Chapter 27 The Toll
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Toll
“Does it fit?” Jack stepped behind her, meeting her gaze in the mirror.
Daisy stared at her reflection. A cross between a stranger and a friend looked back.
“You don’t like it,” he said, reading her expression as he pulled out his phone. “I’ll have another one sent—”
“No, it’s fine.” It hung from her curves like a whispered confession. “I’m just not used to wearing clothes like this.”
Her fingers trembled as she touched the fabric. Not silk, not satin — something more intricate. Lace fine as frost on glass, woven into elaborate, swirling patterns that curled and unfurled like fiddleheads in spring.
The neckline plunged in a deep V that bared the hollow between her breasts. Delicate scalloped trim that softened the audacity of the cut.
She turned to view the back and her breath caught. A swooping V that exposed the full canvas of her spine. And a train that pooled on the floor in soft, ruffled waves of gossamer.
“They also sent these.” Jack held out twin ballet flats, satin and ivory like the dress.
She smiled, grateful she wouldn’t have to walk in heels again. “Thank you.”
Her gaze found his then traveled lower. Another emerald tuxedo, deep enough to be mistaken as black. His dark hair swept back from his face in high, sculpted waves—not slicked or lacquered, but thick and deliberately styled so every strand obeyed.
The angular cut of his jaw looked sharper, the hollows beneath his cheekbones deeper, more predatory.
His brows arched with a cruel elegance above those pale, lupine eyes that tracked her with quiet intensity.
Every savage inch of him disguised from his Italian leather dress shoes to the bridge of his aristocratic nose.
“You look like you stepped from the pages of a Fitzgerald novel.”
He stepped behind her, softly tapping the delicate earring at her lobe so it caught the light. “So do you.” He met her stare in the mirror. “Reading’s something we share.”
She frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Your essays. You mentioned you liked to read.”
The warm sensation in her chest shifted as if something closed and she dropped her gaze. “I never thought anyone would read my words. I don’t even remember what I wrote.”
“I do.”
Her gaze jumped back to his face and she flushed with mortification. “You do?”
He nodded. “I was sitting in my study when I read yours. Your words hit a nerve in me, so deep I reread them three times.”
Her sharp embarrassment shifted into something softer. “You did?”
He pressed a kiss to the creamy slope of her shoulder and whispered, “It would be a luxury if, for just one day, I could breathe air that doesn’t smell of hunger.”
His words—her words—settled into the lowest part of her hollow stomach. She lowered her lashes. “I’m not like you, Jack—”
He caught her jaw, lifting her chin before she could lower her head in shame, and met her stare in the mirror again. “You’re more like me than you realize.”
She looked at his handsome face wondering how that could possibly be. Behind him, gorgeous, custom-tailored suit hung in abundance. His soaps were labeled in languages she didn’t know. His lifestyle, his wealth, his power…it all went beyond anything her sheltered mind could measure.
It was then she knew this fascination he had with her wouldn’t last. She was a momentary distraction. Someone he could lean on as he worked through whatever demons of his past still haunted him.
A tightness formed in her throat and chest as she swallowed and tried to smile. “Thank you for the dress.”
Uncertainty flitted across his eyes, gone so quickly she dismissed it.
There would be many women in Jack’s life. Once he got past his insecurities, he’d be an unstoppable, irresistible, uncontainable force.
Turning to face him, she cupped the side of his freshly shaven jaw and rose on her toes to kiss his lips. His hands rushed to her hips, possessive and hungry.
“Whatever this ends up being, Jack, I’m glad you rescued me.”
He frowned, but said nothing.
One night. One fortune. Total transformation. It was the only promise given to her. She needed to be content with that.
Her smile trembled as she smoothed his collar. “You look very handsome.”
Her stomach tightened. This was the Jack Thorne the rest of world saw. The billionaire. The predator in bespoke armor.
His pale, glacial eyes searched her face. “Daisy—”
His phone buzzed with a soft whisper that carried the impact of a wrecking ball.
He glanced at the screen and cursed under his breath. Eyes apologetic, he said, “We have to go.” And just like that, any signs of vulnerability vanished from his face.
He fit an ivory lace mask over her eyes and tied it at the back of her head. Then he slid a simple black one over his face—an unnecessary touch, since his practiced disguise of unshakable control was already in place.
The grand staircase delivered them into a world remade by ruin.
Daisy’s fingers tightened on Jack’s arm as the ballroom unfurled below. The same Gothic cathedral that hours ago dripped with elegance, and the cloying musk of wealth, now resembled a field hospital after a siege. Chandeliers blazed overhead, indifferent to the carnage below.
Heat crept up Daisy’s neck as guilt surged inside of her.
Her hair and skin still smelled of Jack’s soap and shampoo.
Her lace dress whispered against her thighs with each step, pristine and absurdly white, while below, women stood in shredded gowns, bare feet blackened with forest mud, hair snarled with twigs and rain and the residue of hours spent running for their lives.
The contrast was obscene.
One woman cradled a bloated ankle, her satin dress cleaved from hip to hem, the fabric so filthy its original color was indecipherable. Another slumped against a column with mascara carved into dark tributaries down her cheeks.
A battered sea of wreckage.
Laughter, wild and brittle, ricocheted off the vaulted ceiling, and Daisy frowned, wondering how any one of them could laugh in such a battered state.
Bruises mottled bare arms in watercolor shades of violet and ochre.
Scratches crosshatched exposed shoulders like tally marks.
Blisters wept from their dirty feet—rubbed raw.
But as they gathered, lurching in from the veranda they fled nearly twelve hours ago, the dead look in their eyes transformed to something else entirely. Their clothing, hair, and makeup were destroyed, but their pride seemed galvanized.
They gathered along the wall where they first debuted, and lingered in weary triumph.
Daisy’s stomach clenched with an emotion she couldn’t untangle. Admiration braided with shame. Awe knotted into guilt. Those tributes clawed through a nightmare she somehow escaped.
Their suffering was visible. Validated. Written on their bodies in mud and blood where hers had been washed away in a billionaire’s shower.
What price had they paid for the prize that awaited them? It would take years to calculate. And some may never fully review the bill.
The only thing Daisy knew for sure was that every single one of them had paid more than her.
Jack’s hand found the small of her back, steadying, possessive. The warmth of his palm sent a treacherous shiver through her.
“Ready?” he glanced at her, so shockingly unnerved by the sight before them.
Didn’t he see the contrast?
She cheated. She found shelter away from danger and hid like a coward while the rest of them paid in sacrifice.
She descended the stairs in her soft satin flats while they nursed blisters on their battered feet. Heat rushed to her cheeks as they descended the sprawling staircase like royalty, the weight of their stares pegging her like biblical stones.
She stiffened against Jack’s gentle lead. How easy it would be to lean into that touch, to let herself believe the pressure of his fingers meant permanence. But standing there with him, looking over all the women she should have stood beside, only made her feel incredibly alone.
He prodded her along, whispering something she couldn’t hear over the roar of voices colliding below.
Hunters milled among the wreckage in various states of elegant collapse.
Tuxedo jackets discarded. Shirttails wrenched free and hung loose over muddied trousers.
Bow ties dangling like surrendered flags from unbuttoned collars.
One man she vaguely recognized from the banquet perched on the fountain’s edge with his sleeves shoved to his elbows, cufflinks gone, sharing a cigarette with a tribute whose gown clung to her frame by one remaining strap and sheer defiance.
Smoke curled between them in a lazy ribbon as they chatted like equals.
Some still wore masks, but most were disguised by whatever mud and makeup smeared their faces.
Each one of them wore the triumphant flush of a deeply satisfied victor, blending like teammates after a violent scrimmage, sipping champagne, recalling moments of triumph and conquest, all while nursing their battle scars and injuries.
Their champagne-soaked carnage was stripped of any sense of opposition. Leaving only a radiating sense of accomplishment and pride.
Jack had orchestrated all of this. His universe was vast and populated with players so infinitely apart from what she was, she couldn’t imagine ever fully fitting into such a world. A peasant among giants.
Yes, her financial situation would change. But at her core, she would always be who she was—just a poor girl from Dagenham.
She swallowed against the stone lodged in her throat and forced her gaze forward.
The sour tang of exhaustion and sweat threaded the air under the cloying sweetness of the flower that had only begun to open. Had it really only been twelve hours? It felt like a lifetime ago when she last descended these stairs.
Silver platters of ransacked canapés wilted beside overturned champagne flutes. A woman’s singular, crimson shoe lay abandoned near the orchestra’s empty chairs.