Page 137 of Morally Black Betrothal

And so, I made a decision.

“I’m going to find the ladies’ room,” I told Patrice and Camille, then slipped around the catering table so I could duck out of the party without being stopped for the two hundredth time and find a quiet corner to myself inside the house.

“House,” of course, was a vast understatement, I thought as I wove through a wave of caterers emerging from the kitchens. Plural. The Blacks’ Newport residence included enough art and land and buildings to fill a small country. It was the size of a hotel and could have fit an airplane under the fifty-foot ceilings of the great hall entrance.

Being here, among their peers, made me realize this kind of wealth bred not just confidence but a sort of nasty entitlement.You could see that most of them simply thought they deserved their wealth, that they deserved to have this much excess while so much of the world struggled.

It was why I hadn’t been able to stop myself before Mr. Black’s speech.

I knew it was a mistake correcting Brendan’s family on their perceptions of him, but the mere suggestion that no one would want Brendan for anything other than his money made my blood boil. I couldn’t have done anything else but defend him.

Even though the look in his eyes after had confused me even more than before.

The longing I’d seen.

The desire.

The knowledge that it was undoubtedly reflected in my own expression when I popped up to kiss him for everyone to see.

The fact that in that moment, I hadn’t been faking anything I’d said or done at all.

I crossed through one of the living rooms that held two more chandeliers along with three living rooms worth of furniture and went searching for the southern grand staircase (yes, there were multiple in this house) that would lead to the residence wing of the mansion. Brendan had told me that his suite was the third door from the top. I turned out of the main foyer down a corridor Ithought would take me in the right direction, only to find Brendan in deep discussion with Shea and Ronan at the far end.

And by the looks on all of their faces, I doubted they wanted to be disturbed.

Instinct guided me into a doorframe behind a large ficus, where I wouldn’t be seen.

“I mean, she’s fine, definitely. You polished your penny up real nice, man,” Ronan was saying. “But she’s just a piece of ass. No reason to marry her.”

I scowled. None of Brendan’s siblings would win any courtesy awards, but Ronan was a real piece of work. I had lost count of how many creative ways he had managed to insult my background. Others were clearly charmed by his floppy curls and dashing smile, but I thought he was a jerk.

“Did you really think Daddy was going to hand you the company because you got engaged?” asked Brendan’s sister, Shea, whom I’d still barely interacted with. “He didn’t say that to me when I got proposals from Ryan Vanderbilt andtwoKushner cousins last year.”

“That’s because no one wants their grandchild to look like a Kushner,” Ronan told her. “They all look like thumbs.”

“Thumbs who marry supermodels.”

“It’s not like that,” Brendan said. “You make it sound like some kind of dirty scheme, and it’s not. We’re engaged. It had nothing to do with Dad’s speech.”

There was a long pause. One long enough to let me know that Brendan was as disappointed as I thought about his father’s announcement, but also that his siblings didn’t believe him.

I didn’t know Mr. Black, but it had been obvious from the beginning of that speech that he was toying with his children. Brendan undoubtedly knew it too, but clearly, he still hadn’t managed to keep his expectations low.

I hated that he still had hope in such a loathsome person. At the same time, I understood it.

“So, then what’s the problem?” Ronan asked. “You’re doing what he wants, aren’t you? You heard him before the speech—he’s fucking over the moon for you and Bed Pan Barbie.”

“Ronan, I swear to God, I’m going to knock out your goddamn teeth if you make one more crack about her. Ask Owen. He already got a shiner once.”

“I’m just saying that speech was a test. For you. For all of us. But you’re already the top of the class. You walk down theaisle with your little bride and start pumping out babies, I’m sure the crown will be yours in no time. The rest of us don’t stand a chance.” Ronan couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his jokes this time.

Still, Brendan didn’t seem consoled. “You don’t understand. I can’t—I don’t want to put Simone through this. Dad’s games. The parties, the speeches. Being paraded around like a fuckin’ trophy. It’s beneath her.”

Behind the ficus, I frowned. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d hired me to do? Why doubt our purpose now when it was achieving his goals?

“Yeah, but you know what happens if you two don’t play Daddy’s games,” Shea said. “You saw what happened to me when I stopped.”

I listened curiously. What exactly did she mean by that?