Page 22 of Pandora's Pleasure

She examined my hand and her eyes watered with the emotion of someone who hadn’t seen this coming. She’d virtually shoved me at the man at the Debutante Ball.

“They announced it in theTimes.” I studied her reaction. “You didn’t see it?”

She reached out to hold me. “I’m happy for you, Pandora.”

Relaxing a little, I hoped she wouldn’t smell champagne and cigarettes and sex on me. What would Mom think if she knew about those red silken ties? The ones that had made my wrists tingle deliciously.

“You look tired,” she said soothingly.

“Do you know why Damien might have been called back?” I asked.

My father appeared down the hallway. “Everything okay?”

“She has a ring,” Mom told him.

He approached us, peering over his spectacles at us as he passed by. Heading down the stairs, he said, “I’m going to get a nightcap.”

That’s strange.I hadn’t expected him to gush over the emerald, but actually taking the time to look at my ring would have been nice.

When he’d disappeared from sight, I asked, “Is he even happy for me?”

With a gesture, my mother offered to walk me to my room.

My throat tightened. “What happened?”

“Not here,” she whispered, as though hinting a wayward member of staff might overhear.

Just as we had on all those days since Jefferson had left home, we swapped a knowing glance when we reached my brother’s room. It was only used when he was in town because he lived in Texas.

My rambunctious older brother had hurtled loudly into manhood. I missed him, but his place was in Dallas running the business as the CEO of Bardot Petroleum. The role filled his days and gave him nightmares.

There were suffocating expectations for everyone living beneath this roof. This was the umbrella of doom we all huddled under.

Mom sat on the edge of the bed and patted the duvet so I would join her. It was a sweet gesture she’d begun using when I’d reached my late teens when she wanted to have a talk.

The gray hairs I saw now had softened her appearance, and so had the lines on her fiercely beautiful face. She had become gentler since entering her fifties, and not so insistent on everything going her way.

Sitting beside her with my head resting on her shoulder, it was easy to pretend we had always been this close.

“How did he seem?” she asked softly.

“Damien?” I swallowed hard at her potential disappointment. “Fine.”

She looked wistful. “I hear the views from his beach house are spectacular. Maybe we’ll come visit.”

“I’d like that.”

Thank goodness that bedroom in Damien’s house was tucked away—no chance of a wayward visitor wandering up there.

She rested her hand on mine. “Go talk to your father. Reassure him that you’ll do what you can, that you’ll talk to Damien. Maybe you’ll be able to persuade him to make this go away.”

“Make what go away?”

She looked worried. “During the party, your father was approached by Salvatore Galante.”

“The head ofReal Nation?”

Flinching, I realized what she was saying. “Did they clash?”