Between the Shadow and the Soul - 36

[courtneybelle]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
La Reine est morte, vive la Reine

Teddy looked from my glittering reflection to his jaunty bow tie and back.

“We're both all sparkly,” he lamented.

I brushed my fingers across the lines of my dress's boned bodice and tilted my head the better to examine the clean cut of his crisp black wool mohair two-button tuxedo. It fit him like a hemmed and tailored suit of armor, the shoulders sharper than the edge of a QVC gimmick knife, the slim pleated evening shirt blindingly white, the tie a multi-colored starry night sky on black silk twill.

“What is it with you and Gucci?” I wondered aloud, turning on my suede leather-wrapped heels to adjust his black satin lapels. Even the impeccably shined leather shoes on his feet had silver Gucci horsebits strung through their fronts.

He shrugged and ran his fingers through his already stylishly haphazard hair. “I'm too young to wear Yves Saint Laurent.”

“Well, either way,” I patted his chest when I was satisfied with his appearance, and went back to obsessing over perfecting my own, “you look very George Clooney.”

“George Clooney?” Teddy made a face and tweaked his bow tie so it looked as though he had tied it without any regard for its evenness. “Can't I be Brad Pitt?”

“Non,” I answered solemnly. “Only Brad Pitt can be Brad Pitt.”

We were in the middle of my very crowded (color-coded) walk-in closet, amidst mountains of pretty shoes and short party dresses I had carefully considered and arbitrarily discarded over the previous hour and a half. The one I had finally settled on was a strapless, shimmering study in lustrous onyx and its precious metal colors composed a pixel-perfect print. The notched bust had origami folds to show off the positive effects of my silky La Perlas, and its voluminous pleated skirt swished just right when I twirled.

I wanted to make a statement to all the Constance Billard girls who had texted and called in with their support, and obviously I wanted it to be better than whatever Saffron showed up in. Oh, plus I wanted to ring in 2028 looking my absolute best; so my makeup was impeccably smoky, my hair was in a loosely wavy bun with whimsical tendrils glancing across my bare shoulders, and my shoes added exactly 3.25 inches to my height.

I had foregone earrings because I hated wearing them in dead winter and feeling icy medal against my skin, and instead was sifting through a jingling drawer full of filigree baubles and diamond-encrusted bands. None of them, however, would ever possibly do.

There were roughly forty-five minutes before the official beginning of Scarlett's fashionable izakaya New Year's Eve party, and if Teddy and I wanted to be in the West Village on time (read: fifteen minutes late at the earliest) we would need to call the limousine around and get going...

...Just as soon as I made a final decision about my accessories.

Right on cue, daddy appeared from around the corner, dark and coiffed and dashing in classic Yves Saint Laurent, and leaned against the chambranle. There was a half-empty tumbler of single malt in his right hand which was of no use to me because I was terrible at drinking whisky, and a chunky gold necklace dangling from his left which looked like it would go tragically well with my ensemble.

“Papa!” I beamed, and his lips quirked slightly in response. I tried to say his new name as often as possible whenever we spoke, to make up for all the years it had gone unspoken. “Gold does not go avec ton couleur à tous les, j'ai peur.”

“Then it must not go with your coloring either,” he joked, tossing the necklace so that it landed in my waiting palms. Up close, I recognized it as the gift Aunt Jenny had sent me for Christmas, an offering from her burgeoning accessories line, J.

“Do not be silly,” I admonished, doing up the shepherds hook at the back of my neck and admiring the way the pendant settled in just the right oversized way on my décolletage, in luminous discs that formed a fiery pyramid beneath grand orbs of gold. I added a deep velvet green tuxedo-inspired jacket for warmth, and I was officially dressed. “My complexion is much better than yours.”

“It's Blair's,” he mused, mostly to himself.

He was not as closed-lipped about his feelings for ma mère as she was about the entire subject of him. I knew that if I asked, he would tell me all about how they fell in love, maybe entertain me with a few horror stories about some of the more tame antics they had gotten up two as the scheming nouveau riche king and WASP queen of the Upper East Side, and he would do so with a boyish grin on his face and a happy twinkle in his eyes - the same deep, calculating and deceptively reflective eyes he had passed on to me. But, when pressed, he would say only that the details of her departure were maman's business and only she could explain herself with any accuracy.

Teddy shifted so he could fish his cell phone from his pocket and pretend he hadn't heard that name leave our father's lips. He was still getting used to the fact that his mother was not cold and dead but vibrant and alive, out there somewhere, a stranger with a face not unlike his own - and that she was entirely inaccessible to him. It was not me that he could not adjust to, because the two of us had fallen into the role of bickering siblings rather admirably, but the fact that his family should be complete, but wasn't.

I knew exactly how he felt.

Daddy had his own party to go to that evening, with more civilized, adult people like his step-mother Lily, members of the Bass Industries board, and even Aunt Serena and my godfather. Aunt Jenny would, instead, be at a party being thrown for her at her design house's Fashion Avenue headquarters. Apparently, Nate had officially moved all of this things out of the Archibald townhouse and into the penthouse of daddy's Empire Hotel, and he would remain there until Aunt Jenny found some other place to live. Then, as far as daddy could tell, when Nate could move back in at E. 74th Street, they would file jointly for a clean-cut 50/50 divorce.

My thoughts immediately went to Lux. She had not contacted me since the cotillion, not even to offer her congratulations or her loyal service as my right-hand lady-in-waiting. The sting I had felt at her betrayal was still fresh in my memory, but I was no longer so passionately unforgiving. She was only a freshman, after all, and an impressionable one at that. Who knew what tactics Saffron had employed to get her to spill my intimate family secrets?

Besides, the joke was on Saffron now that I was living my dream.

I would seek Lux out at the party and offer an olive branch. Or, failing an actual olive branch, a box of hand-rolled dip dye Hermès scarves to replace the gang of Juicy Couture travesties in her wardrobe. We could probably take a detour and swing by the boutique on Madison Avenue before winding our way to 8th Avenue and down to Hudson below Morton... If it was closed, I could call Martina and have her send someone to open the shop for me.

“I'll see you two tomorrow. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.” Daddy polished off the remainder of his Johnnie Walker's and set the Baccarat crystal down on top of the mirrored dresser. Teddy waved from where he had settled on my white chaise lounge, but I skipped over to papa and gave him a huge hug and two air kisses (I was wearing very delicate lipstick).

“Au revoir, papa.”

Sometimes, I felt like if I pinched myself, I would wake up in Lyon with a pony and a picture and a papère and grand-père and Dorota and maman, but no père or frère. In Teddy's limousine, I watched the sights flicker past and wondered why it had been necessary to trade one life for the other.

Why couldn't I - we, Teddy and I - have it all?

It had been days since my triumph over daddy's safe, but I had not been able to use what I had found. There were always too many people around - a maid cleaning in the hallway, a valet shining shoes downstairs, daddy hard at work in his office, or Teddy rooted in his enormous entertainment room shooting pool and playing video games with Lex. I had been forced to leave my new ammunition in the back of the safe, where it would stay until I could find a quiet moment to take it out of its mahogany box and finally, hopefully, conclude my long search for answers.

The party was pretty lively when Teddy and I entered the Japanese brasserie, which Scarlett had rented out for a truly spectacular Constance Billard-St. Jude's exclusive holiday bash. Everything was darkened, lit only by glowing paper lanterns and festively chic fairy lights, and people milled in and out of the various rooms carrying drinks from the bar or little snacks from the beautiful spread laid out in the main dining room. I caught a few people with their shoes off, but decided mine would most certainly stay on - we weren't actually in Japan, after all, and my shoes were an important part of my stunning outfit.

“Teddy!”

A voice called my brother's name over the music, and suddenly Scarlett appeared from the midst of a group of chatting party-goers and wrapped her arms around his neck in a delightedly adorable greeting. He looked more than a little stunned; even though they had been official for 13 days (he mentioned the count every morning over brunch), he still couldn't quite believe he was dating the girl of his dreams.

I gave Scarlett a smile and left them to their own smoochy devices. It was best not to interrupt a couple in the throes of sickening young love. I did allow myself one short, gloating look before departing; after all, I had played the most integral role in bringing them together.

Feeling smug at yet another enormous check in my ever-expanding column of positives, I ordered a ginger martini from the cutest boy behind the restaurant's bar, and made my way through the throngs of people in search of a certain head of blonde hair.

Saffron, who had gotten it right for once in a short ruffled cocktail dress and blueish-gray heels, was standing right in the middle of my path, as she always seemed to do. Spidery long legs and ice blue eyes and all, she seemed even less impressive than ever without a single accessory and her glossy hair piled on her head in a careless bun.

That hadn't exactly been the 'head of blonde hair' I had been looking for. I needed to learn to be more specific with my goal statements.

“New girl,” she greeted, clinging to her last shred of superiority. Without her gaggle of minions flanking her sides and puffing up her importance levels, her mask of bravado was as comical as a commedia-style farce.

“Old girl,” I said in response.

I sensed she had some sort of speech prepared, perhaps a stirring declaration of resignation or some heartfelt proclamation about how she was just like every other girl in the world and only ever wanted to be loved and admired because her parents were never around to do that for her, but it was easy for me to pretend like those four monosyllabic words were all that we owed each other. She had been Tristan's ticket through the Palace doors the night of the debutante ball, she had tried to speed along the completion of his wicked plan.

She had destroyed my bicycle.

We did not like each other and we never would.

The verdict was in, and I had won. Why drag her torture out? It was much easier to act like she had never existed.

Besides, I had better things to do than indulge her.

The old Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.

So, I shouldered past her and into the humming lounge area, where I hoped Lux might be standing at-the-ready with my new courtiers. But Cordelia and Laurel told me they hadn't seen her all night, while Anneliese, Nicole, and Carolyn (I had finally managed to learn their names!) all agreed she was flitting around somewhere in one of the more secluded rooms.

I checked both tatami rooms, where most of the shoeless cretins had gathered to down their sake drinks, pass around a single designer joint, and be generally uproarious, and was glad to see that my god sister had not gotten caught up in that undignified revelry. The room down the hall was a little more smoke free, though no less crowded; four chairs surrounded a small square table that was already littered with empty glasses and soiled napkins, and against the dark wood-paneled wall was a four-person couch upon which seven people were somehow sitting.

Lex and Julian waved as best they could from the middle of the fray, and I stopped my searching to squeeze through the sliding doors and over to their precarious perch.

“Bonjour, little lovebirds,” I kissed both of them on their cheeks, and gave my god brother an understanding little smile, which he met with a pair of glazed over sky blue eyes. I didn't agree with his chosen method of coping, but I did understand that he probably thought he needed it now more than ever. Though I had never been in the thick of a highly-publicized society divorce, I did know what it was like to be a child of a broken family and to feel, above all, that it was entirely your fault. “How is the party?”

Lex took my hand in his and squeezed it lightly, while Julian wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in so that I could sit across their laps. “Très fantastique, ma petite sushi roll.”

“Tu êtes très stupide,” I rolled my eyes at his abysmal pronunciation.

“Mais,” Julian picked up the pendant of my necklace so he could examine it, “tu m'aimez.”

“Stop butchering my language,” I commanded, swatting his hand away. Then, I straightened his tie for him and asked, “Have you seen Lux?”

Julian slid his hand back over Lex's open palm and nodded at another set of sliding doors. I pecked him once more on his cheek in silent thanks, blew his boyfriend another little kiss (and made a mental note to check up on the poor thing throughout his parents' divorce proceedings), and then gracefully managed to set both my feet back on the ground without showing any of the assembled prep school perverts the more intimate sections of my sheer, patterned tights.

The room she had chosen to hide out in was like a little library, lined with shelves adorned with antique Japanese books and pottery; the ceiling arched high overhead, with woodwork patterns crisscrossing over white curved panels, and everything was illuminated by a single bamboo lamp. Lux was sitting in the corner, perusing the pages of one of the novels even though I was certain she didn't know one scrap about reading kanji.

“Hello,” was all I said when she looked up at me.

“Hello,” she said right back.

“I brought your Christmas present.”

I pulled the orange rectangular box out of the same leather Marc Jacobs bag I had been carrying the day of what I not-too-fondly remembered as the occasion of The Yogurt Incident. It was as pristine as the day I bought it, and much too large to be toting around at a party, but I felt it was important to acknowledge even the embarrassing past as I moved into the much brighter, dairy-free future.

That, and it was all sparkly.

“I don't have one for you.” She wasn't lodging a protest, merely stating a plain fact.

I merely grinned and put the box of scarves on the table beside her. “Think of this as more of a charitable donation.”

I knew her well enough to recognize the smile lingering just on the other side of her lips, and she had been my best friend for too many years to be offended by my friendly insult. As her fingers slipped underneath the tissue paper to grasp at the bounty of pretty patterns beneath, I slid onto the arm of her chair to fiddle with the curly strands of hair she had plaited into a knot at the nape of her neck.

“Thanks, E Dub.” She twisted a very pink cashmere selection around her fingertips in a very morose way, and I planted a kiss at the crown of her head as I pulled her into my arms for as warm a hug as I had given anyone in months. “These are really great.”

“I heard about Nate and Aunt Jenny,” I said into her hairline. She sighed and carefully retied the white ribbon that kept the box's lid clamped down on its precious (and heinously expensive enough to make up for any transgressions either one of us had ever committed) cargo. “Je suis très désolé, nuisette.”

“C'est bon,” she said in a would-be casual voice, her eyes glistening miserably. “Je vivrai. At least now I won't have to listen to their griping anymore.”

“Je sais.”

“I guess you aren't E Dub anymore, are you?” Lux laid her head against my shoulder and we both stared across the room at the orange fringed star orchid dangling over the rim of its clear glass vase. The music from blasting full volume in the main dining room was a distant and steady boom-boom thump, ba-boom-boom thump, and I was glad for Lux's private sensibilities - it was much easier to have an actual conversation away from the pecking order when, well, the pecking order was off in another room.“Should I call you E Bee? Or maybe something like Eebie Jeebies. Or I guess Queen Bee would be more appropriate.”

“I told you I would steal the crown,” I reminded her. “Feel the need to pass out again?”

“No.” She nudged me in the ribs with her pointy elbow. “Just don't expect me to bow down and kiss your Manolos. I've matured past that.”

“Louboutins, and fine, I don't want your shiny lip gloss all over my pedicure anyway.” I pulled away and wiped a stray bit of mascara from the corner of her eye. “You can be princess, next in line for the throne.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lux laughed and blinked back a few tears - happy or sad, I couldn't tell, because they disappeared too fast. “Deal.”

“Allons, there is a party going on that we should probably get back to, oui?” I pulled her to her feet and was impressed to see her modeling a pair of Guiseppe Zanotti peep-toes frosted all over with Swarovski crystal stripes that brightened up her turquoise dress, and whose silver details and went perfectly with her sequined Akris jacket. “Who put this outfit together for you? It is not a complete embarrassment at all.”

“Se taire.” My newly crowned successor acted her age for a brief moment by poking her tongue out at me, and I did the same in return because there was no one around to see.

When the light from the adjacent room flooded into ours before either of us had a chance to graze the door handle, our tongues promptly returned to their rightful places inside our mouths. Backlit in the doorway was the figure of a very, to put it in the very simplest terms, handsome boy in a dark blue suit with flashy white piping; I couldn't see his hair because it was slicked back beneath a matching black-banded fedora, which came complete with the sprig of little white feathers. I glanced over at Lux to see if she recognized the down home combination of his clear cut chin, lopsided smile, and straight button nose, but I could tell from the confused expression lining her own attractive features that she couldn't come up with a name either.

“Pardon me, ladies.” A dimple appeared in his right cheek when he winked.

“Do you go to St. Jude's?” Lux had the presence of mind to ask.

“No,” was his prompt, drawling answer. Laurel and Carolyn appeared on either side of him, giggling at each other as they shared some private and unheard joke. “Not yet.”

I raised my eyebrows at their impropriety, but allowed the handmaidens their unbecoming moment of desperation - after all, he was quite agréable as far as being très beau went, and I now had the power to make them pay for the indiscretion in the new year, so why not let them celebrate the end of 2027 with a little champagne soaked fling? Lux and I edged around them, and the boy tipped his hat to both of us before wrapping his arms around the girls' waists and leading them over to the loveseat.

The door snapped shut behind us and I frowned thoughtfully. “What did he mean 'not yet'?”

“Ugh,” Lux wrinkled her nose and gagged as though something unpleasant had slid across her tongue. “I don't know, but I hope Laurel and Carolyn give him crabs. What a creeper.”

“Lux!”

We linked arms and laughed all the way back to the bar to order a fresh round of cocktails, on me.

Lux stayed by my side for most of the evening, and when the captain of the swim team asked me to join him on the dance floor, I was careful to accept only after she had agreed to come with me. There was a television screen to the left of the makeshift dance floor broadcasting live footage from Times Square, where a lively and salt-and-pepper haired Ryan Seacrest was enthusiastically interviewing one of the night's musical acts. I had never watched the infamous time ball drop from the roof of One Times Square, and had been told it wasn't that much of a thrill, but something in me thought it might be fun to watch at least once.

The minutes ticked away, the music changed beat, and everyone fluttered from room to room in an attempt to see and be seen by everyone. People crowded around the center of the main room to try their hands at the giant mortar and pestle being used in the restaurant's annual mochi-tsuki celebration - the mochi rice would be pounded into soft cakes for soups and sweets, and used as an offering to ensure good luck in the New Year. While Lux dashed off to test her muscles, I passed on the tradition (I had neglected more than enough of my own established la Saint-Sylvestre traditions to partake in a completely new one) and headed instead to the now mostly deserted bar for another refill on my martini glass.

“Merci beaucoup, Bonne Année!” I told the bartender with a wide smile. “Happy New Year.”

He inclined his head slightly as he swiped his cloth across the counter. “Yoi otoshi o omukae kudasai.”

“What does that mean?”

Someone slid an American bill across the bar to the girl working the cash register, and took the seat next to mine. “I wish that you will have a good new year. Give me a glass of Sapporo.”

“Maverick,” I said when he removed his leather jacket and tossed it across the back of his chair. And, because there was nothing better to open the conversation with, “You speak Japanese?”

“Barely, and not very well.” The bartender slid a fresh glass into Maverick's waiting hands. “Enough to survive a layover at the Tokyo International Airport, anyway.”

I had not seen or heard from him since kissing him on the cheek and leaving him on the dance floor in the Palace ballroom. He had been amidst the crowd of onlookers watching as my father and brother supported my weight and led me out into the night, but I did not know if he was privy to the details...or if he even wanted to be. Were we friends? Were we friends who shared personal information, or friends who sat at the same bar at parties and talked about why commercial airlines sucked? Or just two people who had gone to a society ball together once?

That line of thought put me in the very uncomfortable position of caring what he thought of me, a habit I had been trying very hard to break. After all, what kind of woman would I turn into if I always let myself be defined by the devilishly delicious-looking hommes in my life?

Ugh, but he was tellement magnifique.

Non. Non, non, non, non. Non! As the newly christened Queen of Constance, I needed to...be good. To set an example for all the other girls to follow! I did not require un petit ami, especially not one who would expect me to wear a hair-flattening helmet and ride around on the back of his Harley-Davidson all the time. And besides, what did I really know about him except that he looked really good in a leather jacket and liked terrible music and lived at the end of St. Mark's Place, which was trendy enough but not very fashionable and how did I know he didn't already have some public school fille panting over him back at his apartment right that second?

Aha! There she was. A dark-haired girl glided towards us and I remembered her as the lithe figure in a cream dress waving to Maverick from one of the upper galleries at cotillion.

My oddly victorious bubble burst the minute she drew close enough to hug him around the neck, and I could see that they shared a distinctly familial resemblance. She was several years younger than him judging by the roundness of her features and the slightly shaky hand with which she had applied her eyeliner, probably in the same year as Lux, and she possessed a terrifyingly contagious smile that did a lot to disguise most of their otherwise striking similarities.

Well, 'aha!'...still! This was the little sister I had read about during the first stage of Operation: Top Gun. I hadn't known she was such a cute petite crêpe épaisse.

“Bonsoir.” I leaned back in my seat so I could see around her Viking of a brother, who I assumed was going to introduce us just as soon as he finished gulping down his last swallow of beer.

The girl beamed, but did not do the courteous thing and extend her hand for an obligatorily polite 'how do you do' or 'it's a pleasure'. Instead, she brought her right hand to her temple and then slashed it downwards in a sort of mock salute, which may have done her a lot of good at an army base under the tutelage of one of those stereotypically hard-as-nails generals who only wanted her to be all she could be, but I was someone much more important than that and all it did was betray the less-than-favorable result of her upbringing.

“I am Elle,” I tried again, hoping a little prompting was all she needed to open up and be sociable.

But she just nodded, pink lips pursed primly together, her spiral curls bobbing in time with the motion. If she wanted to be a member of my inner circle, she certainly wasn't trying very hard.

I blew my bangs out of my eyes and went back to stirring my drink. C'est la vie, I had tried.

“Delilah wants me to ask if you're wearing perfume,” there was a pause that lasted as long as it took me to look back up at them. “Sorry, Vera Wang perfume. Better?”

My brow puckered together without my permission. When had she asked him that? “Oui, I am.”

I blinked and watched Maverick and his sister exchange some kind of coded conversation consisting entirely of crisply exaggerated hand signals... Delilah looked directly at me as she brought her palm to lay flat against her chest, then in one sharp movement, she pressed her middle finger against her thumb with such a clear intention that I knew it had to mean something positive. Unfortunately, communicating in sign language wasn't exactly my forte - I could pretty much spell my name with the letters of the alphabet, and a name that is spelled the same backwards as it is forward did not exactly seem like it would impress a native speaker.

“That means she likes it,” Maverick relayed in a painfully bored voice. I got the feeling he didn't relish his role as translator.

“Oh,” I tilted my head down towards my own hand and tried to mimic the motion she had made and commit it to memory. “Tell her thank - ”

“She reads lips.”

I looked back at her sunny, jovially unperturbed face, and mouthed a deliberate and slow 'thaaaaaank yooooouuuu'; it made much more use of my lips than saying it aloud in a normal conversation might have done. While she silently giggled at my minor faux pas (I could tell because her shoulder shook and the most wonderful featherlight crinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes), I pointed at myself and proudly presented my well-practiced E's and L's.

Instead of applauding my efforts, she wiggled all ten of her fingers at me and nodded in approval.

“Okay, okay,” Maverick drained his glass and pushed it back towards the bartender for a refill. “What do you need?”

Instead of tuning out of their private half-uninterpretable conversation, I swirled my martini around in its glass and watched shamelessly. Maverick was shaking his head and repeating a series of gestures over and over again with more vigor every time, while his sister was doing a very good imitation of an earnest puppy dog as she held her right hand flat over her chest and made an insistent circular clockwise motion.

“What does she want?” I asked, peeking around Maverick's shoulder and shooting her a smile to let her know that whatever it was, I was completely on her side.

“Nothing,” was Maverick's immediate answer, but Delilah shook her head adamantly, and pointed one slender finger towards a group of freshmen who seemed to be gathering their coats so they could leave as soon as the clock struck midnight. I wasn't surprised that the underclassmen had planned a little after party get-together at one of their own homes - there, without the watchful eyes of judgmental Juniors and Seniors they could gush over how adult they had been at Scarlett Rose's party and openly congratulate each other on their teeny ensembles and brag about how well they had held their liquor.

“Ooh, an after party?” I saw Lux and Anneliese standing with a familiar-looking brown-haired bespectacled girl, who caught Delilah's eye and waved her over. “You are going to let her go, oui?”

“What?” Maverick seemed appalled at the very suggestion. “No, of course I'm not letting her go by herself. Delilah, go home and go to bed.”

Delilah looked so spectacularly put out, and I had grown so very fond over her all of a sudden, I simply could not let him boss her around. “Of course she can go! It will be fun.”

The pixie-like girl looked between the two of us and fraught lines seemed to spring up all along her forehead. She had a flair for the dramatic facial expressions, I had to give her that, but some day I would have to take her aside and teach her how to properly argue her case - with unwavering confidence, unshakable intelligence, steadfast logic, and quite a bit of blatant buttering-up, bribery, begging, extortion, or swindling (whichever was most appropriate to the situation). In her case, and since I did not have anything dirty childhood secrets of Maverick's to expose, it seemed pertinent to go with 70% steadfast logic, 20% unwavering confidence, 3% unshakable intelligence, and just 7% begging.

“Lux is going to be there and she will not let anything happen,” I reasoned. Delilah stared at me with colors of disbelief, admiration, and utter terror dancing in her eyes. I sent her a reassuring wink. “If it gets very late, Delilah can even stay over at the Archibalds', they have plenty of empty guest rooms. If it will make you feel better, they can take my limousine for the rest of the night. The chauffeur will watch out for them.”

All right, so that was a petite, VERY insignificant white lie. They would be taking Teddy's limo and I would definitely be doing penance for that later; but if it allowed the poor girl to have a fun night, it was well worth it and I could say, with all assurance, that I had done my good deed for the year. Elle Waldorf, patron saint of after parties. Patron saint of poor girls who don't know how to stand up for themselves and go to said after parties! Patron saint of getting their overprotective brothers to let them have a night of fun!

“Do you always push your way into other people's business?” Maverick's brow hooded his eyes, which were instantly dark and cutting. “No. Delilah, home.”

Delilah's shoulders drooped, subtracting a good few inches from her willowy frame, and she kissed him on his cheek before turning on her heel to leave. All around us, people were turning to their friends in delight as the unruly crowd on the television began the raucous countdown from dix, neuf, huit... Even her glossy ringlets seemed to wilt.

When she was out of earshot - or, I suppose, eyeshot - I leaned against the bar and raised my eyebrows at him. “Do you always order your sister around like a show dog?”

Sept, six...

“Goodnight.” Maverick snatched his jacket from where he had flung it and swung it around his back to slide his arms through its black sleeves. “Happy New Year.”

“You are so unpleasant!” I griped, crossing my arms over my chest as he drew another bill out of his pocket and put it under the empty glass and sopping cloth napkin.

Cinq, quatre...

“And you think you're a picnic, princess?” He quirked his stupid dimple right at me, which only served to make him more irritatingly attractive even as he insulted my every sensibility.

I huffed and lifted my chin in a pointed gesture of dismissal. “Non, I - ”

Trois, deux...

All of the sudden, his calloused fingertips were burning white hot marks into the paper thin skin of my throat, and the way he teased the underside of my skin sent my neck arching back and stretched taut a cord of electric tension - the pressure point of which pulsed and ached just below my bellybutton. Then, he was so close that everything was sky blue eyes and the smell that assaulted my nostrils and made the hair on my neck stand on end was not Diesel Fuel For Life, nor any other cologne, not even aftershave. Just the crisp freshness a neutral soap provided, and something more musky than the dark base notes of some false scent, something raw and pure and... male.

Un.

He kissed me.

Hard.

When my chin was cupped in the crevice between his thumb and forefinger, he kissed me so hard that my eyes didn't even have the good ladylike sense to automatically flutter closed.

I was seated, so I could not pull away, and the corner of the bar dug into my back with a bruising relentlessness. His free arm boxed me in against the wall, and I felt the warmth of his skin through his jeans where my knees dug into his upper thighs. Muscle memory is an overwhelming and powerful thing with the violent vigueur of a speeding freight train, and for a blinding instant I had the breathless urge to wrap my fingers around his collar and hook my spiked heels around his kneecaps to bring him tumbling down on top of me.

Thankfully, he had a little more restraint in that véhément moment than I did.

There was a cold breeze. And, when I pried my eyelashes apart, I was alone.
Bonne Année.