “And re-make my bed.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, Livie.” Older sisters could be such a pain in the ass sometimes. But I wouldn't trade her for the world.
Five
Blayne
The sun had already set when I stepped outside and the late January wind had a bit of bite to it. I rarely paid attention to the weather report most of the year, but during the winter, I generally checked it going into the weekend.
When I was twenty, I'd ended up getting snowed in with a stage-one clinger who'd thought that because I couldn't drive home through a foot and a half of snow, I wanted to marry her. I'd eventually ended up wading through snow up to my knees and about froze my balls off just to get away from her. After that, I'd made sure that if a storm was coming, my plans involved booze and drugs, not sex. I'd rather be left getting myself off than go through that insanity again.
I got into my car and headed back into the city without any real idea of where I wanted to go. I'd expected dinner to go badly enough that I'd want some sort of outlet when it was done, but I'd figured I'd either make a play to get my 'fiancee' in bed or go to a club to find an easy hook up. Maybe even see if Angelique was working again. Fidelity couldn't be expected in an arranged marriage, especially during the engagement period.