Page 126 of Violet

“No, there’s a little change, but…this isn’t the place.” Iris spots Mom. “Damn, forgot to get her a drink and she’s stuck talking to Alicia’s pompous mother.”

She takes off with Quinn, and I make my way to the powder room, but it’s occupied.

“Madam, there is one on the second floor, to the right on the landing,” one of the servers says, pointing to the stairs.

I nod and take my time.

There are things you can never whisper about in balls, especially when a Season’s member’s parents host it.

Like Alicia’s parents.

This isn’t a townhouse like ours. It’s in one of the outer park-studded areas of Sabine. Still city perimeters, but the estate’s classed as a townhouse, even though it’s huge. Probably because they’re new and couldn’t get a country estate like most of those belonging to the established Sabine families.

I head to the upstairs powder room, which is free.

After taking care of business, I look at myself in the gold-rimmed mirror. Behind my honey-gold mask, my eyes look big, but the color brings out the softer, lighter tones in the brown of my eyes, making them look like how Stephan describes.

My stomach flips, and my heart squeezes at the thought of him. I know Quinn’s right. I have fallen.

Utterly, irreversibly in love.

Someone knocks on the door, and I call out, “One moment.”

I fix my hair, which is pinned up, tendrils falling artfully down, and I reach in my bag for my lipstick, but realize forgot it. I bite my lips to bring a little more color and then head to the door.

A girl goes in, muttering, “The mated don’t need that long.”

I shake my head and start for the stairs when I overhear my name.

“Violet? Oh, come on.” Alicia laughs. “Do you think Violet and Stephan are actually doing it? She’s such a bore.”

I’m on the wrong side of the door, and a wave of panic comes over me. I have to step past the open door to reach the stairs and?—

“Anyone tell you it’s rude to eavesdrop?” Alicia says, suddenly there and looking utterly angelic and beautiful in white-gold dress and mask. She grabs my hand and pulls me into the room, where about six girls sit with a bottle of liquor on the table. I know their names, I do, but they spin, jumbled, in my head and my chest starts to tighten. “Look who I found.”

“We were talking about your honeymoon,” the redhead—Jade? yes, Jade—says. “Drink?”

“She doesn’t drink,” someone else says with a laugh.

Another girl leans forward, eyes excited. “Where did Asher St. James take you for your honeymoon? Somewhere exotic?”

I try to speak, but I can’t, and my vision blurs. It’s only Stephan’s scent as his warm breath touches my skin,whisperingperfect girl, so fucking goodin my ear, that keeps me on my feet and not unconscious on the floor.

But he’s wrong. I’m not that at all. I’ve crumbled, retreated back to what I truly am, an anxious mess.

“Don’t be stupid,” Alicia says with a laugh. “He didn’t take her anywhere. Look at her… I don’t know what dirt your family has or what they paid the Monarch to get him.” She presses in and her blocker hurts my nose, makes breathing harder. “I fucked him and he was good. Did he tell you that? Did he knot you, too? Because that’s so fucking good.”

She steps back and laughs. “Look at her face. Stephan hasn’t knotted her, so their mating isn’t valid.”

I’ve got to get out of here.

“Come on,” Jade says. “She’s just jealous. Tell us what it’s like being knotted, Violet.”

Another girl sighs. “Heath is hot. I wish he’d take part, now Violet’s taken the catch of the Season off the menu.”

“I bet he’s still on it,” Alicia says. “She can’t hold him. He’ll be sniffing around the Lower Side?—”

“Problem?” Oak swirls around me. I know he’s got a blocker on, too. But I can always smell Stephan. And the moment I smell him, hear him, the panic, the anxiety recedes.

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