"I'm heartbroken." A smooth seductive voice sounded behind Bryn, and she closed her eyes saying a silent prayer that it wasn't who it had to be. She'd never had an actual conversation with him, but she'd eavesdropped on his conversations enough to recognize that voice. It still sent a thrill down her spine to hear him, but there was also fear and trepidation there now as well. She'd just insulted him in his own home, and the worst part was that she didn't mean a word of it. Of course she liked him, she'd liked him since she was fifteen and first laid eyes on his darkly handsome face.
"You have a heart?" Sarah jumped in with a flirty smile, and a light laugh that she always used to diffuse uncomfortable situations. Bryn mouthed a silent 'thank you' to Sarah before forcing herself to turn around, and meet Cad Dupre head on. His eyes were the first thing that sucked her in, and for a minute she truly thought she was going to stop breathing.
He was hypnotic.
"You've wounded me van Loane" He sent her a brittle smile, and Sarah tried to keep up her flirty façade, but it was crumbling quickly. For whatever reason, Cad Dupre, intimidated Sarah, and Bryn could tell she was searching for the exits already.
"Oh, I'm sure you're made of tougher stuff than that, Dupre." She glanced behind him, and a bright beautiful smile morphed over her features. "Daney!" She called out to the gorgeous Branson heir, and swished past Cad as quickly as she could to get to her old friend. Bryn opened her mouth to protest being left all alone with a boy she'd never even been properly introduced to, but Sarah was long gone.
"Shut your mouth, Sweetheart. The look doesn't suit you." There was an edge to his voice that shocked Bryn back to reality, and her attention snapped back to him. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair messy. In truth he looked completely unkempt, but he also looked like the sexiest man she'd ever seen, and that scared her. She did as he said, but still couldn't offer a proper response. She couldn't even manage, a "Hello, my name is Bryn."
He walked past her, and his movements reminded her of a Panther. He was graceful in his own way, but there was also the sense that he was stalking his prey. Currently, his prey, was the bar, and he reached for a bottle of Scotch to fill up his empty glass. Bryn observed him silently, hoping he didn't catch her staring, but unable to actually turn away from him. Besides, she felt it would put her at a distinct disadvantage if she turned her back on him. He was someone who had to be watched at all times, and even then if he sprang, she wasn't sure what she could do.
Words had always come easy for Bryn, but not tonight, not with him. He'd not only robbed her of breath it seemed, but some of her mental capabilities as well. She probably resembled a helpless little guppy to him, and later he would laugh about her with all his worldly friends. The thought made her cringe, and want to go hide in his big beautiful bathroom again. She wanted her ball gown back, and the pins in her hair. She didn't know who she was standing in her little black dress, her hair falling down her naked shoulders. This wasn't her, none of this.
He finished pouring himself a drink, and then promptly drank it down in a thirsty gulp. He refilled his glass again without looking over at her. She could have been a statue for all Cad Dupre cared. He'd already forgotten she was in the room. Bryn folded her hands before her, and forced herself to look away from him at the bar. Sarah had deserted her, but she was Bryn Carnduff, Queen B as they all called her, and she could salvage this night. Maybe if she just tiptoed out of the room, he'd forget the encounter all together and she could never revisit this humiliation again. Sarah, of course, would be getting an earful for abandoning her later.
"Here." Bryn was shocked to look up and find Cad Dupre standing right in front of her, holding out his half full glass of Scotch for her to take. She stared at it blankly for a minute, but then thankfully came to her senses and grabbed it from him. "Drink." He ordered as he stalked past her, and dropped down onto an antique arm chair that Bryn had admired earlier.
Bryn looked down into the swirling liquid, and tried not to grimace. She hated Scotch, but to refuse him would be another insult, and she'd already embarrassed herself enough. She pulled the glass to her lips slowly, and sipped at the bitter liquor. One sip, two sips, and then she finally lowered it again. She glanced at where he was sitting and found him watching her again, an impenetrable expression on his face. He probably thought she was a complete joke, but what could she do about that now.
"Come sit down." He patted the small space beside him, but Bryn didn't move. She just watched him warily, trying to figure out what was going on in his head. "Come." His eyes met hers dead on, and he refused to drop his gaze. The sucking and whooshing started up again, and Bryn decided to sit just so she didn't faint.
He didn't move over to accommodate her, so when she sat their thighs were pressed up against each other, and her dress spilled over his pants leg. Black on black. It should have looked funny, but it didn't. Instead, it looked right, and that thought made a warm heat spread down Bryn's neck. She'd kissed boys before, but they were only boys, and she knew right from the first moment she'd seen Cad Dupre he'd never been a boy. He'd been born with this power and confidence that she so desperately craved for herself. It was what her mother had, but her father lacked, what she herself could never hope to attain. Cad Dupre made it all seem effortless though, and she envied him for that. They came from the same world, but some part of her knew even then they were light years apart.
He grabbed his glass of Scotch back from her, and threw back his head as he finished it off. She watched his throat muscles ripple as he swallowed, and her blush turned hotter until she made herself look away from him. She heard, rather than saw, him place the glass on the plushly carpeted floor, and then there was complete silence again. She wondered if he was watching her. She wondered when he would get bored with her company and head back into the other room to find that redhead or the blond from earlier. They obviously knew how to deal with men like Cad Dupre. Bryn had always thought she did, but tonight she realized how sorely wrong she was.
She felt the material of her dress rustle against her bare legs, and she turned back to find him rubbing the dress through his fingers. It seemed like an absent minded gesture, but it made Bryn's heart speed up all the same. If he had been a boy from St. Judes she would have shooed his hand away and primly told him not to wrinkle her dress. But he wasn't, and the thought of smacking Cad Dupre's hand made her want to break out in hives. He dropped her dress and it laid down against his pants again, just like before, but this time it looked more violated. It should have distressed her, but instead that same warm feeling from earlier crept back, and she had to stop herself from sighing.
She decided she only needed just a few more minutes of companionable silence with Cad Dupre to be content. Just a little more of this intoxicating feeling, and her seventeenth birthday would never be forgotten. In truth, she knew this was a story she would never tell those women at that far off charity mixer. She would never share this with Sarah either. It wasn't even something she could describe to herself. It just was, a moment in time, when they existed in the same place, and he actually knew she was alive. A moment where she actually felt like she was a living participant in her life, and not just a life sized doll her mother ordered around.
Cad laid his head back against the edge of the arm chair and closed his eyes again, just like she'd seen him do earlier. Bryn watched him silently, tracing and then retracing all the little imperfections on his face. He had a tiny scar right on the edge of his right eyebrow and she yearned to reach out and run her fingertips over it. She instead clasped them tightly in her lap. He stayed like that for quite a while, and slowly Bryn began to relax as well. Her dress was still laying against his legs, and their thighs were pressed together so tightly that she could feel the heat from his body seeping into hers. For a minute it seemed like she was absorbing his life force, and a heady feeling filled her heart. She smiled, because she couldn't stop herself. And then in the only act of defiance she could come up with, she kicked off her shoes, and let her toes rub against the amazing plush carpeting Eleanor Dupre had no doubt picked out. Her bare foot edged towards his sock encased one, and she lightly bumped him. She waited for him to open his eyes, or move his foot, but he just stayed perfectly still instead.
Bryn's heart was going so fast now she was sure it would bust out of her chest at any moment. Could he hear it? Did she even care at this point. She stared down at where their feet met on the floor. His black socks against her, perfectly pedicured pale foot. Her toes were painted with a shimmery lavender to match her gown from earlier, and the contrast with his black foot was glaring, but also captivating. She couldn't look away and she didn't want to. The fact that she was very nearly playing footsy with Cad Dupre didn't escape her, even if he didn't know it was happening.
This kind of perfection couldn't last for very long, and Bryn was brought back to reality when he let out a tired sigh and opened his eyes. Bryn quickly moved her foot away from his, but she couldn't stop herself from meeting his gaze. She could see all his secrets churning in his eyes, but she was way too terrified to even try to tap the surface. He continued to stare at her for what seemed like forever, but was actually only a few seconds. Bryn stared back, because there was nothing else she could do.
"Happy Birthday," he whispered. His voice was soft and gravelly, and it echoed all around them in the deserted room. Bryn blinked in response, and opened her mouth to respond, but the smile that flitted across his face ever so briefly stopped her. Whoosh. There he went again, stealing all her air.
He rose from the chair beside her, and her dress fell back onto her own lap. It looked lonely and bereft there, exactly how Bryn felt. She looked up to watch him leave, and found him hovering over her. His eyes had the faraway look in them again, and she wanted more than anything to ask him what he was thinking. He didn't give her the chance though. He leaned in quickly, and placed a chaste kiss upon her cheek, before running his finger through a lock of her hair, and then disappearing again.
"Thank you," Bryn whispered once he was finally gone.
She sat there for a few more minutes before Sarah reappeared, her face flushed, and an excited look in her eyes. "There you are." She acted like she'd just misplaced Bryn, but Bryn was too stunned to yell at her about her earlier abandonment. "Dane wants to make a late night run to Pinkberry and I said we would come. You're up for it right?" Bryn wanted to tell her no, that she was never leaving this place, never leaving Cad Dupre. He had a hold on her now, and her addiction was growing. She couldn't get the words out though, and Sarah took her silence for acceptance of this plan. Before Bryn knew what was happening, Sarah had grabbed her arm, and was pulling her towards the elevator as she called out her goodbyes to a few people still at the party.
Dane Bronson materialized beside them, and Bryn briefly glanced at him. It disturbed her how perfect looking he was. His hair, his eyes, even that dopey smile that mirrored the one Sarah always wore, was perfect. She now understood completely how all these seemingly smart girls fell in love with him. And looking at him, with all his innocence and exuberance for frozen yoghurt of all things, she even kind of believed that he didn't mean to break all the hearts that he did. He couldn't help it, just like Sarah.
They hopped in a cab and headed to the nearest Pinkberry. Dane paid, and he and Sarah giggled about some wild incident in a fountain a few years back that Bryn had never previously heard about. She smiled, and laughed along with them, and tried to forget that haunting man that she'd shared her life with for a few precious moments earlier in the evening. Sarah and Dane didn't seem to notice the far off look in her eyes, and for that she was grateful. Her seventeenth birthday ended with a kiss on the forehead from Dane Bronson, and one on the lips from Sarah van Loane. But years later, when she was old and gray, and thought about this night, she knew she wouldn't remember that. She would remember an antique arm chair, Scotch, black socks, lavender toes, and plush carpeting. She would remember his lips, and his hair, and the way her dress looked spread across his legs. She would remember it all, just like she knew she'd remember every moment she ever got to spend with him.
