The Dare Collection February 2020

The old Erika would have screamed back at her, which was what Chriszette wanted. The more of a mess her daughter was, the more she could make herself the maternal victim. The old Erika had known this as well as the current Erika did, but this was the first time that Erika did nothing but smile back at Chriszette. And fail to otherwise react.

A faint frown creased her mother’s brow. “No one likes a born loser, Erika,” she said. “But as you know, they are often dazzled by a whore.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Erika said, and she was shaking a little, but she didn’t let it own her. The choice was hers, and she chose to let far more powerful things make her cry. Because he always sweetened that pot with a few orgasms. She nodded her mother. “I bow to your example, as always.”

And her mother’s lover appeared then, cutting off whatever vicious reply Chriszette might have planned to make.

The car swept them off for the long drive to Jenny’s father’s estate, where the party was being held in as much ancient, feudal splendor as possible. Right down to the selling of the bride, if Erika wanted to get technical.

And it wasn’t until she’d followed her mother up the grand stairs that led into the soaring hall, then waited her turn while Chriszette left her coat and fluttered all over her lover, that Erika found herself attacked by her own nerves.

She told herself not to be silly.

Which…didn’t really work.

After handing off her own coat, she drifted toward the grand ballroom. Chriszette liked to make an entrance, so the party was already in full swing as she swept inside.

Erika, for perhaps the first time in her life, didn’t particularly want to make a scene. So instead, she headed farther into the house, toward one of the less trafficked entrances to the ballroom. Then she stood there for a moment. Jenny was moving through the crowd, looking beautiful and bright and elegant, as always. Jenny’s father trailed along with her, looking puffed up and proud—an upgrade from his usual puffed up and pompous.

And then Erika saw her brother, looking as grim and determined as always.

It had been one thing to find a lovely dress. To take on faith that her mother was wrong and Dorian was right. That she had more to offer than too much skin on display at an otherwise excruciatingly proper party like this one, teeming as it was with the sorts of people who appeared regularly in Tatler, yet found their presence in its pages appalling.

She found it was one thing to do the things she’d done with Dorian, and admit the truths he’d wrung out of her.

But it would be something else again to look her brother in the eye. Then apologize for not only disappointing him, but for going out of her way to disappoint herself, too. And then taking it out on him. For years.

Her stomach twisted, then plummeted to the marble floor at her feet.

She must have been kidding herself. Or so hopped-up on endorphins that she’d forgotten that Conrad was hardly anybody’s idea of the sweet, genial older brother. He wasn’t the sort to kick a football about or help his younger sister with her maths. On the contrary, Conrad was a dark cloud of a man. He was so severe. So exacting. And he had a way of looking at a person that reminded Erika of their mother when she was poised to strike. Only worse, because Chriszette prized meanness.

Conrad valued accuracy.

And either way, Erika would end up with a hole punched straight through her.

There was absolutely no way that she could march up to him, make herself vulnerable and expose herself before that piercing blue stare of his.

The very idea made her want to curl up and die. Here and now.

She whirled around, thinking she would just grab her coat, call a car and leave all of this behind her—

But she slammed into a wall.

Except it wasn’t a wall, she realized as two hands caught her shoulders, and she tipped her head back to look up acres of broad chest packed into black tie.

It was Dorian.

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