Everyone laughed and cheered.
While I itched.
That same feeling that something was off burned hot across my flesh. Something sticky making me tug at the neck of my shirt.
Suffocating.
Never should have come to this hotel. Too many ghosts lurked in the shadows. Memories I’d tried to bury that just kept getting dredged with every second that passed.
Wouldn’t have shown for anyone else other than Emily and Royce. It wasn’t like there were a whole lot of options in Dalton, though.
My eyes searched, roving over the guests from where I remained standing at the back of the room, readying myself for the attack.
My attention kept moving to where these heavy floor-to-ceiling drapes hung behind where the band was set up.
Area nothin’ but shadows.
Didn’t make a damned difference.
I saw her—saw her hiding at the edge of the crowd, timid and wary, eyes darting around like she wasn’t sure if she belonged there or not.
My guts clenched, and the air punched from my lungs, so hard I might as well have been kicked in the stomach.
No question, she absolutely did not.
She shouldn’t be there.
She couldn’t be.
Uncertainty ran fierce, nothing but a slick of fear that warned this was fucking bad. That I had to get her out of there. Push her far, far away.
What the hell did she think she was doing there?
My teeth gritted, and my feet were moving, unable to stop this frenzy that took me over. I wound through the crowd.
Shouldering through the crush.
Surely I was comin’ off a prick.
But I couldn’t stop.
I was unable to see.
Unable to feel.
My only sense was the destruction that pounded out from the middle of me.
Knew the second she felt me. The way she went rigid, frozen to the spot before her attention whipped my way.
Girl held in shock, like she hadn’t expected to see me there and had expected it all the same.
Guilt and something I didn’t want to recognize clouding her face.
This was dangerous. Two planets orbiting too close. A collision seconds from happening.
Hurt poured from her stare, and that body rocked in recognition.
A fireball that blazed, burning through the air and eating up the oxygen.
Wisps of black hair fell out of the twist and caressed her cherub face.
Defined cheeks pinked and glossy lips parted.
And fuck it all, my stomach twisted in a gnarl of lust.
The girl looked like a fairy made of blown glass.
Gorgeous and fragile and so strong you wondered if she was really made of stone.
Raven eyes stared back while I made my way toward the girl with the most mysterious eyes.
Pupils surrounded by a starburst of crystallized violet and splintering out to a darkened eternity.
Two blinding thunderbolts.
It was like looking into a kaleidoscope that sucked me into the past.
That sucked me into regret.
She wore this flowy floral dress that hit her at mid-thigh, nothing but toned legs and tight, gorgeous body.
Temptation.
Destruction.
My ruin.
Still, I moved for her.
Unable to stop.
She fidgeted, wavered, her attention darting everywhere before she finally made a choice and turned to run.
I chased her out into the lobby.
Bright lights shined from glittering tiered chandeliers that hung from the three-story ceiling. Lighting her up in sparkles and dust.
She rushed toward the main doors.
Her name dropped from my lips in a hiss. Problem was, I didn’t know if it was in anger or pure desperation. “Violet.”ThreeVioletWhat did I think I was gonna achieve, comin’ here?
I’d known better. Known so much better, but I’d somehow been delusional enough to convince myself I could slip in, witness the joy without anyone noticing me, partake in it in the only way that I could, and slip right back out.
Delusional enough to think I would manage not to get my heart slaughtered anew from a single, scathing look.
In this stupid hotel I’d avoided like the plague, nonetheless.
From behind, my name hit me like a stone.
“Violet.”
Hatred flowed through his voice, as stark as the betrayal in his presence.
I faltered for a moment, trapped by the sound, before I frantically looked around the lobby for the nearest exit. A large group from the engagement party had gathered at the front door, laughing and hugging, blocking my escape.
“Violet. Turn around. I want to talk to you.”
He wanted to talk to me?
Disbelief had me darting toward the next best thing—the sweeping, curved staircase that the opulent hotel was known for. The massive wooden pillars supporting it were carved in intricate flowers, and the stairs that were at least thirty feet wide were covered in the same lush, maroon and gold carpet as the rest of the floors.
I fumbled up them as quickly as I could, the high heels I rarely wore making the task a whole lot more difficult.
Especially when I could feel him. When I could feel him coming after me.
The heat of him rippled through the dense air and covered me in a thick shroud of treason and deceit.