“All I need is one night…Then I can begin living my life.” One night. In his arms. No strings attached. Purely all-outdelicioussex.
One night of a desperate attempt to temporarily possess something that wasn’t mine to hold. But somehow, I felt it was Jared’s sole right to take away my virginity before I began dating men my own age. A sexual passage to womanhood if you will. It was mad, understandably so, but it was howIfelt.
Tonight was Hank Rinaldi’s sixtieth birthday, and the crème de la crème of Silicon Valley was going to be in attendance, including Jared. The second Blair had given me the green light that Jared’s secretary had accepted the invitation, my plan had begun to unfold. My father was invited as well, but ever since my mother’s tragic demise, he didn’t deem it appropriate to attend parties without his dear Edna by his side. I had tried to coax my father out of his mourning, but each time I tried, I ended up getting yelled at, and he’d unnecessarily avoid me for weeks on end, giving me the cold shoulder for what he claimed was disrespecting my mother’s memories by subjecting him to circumstances that he wasn’t ready topartakein.
As a result, whenever I was in his presence, I felt like I was tiptoeing on eggshells, making sure I wasn’t going to keep offending him. It was a tedious dance, but it was the only way I could have a relationship with him. And I’d rather get the scraps of my father’s attention than never having it at all. Even if he had drastically changed, I wasn’t going to abandon him. He was my father, and I loved him through thickandthin.
He had recently offered to purchase my own place, but I felt it was his own way of telling me he wanted more privacy, so I immediately rejected his offer. We barely saw each other living in the same house; if I moved out, I knew I’d never see him for ages. I didn’t want to be one of those rich kids who was required to make an appointment to see their fathers. Vivienne and Blair had done it their entire lives, and I knew how miserable that could be. I still believed, even after three years, that he would eventually get past the grief and become interested in me again. After all, we only had each other in this world. He wouldn’t fully abandon his only daughter. He couldn’t be thatheartless.
“Earth to Gisele?” Blair snapped her fingers before my face, breaking me out of myreverie.
I rapidly blinked as I pushed my thoughts aside before blankly staring at her. “Sorry…what?”
Blair’s long nude lacquered fingertips brushed through the wig’s silky hair as she frowned at me. “I said…Do you want to put on the contacts or the wigfirst?”
“Let’s do the hair.” It seemed it’d be trickiest to apply. Jared preferred dark-haired women. It was a known fact to whoever knew him. He’d dated a few redheads and a string of blondes, but brunettes, he favoredthemost.
My vivid gray eyes would be blue tonight. My blonde tresses would be hidden under a wavy mass of black hair. I intended to seduce, and I had to make do with whatever arsenal I couldenhance.
Vivienne and I had merely arrived here thirty minutes ago. Blair was already made up—hair majestically piled over her delicate head, subtle makeup accented with her favorite Chanel Coco Rouge lipstick. Her mother’s glam squad had to tend to her first before they scuttled to beautifyMrs.Wolf.
While I concentrated on painting my face and with Blair extremely focused on getting the wig to snugly fit around my head, I watched Vivienne from the mirror’s reflection as she slipped into her champagne pink beaded gown. She shimmied her hips as she slid the tight-fitting designer frock over her toned,lithebody.
“Do you want me to zip you up?” I paused in between my contouring application as I blinked at herthoughtfully.
“I’m good. I need to breathe for a moment.” She shrugged before glancing over at me with that massive grin of hers. “My hellish mother got me a size zero even though she knows I’m a two. She’s being her usual vindictive self ’cause I’m not willing to starve to please her. God, she can besoevil.”
Her French mother, Marguerite Wolf, had a strict rule in her household—consuming fat was a sin. If you weren’t a size zero, you were considered obese. She and Vivienne fought constantly. And quite frankly, I couldn’t blame my best friend’s resentment towards her mother’s severe treatment. She even went as far as making sure her little twin sisters were under a strict vegan diet. They were barely three years old. What mother would put a rigorous diet on these babies when they needed nutrition during fundamental years? Marguerite was a hard pill to swallow. She made Blair’s mother’s unfeeling, nonchalant demeanorseemwarm.
“Sorry, doll, but if she were my mother, I’d have disowned her the second I slipped out of that frozen vagina incubator of hers.” Blair wasn’t one to hide her contempt when it came to Marguerite. I tended to keep my disdain lowered down a notch since it was still her mother,afterall.
“If my mother had you as her daughter, she would’ve granted you whatever you wished ’cause you’re terrifying as hell.” Vivienne chortled. “I can so totally picture you hauling all of her haute couture from her favorite fashion houses, dousing it with gasoline, and making a bonfire out of it on the lawn to prove apoint.”
We all laughed because Blair was one crazy biatch. There was a reason girls in our high school didn’t want to cross her. She’d go above and beyond to make your life hell, and quite frankly, who needed a real, breathing, live experience of Georgina George in their lives? They knew better, too, so that was why everyone bowed or cowered to Blair. The woman never went down without a hard fight. Delicate, she might seem to be, but she wouldn’t hold back before launching herself, sharpened claws and all, and give her opponent a free facial reconstruction. She was lethal in all aspects vital to bringing anenemydown.
We had graduated last week, and the three of us would be spending our summer on the French Riviera with Ethan Rinaldi, Blair’s brother, as our chaperone. Vivienne’s grandfather owned this gargantuan super yacht, and we were all looking forward to a fun-filled break lounging and partying before going toStanford.
Tonight would culminate letting go of the old me and my unhealthy obsession of Jared. Once I’d accomplished bumping uglies with his truly, I was setting myself free so I could engage in a normal, healthy two-way relationship. So yes, this was a quintessential step to get where I needed to be in life. Like a stepping-stone, if you will, but with a penisinvolved.
Tonight, I was supposed to be a twenty-five-year-old socialite who’d recently come back from South Africa after doing charity work for her father’s foundation. That was all I knew, and I supposed I simply had to improvise the rest, ensuring Jared would bite the bait I’d cast. Although I had no firsthand experience in the art of seduction, I had seen enough movies, read enough smut, to figure out how to catch a man’sattention.
Tonight was my night. No matter what happened next, I was going to get Jared tonoticeme.