Page 89 of Enticing the Enforcer
Madison’s expression doesn’t shift, but she closes her laptop with a snap that makes the stylists flinch. “All of this is bigger than love and broken hearts. It’s business, all of it, even if you can’t see it.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, Madison, but I’m not just your brand. I’m a person.”
Madison doesn’t flinch. She tilts her head, lips pressed into a thin line. “AmIthe one who forgot that, or areyou? Because it’s hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. You spent years playing games with Jake–writing your little lyrics and teasing audiences, playing hide and seek with the paparazzi. And now you want me to believe you suddenly don’t want to bring him back in? Like I haven’t had to clean up after every other breakup you’ve had and spin it into something new?”
The words land sharp, and I feel them in my chest before I can even form a response. “Or do you mean every breakup you’ve orchestrated?” My voice shakes, but doesn’t break. “Because that’s what happened with Jefferson, isn’t it? You decided it was time for us to end. For me to go back to Jake. Why? Because what I had with Jefferson was real? Because foronce I was happy and could see a way out of the toxic cycle I was caught in?”
“You deserved to know the truth,” she says flatly, like she’s explaining a business strategy.
“On your timeline,” I snap back. “For maximum effect.”
The room seems to shrink around us. Stylists pretend to busy themselves, curling irons paused midair, eyes cast anywhere but at us. Madison and I just stare at one another, a different kind of heartache cracking me open from the inside.
It’s not the breakup with Jefferson that ruins me–it’s realizing Madison chose it for me.
The house hums with life.Laughter, glasses clinking, the low swell of a string quartet warming up out back. The Foundation Ball is always the one night a year when we open our doors, when our home becomes something other than a private place for family. The lavish gardens are dressed with lanterns, velvet ropes keeping the curious at bay, while moonlight reflects off the water. It’s flawless. Of course it is. My mother wouldn’t allow anything less.
Everything sparkles under the lights, from the polished marble floors to the towering floral arrangements she’s fussed over for weeks. It’s the kind of perfection that takes armies of assistants and endless hours of planning. When I stop at the bottom of the stairs, catching my reflection in the gilded mirror, I almost don’t recognize the girl staring back at me.
I, too, look perfect. The hair is perfect. The gown is perfect. The smile–the signature red lipstick, plastered on, practiced–perfect too. But inside, I feel hollowed out. My chest aches with the effort of holding it all together, and the only thing I want inthis moment is to crawl back into my bed upstairs, bury myself beneath the covers, and pretend none of it exists.
I want to call Jefferson. I want to hear his voice steady me. But I can’t. Not after everything. Not when Madison’s fingerprints are still smeared all over the wreckage of what we were.
I want answers too–about how much of the last few years was real, how much was orchestrated, manipulated, staged for cameras and headlines. About whether I’ve been living my life, or simply living the story Madison chose for me.
But none of those wants matter tonight.
Tonight isn’t about me. It’s about the Foundation, about the girls and families we support, about the charities that will benefit from every dollar pledged and every photo splashed across glossy magazines tomorrow morning. It’s about my mother, who has poured herself into this cause with relentless energy.
So I inhale, let the air fill my lungs, and fix that smile in place until it feels like part of me. The show must go on.
“That dress,” I hear over and over, from every guest I stop to smile at. “Absolutely gorgeous. Who is the designer?”
I supply them with the answer, gushing over Bridgette. She’ll be on every blog by midnight. The hallways are filled with actors wearing expensive watches and surgically smoothed faces. Athletes in custom fit tuxedos that accentuate the bulk of their shoulders. Socialites dripping in borrowed diamonds, laughing too loudly, their perfume clouding the air. Everyone has the same statement when they see me:that dress.
And it is something to talk about. Not like me, not what I’ve worn in the past–the soft silks, the frothy skirts that made me look delicate, approachable, a doll to be posed for photographs. This one is slinky, liquid silver that clings like it was poured ontome. The fabric catches the light and throws it back like sparks. It looks like metal. Like armor.
Armor I didn’t even realize how desperately I’d need tonight, until I was standing here, holding myself together under a hundred hungry gazes. While I’d been vacillating between heartbreak and anger, word was spreading about my love life. And now I know why.
The smile starts to ache, so I duck away, sliding past a velvet rope into one of the side gardens. It’s roped off to the guests, but the party noise still trickles in, muffled by hedges and fountains. I draw in a deep breath of warm Miami air, willing my lungs to unclench.
That’s when the faint curl of cigarette smoke drifts toward me.
My father.
He’s leaning against the stone balustrade, one hand in his pocket, the other loosely cradling his cigarette. The glow at the end flares as he takes a drag, his eyes finding me in the shadows. He smiles the way only he can–wry, knowing, amused that he caught me slipping away.
“Hey, Daddy.”
“Hiding out?” he asks, smoke curling from his mouth in a slow exhale. His voice is softer than the world inside the ballroom, stripped of all the pretense. If my mother knew that he was hiding,andsmoking, she’d throw a fit.
“Just needed a minute,” I admit.
He nods in quiet understanding. My father’s always been more comfortable in the wings than in the spotlight. He studies me now, his gaze moving past the dress, past the diamonds, past the perfect hair. Past the armor I’ve strapped on just to get through the night.
And I can tell–he sees me. The real me.
“What happened?” he asks.
