I check the contents of my purse for the thousandth time as I walk fast—or as close to fast as my heels and floor-length dress allow. Tissues, pain killers, plasters, pocket star chart, phone.
Okay. Okay, the check makes me feel a little more in control. Ugh, I wish the Uber had turned up. But now there’s none available and walking is my only option. At least the necessary pace to be less late is keeping me warm. Ish.
The London night is that cold crisp darkness, like all the warmth of the day got sucked out. I glance up, hoping for some guidance. I don’t get parents, surely I should have celestial help? But there’s no wisdom to be gleaned. No stars to read the future in. Just a dark woolly blanket over the city, glowing with reflected orange light.
I think sometimes my life is like a city sky. Sure, there might be a plan up there, written out in the stars. But it’s obscured and muddled by all the power games I’ve fought against in my very-nearly eighteen years.
I was a mafia princess. I was Sebastian Laurent’s arranged and then rejected bride. I was friends with him for an afternoon, though I no more wanted to marry him than I did my next “suitor”. Aged thirteen, I was the furious and tearful one-day wife of a monster: Ross Fletcher. I was a helpless pawn in my father’s power games.
Now I’m none of those things. I’m a normal girl. After years in protective custody when my marriage was discovered, but the police couldn’t make the charges stick, I’m finally on the cusp of freedom. Out of school and with an admin assistant job to an astrologer and a small, boxy apartment I was allocated, reading gossip magazines showing photos of my once betrothed.
Alright, swooning over. Just a little.
But I want to prove I can be more than the feeble girl I’ve been brought up to be. Smarter, certainly. Not doing so well on that right now, as I should have put on ballet flats. I’m in danger of needing the emergency stash of plasters for myself.
Ouch, these shoes.
I increase my pace. No swooning. No giving up on the pretty shoes.
I arrive at the hotel panting, my breath puffs of tiny ice crystals fading into black, only a bit late. Hopefully my boss won’t notice. The astrology award ceremony guests have already arrived, but Priscilla is not to know I have been rushing across the city. I might have just been lost in the crush.
I show my ticket and the attendant opens the door onto a swooping staircase down into the ballroom. Hesitating, I peer out over the crowd and butterflies take flight in my stomach. All those people, and I’m supposed to walk down the stairs and not slip and land on my tush, or die of embarrassment. What if they look at me?
My pale pink lipstick feels weird and sticky on my lips, and I hope my discount dress is presentable. Black and silky, the figure-skimming style gives the impression I’m sophisticated and experienced.
Ha. I wish.
I’m pure as driven snow after five years closeted in a boarding school so secure it could double as a jail. This is my first real job. My boss is tipped for the up-and-coming astrologist award, and I’ll be there supporting her: organised, smiling, and utterly forgettable. Or I’ll probably get the sack for being tardy and never convince anyone to trust the girl with no connections and no family.
I approach the stairs like they’re a cliff. Wary, heart pounding, I stop.
It’s not at all like a movie where the princess arrives at the head of the gold stairs and everyone is wowed. No. They’re chatting and laughing, and not taking any notice of me, stuck at the top by my jittery nerves. I scan the crowd, delaying the inevitable, seeking Priscilla. It’s a good vantage point here, I tell myself. That’s why I’ve paused. If I can find her… My gaze locks with a man’s.
It’s a jolt. I grip the banister to stop myself from falling.
He’s looking up at me from the far side of the ballroom, tall and impeccably dressed in a crisp dinner jacket. There are hundreds of people in that room, all ignoring me, but he gazes like we’re the only two people in the world. Like he has been waiting for me, and only me.
Sebastian Laurent.
My heart stutters. It’s been five years. His dark hair is shot with silver at the temples now, but he’s otherwise the same. Broad shoulders, deceptively casual pose with his hands in his pockets. Maybe there are a couple of lines around his eyes. Laughter lines, or worry? I wish I knew. But it’s his regard that’s most familiar. It’s like he can see right through my skin and bone to read my soul.
Surely he doesn’t recognise me?
He can’t, it’s impossible. Everything is different. I dye my hair a dirty blonde compared to my natural bright platinum, and I’m not a child anymore. And besides, we only met once.
What is Sebastian doing here? I descend the stairs, cheeks burning from his regard. His gaze is steady on my face.
I’m in shock. That’s the only explanation for the blood zinging around my body and the lump in my throat. I never thought I’d see him again, and in real life he’s so much more handsome than in the paparazzi photos. His eyes glitter in a way that can’t be captured in an image.
But then I remember. He refused me as a child bride, but he still works with my family. I’ve seen pictures of him with my father at charity auctions and suchlike that evil men attend to sanitise their reputations. It’s one thing to crush on the villain in a romance book; it’s quite another to be faced with what a man will do for money.
He doesn’t move as I reach the final step, but neither does he look away. It’s like he’s commanding me to come to him by sheer force of will. So I tilt my chin up and stare down Sebastian Laurent. He might be a powerful and dangerous mafia boss, but he doesn’t own me, and I don’t owe him.
I am a good girl now. I got out, and I’m not going back into that world. So I turn my head away. A dismissal.
I make my way through the well-dressed people discussing the position of Mars and the ascension of Venus. I understand snippets, but I’m still learning about astrology. I’m not sure if I believe all of it, but the idea that there’s a predetermined future I just need to be in the right place to grab is appealing. And that people can be understood and put into neat categorisations. Virgo. Leo. Pisces. Your personality mapped out by your time of birth. I like the insight into people who I otherwise find confusing.
It takes me a while to find Priscilla and all the time I feel someone watching. Him.
The observation is a warm hand on the small of my back. Supportive. Comforting. Pushing me towards him. But he doesn’t approach.
My boss is in the middle of a gaggle of women laughing about valentine’s day and Scorpios, which I don’t get but pretend to chuckle anyway. I creep in, trying to catch Priscilla’s eye.
When she eventually notices, she gestures impatiently. “Where have you been?”
“Sorry—”
“Pay attention now you’re finally here.” She rattles off a list of appointments and I cram them into her online calendar via my phone. When I get to work tomorrow morning I will handwrite each item into her beautiful desk diary. Priscilla prefers the analogue versions of everything, even though it was my efforts on social media that gave her this big break. I still can’t persuade her to do so much as one post herself. I do it all, and Priscilla, despite her initial scepticism, is gratifyingly dedicated to her online followers.
Once I’m caught up, I stand at the fringes of the group, listening and taking notes.
I say listening. I should be. But my mind won’t focus. All my attention is on the little hairs on the back of my neck.
He’s watching.
I turn occasionally, but I don’t see him through the mass of elegantly garbed bodies.
If Sebastian knows who I am, he knows my worth. Not in money, he has plenty of that. He’s a billionaire. But there is value to the ancient Carter family name, despite how long I’ve been gone.
I should be scared. A man I know to be a killer, a ruthless mafia kingpin who takes whatever he wants, is stalking me like I’m his prey.
He doesn’t frighten me. The sensation of being watched warms me everywhere. It’s the coat I didn’t bring tonight, this feeling he’s there. It’s the blaze of a fire on chilled hands. I think if I slipped, or something happened, he’d notice. Would he be at my side in a second? Crazy as it sounds, I almost want to test him as we move into the dining room for the meal.
But then, why would he care about the girl he rejected for being too young, and everyone now thinks is dead? If he had demanded we wait until I was old enough to marry, would my father have accepted that, and not sold me off to Fletcher at thirteen? Back then, Laurent mafia needed the authority of Carter, and he could have achieved that with a long engagement. Instead, he murdered and gamed his way to power.
I guess we’ll never know, but the possibility fuels a surge of righteous anger that obliterates any softer feelings. He’s probably looking out of guilt. Shock. Horror at having to acknowledge the little lost princess.
Apparently my family claimed I was missing, presumed kidnapped and killed. Not good PR for it to get out that they practically sold me to Fletcher. And Laurent is their ally.
I might have looked at his picture in a magazine, but that doesn’t mean I’m naive enough to think I want him.
It takes me a little time to check the seating plan and find Priscilla and my table. I guide her to it as everyone else has taken their seats. She’s instructing me to post a photo of her I took with the Sagittarius constellation banner onto each of the social media sites and I’m nodding as we weave through the round tables, my bare elbow brushing on jackets draped over the backs of chairs and the swishy skirt of my dress catching on handbags. She really is peak Sagittarius.
I look up when I press submit on the photo to her account, and lurch to a halt.
Because at our table, grey eyes calm and observant, sits Sebastian Laurent.
