That establishment has seen the last of me, however. Because I’m being railroaded by a bunch of dead male relatives into saddling myself with an unwanted woman. Putting a ring on a stranger’s finger and producing children to carry on the family name. I suppose someone must find these female party guests attractive, but it isn’t me. They are lackluster and boring and predictable. To be fair, I’ve never lost my head over a woman. Not once.
It’s just not possible.
I’m the opposite of a romantic.
The only thing capable of making my heart race is a good business deal.
I pluck a glass of champagne off a passing tray, down it in one gulp and hand the empty glass to Ben without looking. I’ll have to start making the rounds soon, considering candidates to take my last name. Where to start, though? “Which one of these women would you say is most respected in the community?”
Ben launches into a spiel about someone named Jordina who organizes the church bake sale every year and boasts an impeccable pedigree, but his words turn muffled and fade into nothing when a young woman passes by the ballroom window. She’s outside in the cold, her hair in long, chestnut tangles, her nose red from the low temperature.
Our eyes meet through the glass for only a split second…
And the floor drops out from under me.
I’m in a complete free fall, my heart catapulting up into my mouth.
“Who…who is she…” I shoulder my way past Ben, this horrible fear crystalizing in my blood that I won’t get outside in time to find her. That she’ll get into a car or sucked up into a void before I manage to get outside. But when I throw open the heavy, double front doors of my house, there she is. Standing on my porch.
Begging.
She’s a beggar.
If her tattered attire didn’t make that obvious, the bowler hat filled with coins and dollar bills would. My sliver of a conscience is making itself known right now, condemning me for noticing the high mounds of her tits, the fullness of her mouth, the lushness of her hips. She is utterly beautiful underneath the layer of street filth. She devastates me just by existing. And I can’t seem to form a single word. I can only stare at her in reverence.
Whoever sent this girl out into the cold is going to pay dearly.
“For the children,” she whispers in a soft voice. “Could you spare some change for the chil…” She lists to one side, her eyes turning glassy. “S-sorry, sir…”
And then she drops like a stone.
“No!” I roar, lunging forward to catch her before she hits the ground.
Her hat full of coins and singles overturns, scattering in every direction, the dollar bills blowing away in the wind. She hears her collections hitting the stone of my doorstep and it rouses her. She tries to twist away, obviously to retrieve the hard-won money. “Oh no, the children need it. They won’t eat—”
“Ben!” I hold fast to the girl, tossing her up into my arms and desperately trying to warm her against my chest. My assistant appears to my right, fumbling his clipboard. “Gather her money back into the hat and put it somewhere safe.”
The tension drains out of the girl and she goes limp as spaghetti in my arms.
Panic twists in my throat like a blade.
“Someone getting me a fucking blanket,” I rasp, stumbling away from the draft entering through the open front door, using my back to block her from the cold. Now that I’m further into the light, I can see her too-pale cheeks, her blue lips, the little veins in her eyelids. My stomach sinks to the bottom of a lake. Who did this? Who would send this fragile girl out begging? She can’t be more than eighteen.
Voices swell around me and I realize the party guests have filtered out of the ballroom, taking their turns craning their necks to see into the foyer. Men and women alike. No. No, I don’t want them looking at her. I don’t want anyone looking at her.
“Forget the blanket, I’ll warm her upstairs,” I say, mostly to myself, tucking her protectively to my chest and hastening toward the staircase. “Call the doctor and prepare her something to eat. Immediately!”
Time feels like it is standing still as I stride to my bedroom, urgency rattling my bones. She is still limp. If it wasn’t for the faint pulse fluttering at the base of her neck, I would fear her dead. I’m bouncing back and forth between rage and helplessness, my world upended. She is too light in my arms. She hasn’t been properly cared for. I want to light the fucking roof on fire.
As soon as we’re inside my bedroom, I lay her down gently on the foot of the bed, tearing down the heavy covers while my heart beats heavily in my ears. Picking her up again, I settle her on my sheets and cover her in the bedclothes. Not enough. Nothing is going to be enough. I cross the bedroom, turn the key in the fireplace and bring the flames roaring to life.