Page 9

Lex snorts. “Poor girls, so excited. I almost feel bad for them.”

“They have no fucking idea what they’re about to get into,” Pace adds. His hand falls to his lap, and he shifts his cock. “In four hours, one of them will sign their life away.”

“Yeah, they get no sympathy from me,” I say, noticing a new face emerge in the bottom left screen. “They’re just like all the other bitches in this town. Greedy gold-diggers, selling their body for the hope of experiencing the spoiled, lavish lifestyle of a Princess. They know what they’re doing.” I rest my hands on the back of Pace’s chair, trying to get a better look. The black and white video makes it impossible to confirm much about her features, like hair color. It’s not dark like the girl with the big tits, or the glaring white of some of the platinum blondes. Her face is cast down, but there’s something familiar about her.

“Okay, time’s up.” Lex says, taking a step back. “We need to get going.”

Pace moves to shut off the monitors, but I grab his shoulder. “Wait.”

The girl I’ve been watching shrugs out of her robe revealing a perfect, tight body. My limbs grow heavy as I watch her dress. First putting on a pair of those sexy panties, then the corset. When she reaches for the dress, I get a good look at her face and it hits me. “Red.”

Pace notices at the same time I do. It’s theclickagain, the feel of him tensing, the knowledge that his eyes are boring into her like lasers. I can practically hear his tongue running along the sharp edge of his teeth as the tendons in his wrist flex.

I know what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth.

“This one.” Pace flicks the screen and rises from his seat. “This one is mine.”

3

Verity

I’ve never beenin a house with its own ballroom, but the Purple Palace is rumored to be as close to a castle as anyone will find in a town like Forsyth. Everything is ornate, dipped in gold or draped in crystal. The ceilings are high, held up by round, Roman columns, and painted like a pale blue sky.

I can’t help but imagine the Dukes in here, like bulls in a china shop. They’d destroy it in a heartbeat.

My eyes can’t settle on any one thing. From the finely painted, antique ceilings to the chandeliers, the marble floors and the candelabras, it’s a while before my gaze even begins taking in the crowd.

Everyone in this room looks just like the tapestries on the walls.

Decorations.

A waiter passes, and I clumsily snag a glass of champagne from his tray—mostly to give my hands something to do. The dress hangs heavy and uncomfortable, the stays of the corset digging sharply into my ribs. The mask is secured behind my head and covers the majority of my face, curving over the bridge of my nose, leaving my mouth and eyes clear. Although it’s foolish, it makes me feel bold, as if no one knows who I am or where I’m from. Like maybe, only for tonight, I can be just another one of the potential Princesses.

And the thing is, it works. Whenever someone passes me, I can feel them looking, their eyes taking me in curiously, wondering if it’ll be me.

Easing back against the wall, I take a moment to observe them. There are eleven other girls in the running for Princess, but there are plenty of other women too. Some of their dresses are shimmery and metallic, but others are just a flat orange-yellow. Most seem older, maybe even past Princesses, and I realize they’re probably following an unspoken rule. The other candidates and I are in a pristine white, but every other woman is wearing gold.

Men outnumber us two-to-one. They’re all dressed in tuxedos, faces covered with the same basic black mask. It causes them to merge into one indistinct, shadowy blur.

Across the room, even in her mask, I recognize Lakshmi. She’s standing near a column, hand demurely toying at the neckline of her dress, eyelashes batting up at the man speaking to her. His forearm is pressed against the column and he leans into her–leers really, eyes zeroed in on her chest. He lifts his chin, giving me a better look at his face, the cut of his sharp jaw, and I’m struck with recognition. There are handsome men all over Forsyth, but none carry themselves with the same level of arrogance as golden-haired Whitaker Ashby.

I recoil at the memory of the night he cornered me after his win at Friday Night Fury. The wild intensity in his eyes. I couldn’t name it at the time, not when Nick and Lavinia stopped whatever he had planned to come next, but now I recognize that look for what it is; a dark mixture of anguished want.

No man had ever looked at me like that before.

The strains of a violin fill the room, the orchestra in the corner beginning a new song. A few men use this as a cue to ask women to dance. I watch curiously as a few decline, probably because they don’t know the mechanics of the waltz. I swallow the rest of my drink, the dry fizz burning the back of my throat, and look for a place to leave my empty glass.

“I’ll take that.”

Startled, I almost drop the glass, looking up to find a man. A tall, lean, but somehow still imposing man. His skin is pale, but other than the way his auburn hair is pulled up into a tidy knot, he looks like every other man here. His eyes are amber, lips turning up in a half smile that feels neither natural nor forced.Practiced.

I hand him the glass. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” He offers me his other hand, eyes dipping downward to my chest for the briefest of moments. “Would you like to dance?”

Wringing my hands, the urge to run is fierce. Every step into this situation seems closer to something I can’t come back from. But I came with a purpose, so I square my shoulders and look him in the eye. “That’d be nice, thank you.”

When he extends his palm, I only give it a brief glance before sliding my hand into it. I almost flinch again when I do, because his hand is cold.