19. Nora
CHAPTER 19
NORA
The Paradise Lost party is held at an estate not far from Fairhaven. In every other way, it seems to be its complete opposite.
The old building is tall, with two towers that rise up toward the night sky. The entire driveway is covered with burning lights. There are no stately columns or red brick like Fairhaven. The house is gray, ornate. Something that might belong in a Scottish fairytale.
West is silent beside me in the car. There’s something inward about him tonight, like he’s drawn tight beneath the dark gray suit. No cufflinks, the top two buttons of the white shirt undone. Like he was in too much of a rush to coordinate the little details.
Like he’s deep in thought.
He told me a bit about the party. That invites to them are highly coveted, phones are forbidden, and locations always change.
“Who will be here tonight?” I ask him.
He looks out the window at the estate. Everything about him radiates a coiled sort of readiness that makes my own stomach tighten.
He doesn’t answer until Arthur pulls to a stop next to a circular fountain. It has a fallen angel at its center, half kneeling, wings raised and head bent. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Everyone,” West says shortly. “Stay close to me?”
“I promise.”
“The guards can’t follow us in, but this place has heavy security. You’ll be safe.” He steps outside the car and holds out a hand to me. I take it, and his long fingers close around mine.
The air smells thick of burning candles. They line the steps up to the estate and into the space beyond. Milton’s Paradise Lost is about redemption and temptation. Angels and devils, heaven and hell. I designed my own dress for the party. It was a distraction from the pieces I have to create for the showcase, but a welcome one, and a chance to test out a design in person.
I’m wearing a draped white fabric that flows over my body and cinches at the waist. It would be angelic if it wasn’t for the dark eyeliner I’m wearing and the slightly mussed waves of my hair.
“Who throws these parties, anyway?” I ask West. He’s tucked my hand into the crook of his arm.
“Someone with a twisted sense of humor,” he says.
“There’s more to this than you’re telling me.”
“Yes.” He sighs. “She throws a few parties like these a year. She has an… appetite for games, let’s say. And she’s very well connected.”
“This location is incredible.”
“It is,” he says tightly. “She chose tonight’s location for a reason.”
The massive oak doors creak open before us. They reveal a large hallway teeming with figures in various types of costumes. A few are dressed as actual angels. It takes me a second to see the trays they’re carrying around and realize that they’re servers carrying food. There are devils, too, I realize. I catch sight of one walking around the living room with a tray of shots.
A few people stop and say hi. I smile at them all and say thank you when a woman compliments my dress.
West hands me a glass of champagne. I take it gratefully and strike up a conversation with two of the people standing next to us. They’re a couple in their forties, perhaps, and I vaguely recognize one of them from the movies. He’s eating an oyster, and when he sees me looking, nods toward an adjoining room. “Freshly shucked in there.”
“That sounds delicious,” I say. West is still silent beside me. It’s unlike him; at the fundraiser at Fairhaven, he commanded the room. He spoke to everyone like he knew them, or at the very least, knew of them.
Now he’s stiff. His eyes wander up a spiral staircase in the hallway, past old family portraits hanging on the walls. They look like they’re oil portraits of a family. One of them has a long gash down the center. The entire place is decorated with flowers, with vines, with wine. It’s Paradise.
I wonder where hell is.
Before I can press further, an Asian woman in a shimmering gold dress approaches us. Her hair is midnight dark, piled high on her head and adorned with what looks like diamond studs. She looks ageless; she could be thirty-five or fifty-five.
“West,” she says with a wide smile. “You came. How lovely.” Her eyes flick to me, and her smile doesn’t move an inch. “And who is this?”
“You know exactly who it is,” West says. Despite the tension, his voice is smooth. “This is Eléanore Montclair. My girlfriend.”
I lean into his side and smile at her like I’m the happiest girl in the world. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She takes in my dress, my hair, my face. Her scrutiny takes so long that it must be on purpose.
“Vivienne Cho,” she says. “It’s a pleasure to finally have you at one of my little parties. Your brother has been here often enough.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I say jokingly.
“Now I finally have the full set.” Her glittering attention shifts to West. “Do you like the location I chose for tonight’s party? I had to pull some strings, but once I had the theme, it had to be at Thorn Hall. And it couldn’t be closer to you.”
“Distasteful,” he says.
The woman laughs again, and I look up at West in surprise. His face is carved in stone. I’ve rarely seen him look like this; his expression is angry, resigned.
“Oh, but that’s the fun!” she says. “It fit the theme so well, don’t you think?”
“You’re right about that. Is he here tonight?”
“I had to invite him, of course,” Vivienne says. “He’s been clawing his way back. Slowly building another fortune.”
“I’ve seen,” West says tightly.
“Maybe we’ll get a little show out of you two, hmm?”
“I think not.” His hand falls to my low back. “I don’t like performing for crowds.”
“That’s a shame, because I so love it.” She reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a large brass key with a red ribbon on it and hands it directly to me. It’s heavy in my palm. “Don’t forget to pay the downstairs a little visit.”
Vivienne walks away, her hips moving through the crowd. “Who,” I ask, “was that? And you’re not allowed to answer with no one .”
West takes the key from me and puts it in his pocket. “She hosts these parties a few times a year. She’s… very well connected. And she’s not someone to be angered.”
“I think you did just that when you told her that her party was distasteful.”
“I said the location was. Not the party.”
“You’re arguing semantics.” I take another sip of my champagne. “And why is the location distasteful?”
His jaw tightens. “Not something we’re going to discuss right now.”
I push. Like he told me to. “You told me to make you angry. To practice it. So maybe I won’t let it go.”
His eyes flash down to me, and then his lips curve. Just a hint. “I did, didn’t I? Are you going to make me regret those words?”
“Maybe I’ll try.”
He lets his hand lie flat against my low back, then his eyes sharpen. Like he just realized my dress is open and his hand is against my bare skin. It’s warm, too, and a shiver runs through me at the touch. “Good,” he says. “You’re doing very well.”
“By annoying you.”
“Yes. And you’re doing a damn good job of distracting me, too.”
“Do you need distractions tonight?”
“It wouldn’t hurt. We need a few people here to see us together.” He guides me through the crowd, into another room. This one is large. An old stone fireplace is in the center, but no ordinary furniture. Like the hallway, the place looks mostly abandoned.
There’s a bartender in one corner and a large poker table in the center.
“Who are we pretending for?” I ask. “Your mother isn’t here. The stalker isn’t here.”
He looks out over the space. “Some of the world’s most powerful people come to Vivienne’s parties. Whispers always spread. And I want them to.”
I look out over the poker table, the hazy room. More than a few people glance our way. Just like the polo game. “People are watching us.”
“Want to put on a show?”
“You’re not carrying me again.”
“Break a heel and I might,” he says.
“I’ll be careful, then.”
He guides us past the poker table. There are people I recognize in here. Famous faces, a few familiar ones. People I’ve seen my brother talk to on occasion.
“Do you play?” It’s a stupid question. I know he does; my brother loses a lot of money on the trips he goes on with the guys. When they spend half a week in a far-flung location doing dares, and making mistakes, and ending it all with a poker game.
“You know I do,” West says in a low voice. He’s turned us so I have my back to the game, and he’s looking across my shoulder at the guests. “There’s someone from my family here tonight, I think. He never misses a game.”
“Who?”
“My cousin.”
“Is he part of the matchmaking scheme?”
“In a way,” West says.
“So you want us to put on a show,” I murmur, and reach out to run my hands along his chest. Flatten them like I’ve done in our self-defense sessions.
“Do not,” he says, “practice rejecting me right now.”
“But you want me to get good at it.”
“I do. And we’ll practice more. In private.”
My fingers close around his lapels. He wants people here to think we’re a couple. Whispers always spread from this party…
“Don’t reject me either,” I whisper, and I rise up to brush my lips against his cheek.
West stands stock-still. I’ve never had a guy react like that before. It’s always been a rush to capitalize on the moment, mouth on mine, tongue too fast.
I sink back down onto my heels and smile in delight.
“Playing for the audience?” His whiskey eyes are unreadable.
“I’m putting on a show. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
He chuckles. It’s a dark sound, and it’s just as scratchy as his beard. “Trouble, if you think that qualifies as putting on a show, we’re going to have to work on our definitions.”
My eyes briefly dip to his lips, and then quickly away again. “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who loves PDA.”
“You seem to spend a lot of time thinking about my dating life,” he mutters, sliding his hand back around my waist. Where he told me he would keep it. “Come. There’s only one place we have left to look.”
I reach into the pocket of his suit jacket and pull out the brass key. “Let me guess. It goes to hell?”
“You’ve caught on to the theme,” he says. “I shouldn’t take you there, but I will, and I’ll pay the price for it.”
Excitement makes my blood drum. “I can handle it.”
“I know you can.” He reaches down to take my hand. Threads his fingers through mine the way we practiced the other day, warmth against warmth. “This way.”
“You’ve been in this house before.”
“Many times.”
“You knew the person who used to live here.”
“Yes. But we’re going to get in and get out before he might show. That’s not the person I’m looking for.” He pulls me down a corridor and through an old wooden library. The whole place is gothic, so different in design from Fairhaven.
He stops by an ornate wooden door flanked by a server with rainbow colored hair and a devil’s outfit. Red leather pants and a tight red vest. Horns peek up through the hair.
West holds up the key.
They smile and push the door open to reveal a dark staircase straight down to a basement.
We walk down the dark space and into a cavernous room bathed in red light. The ceiling is low, supported by thick stone pillars. Smoke hangs in the air. The scent hits me first—incense and sweat and some kind of thick perfume.
We’ve made it to hell.