Chapter 1: The Devil’s Bargain at Midnight
The air in the Van Der Linde ballroom was thick with the scent of gardenias, expensive perfume, and whispered gossip. It clung to the sequins and silk of the swirling costumes, a visible haze under the trembling light of a thousand crystal droplets in the chandeliers. Lauren adjusted the ridiculous halo pinned lopsidedly in her dark curls. It kept catching on things. The white corset was a vice, pushing her breath high in her chest and making the tops of her breasts swell painfully against the sinful slash of black lace. It was exactly the look she was going for.
She spotted Adam near a potted palm that probably cost more than her car. He was leaning against a gilded column, dressed as some kind of disheveled pirate, a half-empty glass of something amber in his hand. He looked bored. Perfect.
She wove through the crowd, feeling eyes on the exposed skin of her back, the deliberate sway of her hips. Her boyfriend, Mark, was by the champagne fountain, laughing too loudly at something her mother was saying. He was dressed as a knight. Tin foil armor. It was pathetic.
“Get me out of here,” she said, slipping into the shadowed alcove beside Adam. It was a tight fit, her skirts brushing his legs.
He didn’t look surprised. He never did. He just took a slow sip of his drink, his eyes—the only part of his face visible behind the simple black mask—scanning her from halo to heel. “You look constricted.”
“I look incredible. And miserable.” She pouted, knowing how it made her lips look. “Mom’s been monitoring my glass all night. I need a real drink. Something that doesn’t taste like sparkling repression.”
“There’s a bar. It’s thirty feet away.”
“Mark will see. He’ll do that concerned frown thing and then tell my mother.” She shifted closer. The music from the string quartet was a distant hum here, muffled by velvet drapes. She could smell the clean, spiced scent of his cologne under the rum on his breath. “You’re the only one who can get me what I need.”
Adam let out a short, quiet laugh. “I’m not your dealer, Lauren.”
“A gin and tonic isn’t a controlled substance.” She placed a hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat under the coarse fabric of his shirt. She tilted her head up, her lips close to the shell of his ear, her voice dropping to a hot, conspiratorial whisper. “Come on. Just sneak one back for me. You’re good at that. At being unseen.”
He was quiet for a moment. She could feel him weighing it, the minor rebellion of it. That was Adam’s currency; small, calculated chaos. A whoopee cushion on a dining chair. Salt in the sugar bowl. This was just another prank on the establishment, and Marion, their mother, was the ultimate establishment.
“And what do I get?” he murmured, his own voice low.
Lauren smiled. She leaned in again, her cheek almost against his. Her breath hitched, partly from the corset, partly for effect. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
She pulled back just enough to see his eyes. She saw the flicker in them, the brief departure from amused detachment to something sharper. Interest. Maybe suspicion. It was the same look he got right before he did something particularly devious.
“Worth my while how?” he asked, his tone deliberately light, but she heard the edge.
“You hate these things as much as I do.” She glanced out at the ballroom. Her mother was now steering Mark toward a group of her friends, no doubt to showcase her daughter’s “respectable” match. “I’ll create a distraction. Something beautiful and chaotic. You can slip away after you get my drink. Go smoke on the terrace. Whatever you want. I’ll cover for you.”
He was silent, just looking at her. The mask made him unreadable, except for those eyes.
“Please, Adam?” She laid it on thick, letting her lower lip tremble just a fraction. “I’m dying of boredom. It’s a moral emergency.”
A slow smile spread across the lower half of his face, visible beneath the mask. He finally nodded, once. “Fine. But it’s top-shelf gin. The cheap stuff hurts your delicate constitution.”
She beamed at him, a flash of genuine triumph. “You’re the best. Truly.”
“I know.” He pushed off from the column, his shoulder brushing hers as he moved to slip past her back into the throng. “Don’t do anything stupider than usual while I’m gone.”
“No promises,” she sang softly after him.
She watched him go, his lean form cutting easily through the crowd. Then she turned, pressing her back against the cool wall of the alcove, and looked out. Mark was scanning the room, his tin-foil shoulders stiff. Looking for her. His gaze swept right over the shadow where she stood.
A different kind of smile, cold and satisfied, touched her lips. Adam thought he was doing a simple favor. A minor act of rebellion.
He had no idea what she was really asking for. The drink was just the cover story. The distraction she’d promised… that was the real request. And it wouldn’t be beautiful or chaotic.
It would be quiet. And it would ruin everything.
She took a deep, tight breath, the corset digging in, and stepped out of the shadows, a sinful angel moving to meet her knight.