She blinks away first and curses when the necklace slips through her fingers and drops to the floor. It falls beside her sandals. They match the white gold dress with its spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline that dips to the waist giving one a glimpse of the roundness of her breasts. From the fitted waist, the soft fabric of the skirt drapes past her knees but has a long slit along the front of one thigh. I’m sure Clifton Phillips will start drooling the moment he sees her.
“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing,” she says as we both bend to pick up the necklace. I get to it first. We straighten, and I’m standing too close. But I don’t move.
“You seemed to enjoy Clifton’s company at Vivien’s birthday party, and I’ve considered what you said. And you’re right. You are in need of a husband.”
Her eyes are cold. Better than flat, like a Stepford wife. “I believe the exact words you used were over my dead body will you ever go out with him.”
“Hmm.” I look at the diamond necklace that cost a small fortune. I thought of her the instant I saw the woman setting it in the window of the exclusive jeweler I pass on my way to the courthouse. A delicate pavé-set diamond choker suspending a line of ten round diamonds. It’s one of a kind. Like her. I brush her hair over her shoulder, the heat of her skin sending an electric jolt through me.
“I can do it myself.” She tries to snatch the necklace.
“Be still.” I brush my thumb over the IVI tattoo on the back of her neck and feel the empty space above it. Would I ever really allow Phillips to put his mark on here? The thought makes bile rise in my throat as I place the choker around her neck.
“Can you make up your mind what you want at least?” she asks.
Once I secure the necklace, I lift her hair and set it down her back, inhaling the clean scent of her shampoo, the hint of her signature perfume beneath it.
“You look beautiful.”
She turns to face me. I still don’t move, and she has to tilt her head way back, so she sets one hand against the dresser at her back to slip on her sandals, then look up at me. They add five inches, but she still has to crane her neck.
“I hope Clifton likes the dress. I’ll make sure he knows you chose it for him,” she taunts, and I don’t have to shift my gaze from hers to see how her fingers play over the exposed skin of her thigh.
I grit my teeth and force a smile.
She steps around me. “I’m keeping the necklace, by the way.”
“It’s a gift. Of course, you are. And thank you is appropriate.”
“Oh, I’m not sure I’d classify it as a gift. I think I more than earned it, don’t you?”
I close the space between us, twirl a lock of thick, soft hair around my finger, then tilt her chin up. “Thank me.”
She licks her lips and searches my face. “How would you like me to thank you, your honor? On my knees?” She reaches a hand to cup the crotch of my pants, and I grab her wrist, my breath hissing. “You’ll ruin my makeup.”
“You really think a man like Clifton Phillips can handle you? You’d eat him alive.”
She grins, pleased. “Better that than him eating me, don’t you think? Although…” I feel myself tense. Feel the heat of possessive jealousy begin to burn inside me. I squeeze her wrist.
“Relax, Judge.” She giggles. “No one’s eating anyone tonight.” Pulling free, she turns and walks out of the bedroom, not bothering to close the door. I listen to her heels click as she steps down the stairs.
Clifton Philips arrives right on time, and Lois shows him into the living room, where I watch from my place by the fireplace, my arm resting against the stone mantel. Mercedes smiles her Society smile. That’s what I’m calling it from now on. It’s one she gives all of them. Not me, though. This one she doesn’t insult me with. And as Clifton shines in her light, I hold that thought.
This is for show. I get the real Mercedes.
But I find it hard nonetheless to greet him as he comes to shake my hand and thank me for the invitation.
Clifton Phillips is twenty-four years old. Younger than Mercedes. He’s the firstborn of three Phillips sons. He comes from a Founding Family, although their fortunes have declined over the last decade or so. They still have money, but it’s nothing to the De La Rosa or Montgomery fortunes. I wonder how much that has to do with the attention and compliments he pours over Mercedes. Her inheritance would bolster the Phillips’s. Give him a nice cushion.
I put that thought aside. Mercedes is smart. She has her own agenda with Clifton, and of the two of them, I know he’s the one I should worry about. As I sip my scotch, I consider how good my invitation to Clifton will look. As Mercedes’s guardian, I have invited this man into my home to court her. I already mentioned it to my mother so I can be sure news will travel to Hildebrand and throughout The Society. It should at least dispel some of the rumors circulating about us.
The two of them share a private joke, and I catch the seductive way Mercedes has of looking at men. She casts that thick-lashed glance at me while setting her hand on Clifton’s knee. I know I am her target. I swallow a little more scotch, my hand a jealous fist around the crystal. “I believe dinner is ready,” I say, gesturing to the dining room.
“Your home is beautiful, Judge,” Clifton says as Mercedes shimmies her sweet round ass ahead of us. I catch Clifton’s too eager gaze on it even as he speaks to me.
I wait to respond, and when he realizes I’ve caught him, he clears his throat, face flushing with embarrassment. “Thank you, Clifton.” I set my hand on his shoulder a little too heavily. “She is lovely, isn’t she? Hard not to look. But she is a Society daughter. And I don’t want to see your eyes on her ass again, am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir. Christ. What a fucking pussy.
“Coming?” Mercedes asks from the entrance to the dining room.
I pat Clifton’s back hard enough that he jerks forward.
Mercedes gives me a look as he passes her into the dining room.
I shrug a shoulder and take my place at the head of the table. I’ve set Mercedes to my right. Clifton is at the foot.
“You know what? I’ll move down here with you,” Mercedes tells Clifton, asking Lois to reset her place beside Clifton’s. Lois looks at me, and I reluctantly nod. Although I admit it was childish to set him there. Like putting him at the kid’s table.
The table seats a dozen, and I watch the two of them talk at the far end, only including me in bits and pieces of conversation. Clifton is clearly uncomfortable with the attention Mercedes is bestowing upon him. Between leaning her breasts to practically rest on the table and her hand disappearing beneath it to, I’m sure, his knee and it had better only be his fucking knee, he keeps glancing my way, face flushing with a combination of too much wine and a healthy fear of me.