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The “little black dress” to which she referred was the Versace black crepe safety pin dress.

It was the sexiest thing either of them had ever seen.

The sleeveless dress hit Emma mid-thigh and was accented with mismatched gold safety pins at the waist and hip.

Caroline had bought it for Emma on her credit card to avoid any questions from her father.

He was generous to a fault, but anything remotely provocative was frowned upon.

Emma garnered enough attention as it was, and a sexy dress only upped the ante.

Now the dress was laying on her bed next to a pair of strappy sky-high heels and a small box holding a pair of diamond hoops.

The outfit for the virgin sacrifice. She laughed to herself, then stopped abruptly, surprised by the term her thoughts had conjured: virgin.

It was a word she never used because it had no meaning for her.

She hated the word because the status of one’s virginity was inextricably linked to one’s past, and she couldn’t dwell on what she didn’t know.

Therapists encouraged her to embrace a term that expressed her “emotional virginity,” but Emma never could think of one.

Her shrink was not amused when she suggested “vaginal beginner” and “hymenal newbie,” so they let it slide.

She could be an actual virgin after all.

The point was that it shouldn’t matter, and if everything went according to plan, after tonight it wouldn’t.

She could pop her emotional and/or physical cherry and move on.

At this point, she just wanted to get the damn thing over with.

They had hours before she had to meet Tom.

JT, her driver and bodyguard, usually accompanied her out in the evening, but Caroline told him they were heading to a study group at a friend’s in the same building, so he had the night off.

She was on her own, and she was thrilled.

Caroline pulled up the zipper on the dress and bounced around to Katy Perry, while Emma sipped tentatively on the same glass of bubbly.

“Oh Jeez, Em, just drink it. One glass won’t have you cross-eyed. It’ll calm your nerves.”

She was right. Emma was nervous. For obvious reasons.

Emma left Caroline at Mother’s, their local bar, with some friends and ordered an Uber to head to the Jane Hotel.

As Tom had said, the bouncer, Fernand, was expecting her.

Not that she would have had any trouble getting in anyway—she never did— but that dress was like a VIP pass.

The group of people waiting gave a resigned sigh almost collectively as Emma deftly moved past them and entered the elegant bar.

Tom had a table he was guarding with his life, and she made a beeline for him.

When a guy at the bar grabbed her arm as she passed, not hard, just enough to stop her, Emma paused, stared at the hand on her bicep, and then slowly looked up at him with a perfected impassive glare.

Ice Queen indeed. He released her without a word, and she dropped into the seat across from Tom.

“Hey, Gorgeous. You look amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t know what you like, so I ordered you a white wine.”

She rarely drank. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

She drank in one of her self-defense classes.

Jay, her instructor, had insisted that she know how to do some of the moves “impaired,” as he put it, so he’d fed her three beers and then had her train on the mat.

She’d thrown up all over him. The wine did relax her, and they chatted effortlessly.

It took Emma nearly an hour to polish off the drink, and when she returned from the ladies’ room with a fresh coat of lip gloss, a second glass sat waiting.

What the hell. It was a big night.

It took her exactly four sips and ten minutes to realize what was happening.

Emma wasn’t normal. Her father, in an extreme effort to get control of their world, made sure of that, and at this moment, she was thankful for it.

Most girls would think the subtle blur of vision and the slight wave of nausea were due to nerves or too many drinks.

But she knew exactly what was happening.

She reached into her purse and texted her panic word, “lighthouse,” to JT, but he was off duty.

It could take him hours. She took a calming breath, keeping her heart rate as low as she could in her panic.

“I’ll be right back. I think I left my lip gloss in the bathroom.”

“I’ll go with you. You look pale.”

“No, no, I’m fine. Just dizzy from the wine, I guess. I’m a lightweight.”

She forced a giggle. That appeased him. He didn’t know she knew.

“Okay, I’ll be waiting.”

“Be right back,” she repeated.

Emma took deliberate steps. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Tom throw some cash on the table and pull a key card from his breast pocket.

She needed to focus on making her way down the hall.

She couldn’t get help in the bar; a stumbling, slurring girl in a bar would only bolster Tom’s ruse.

There was an elevator at the end, but as she made her way toward it, she stumbled and realized that it was exactly where Tom wanted her.

She needed help or a hiding place, and she needed it fast. Whatever he had slipped in her drink was strong.

The symptoms were hitting her fast. She moved down to a janitor’s closet.

Locked. She started moving frantically hand over hand, keeping her balance on the wall, avoiding looking at the nauseating pattern of the wallpaper as it started to blur.

Tom’s footsteps were heavy behind her as he closed in.

She got to another door, pushed it open, and stumbled into the room.

A group of surprised suits looked up as she blinked at them with terrified eyes. The man at the head of the table stood.

“Jesus, are you all right?”

“No. Help.”

She heard the man closest to her mutter, “she’s wasted.

” The man at the head of the table moved like a flash.

He was coming toward her, and she was losing her ability to discern whether she had put herself in more danger by stumbling into this room.

He seemed to float toward her, and Emma started to shake.

“Not drunk. Drunk,” she slurred. “Drugged,” she amended. “Help.”

“Jesus.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and she instantly calmed.

Emma tried to shake the fog out of her head, but it only got worse.

When she looked up, she saw three of him.

So, she looked straight ahead at his tie.

A cornflower blue tie that hung between the open sides of his dark suit jacket.

She grabbed it with both hands, crunching it in her fists.

She tried to remember her training, but all that came out was a plea.

“Please.”

He put his arm around her protectively and calmly spoke.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

And with that soothing notion, she passed out in his arms, still clutching his cornflower blue tie.

Emma woke up nineteen hours later in a hospital room that looked like a suite at the Ritz.

JT was standing at the side of the bed like a royal guard, a pissed-off royal guard.

He felt responsible for her indiscretion; she could feel his anger and guilt.

Her father dozed, ashen, in an upholstered leather armchair.

The night was a bit of a blur, and she ran through a timeline in her head to catch up.

She had as much of it recalled as she probably ever would.

Other than the mother of all headaches, she was otherwise uninjured.

When she lifted her arm, the one without the IV, to move an itchy strand of hair from her face, the final few moments before she blacked out came flooding back.

There, in her hand, was the cornflower blue tie, still knotted, with the length of it dangling down her forearm.

It was wrapped around her palm and knuckles.

JT informed her with a perplexed smirk that the nurses gave up trying to pry it from her, and the man, who had not given anyone his name, had ended up pulling it over his head and wrapping it around her hand as they wheeled her away on a gurney.

Completely unconscious, she had refused to let the thing go.