Once I do get to the blasted Ball, my so-called date is nowhere to be found. Instead, there is a number on the table, held down by her empty wine glass. I pick it up and see my brother waving me over. Rolling my eyes, I cross the floor, ducking from the other dancers who too, want to dance with me. Sorry, one uncomfortable dance is enough for me.
"Do you know who just grabbed your attention?" Jake's smoothing out his electric blue tie as he asks me. "The Stone Family. They're practically untouchable." He gives me a pointed look as if I wanted Isobel to take such a drastic interest in me in the first place.
"I had no idea. Given her name is Isobel Quartz." I try so hard not to show my temper. I just want out of this room. I wanted to follow her Uncle, wherever he went.
"You're going to ruin yet another opportunity for us!" Jake takes me by the arm and forcibly moves me to a corner. "Bad enough you took over the whole dance floor!"
"And yet here you are, making a scene. I didn't even want her." Shit, I have to watch my mouth. "Look, I was a perfect gentleman. I danced, I gave her my name. It's not like I wanted to attract some high powered woman." I moved aside to let my mother through who didn't look twice at us. "I actually found out a lot. But your word, and I'll drop everything." I regretted it as soon as I said it. My stomach clenched at the thought of never knowing my mystery man's name. Just his eyes made me shiver tonight.
Jake shoved me into the wall, and growled. "No. We'll give you lessons, you're going to behave and not fuck this up. You're already known for..." he pulled a face and looked me over disgustingly before pulling back. "We're not even up there yet, okay? We need to expand. Don't break her heart, don't fuck this up for Mother."
I jerked my arm from him. "She already left, okay? I don't understand why I'm still here. If I need to keep up an appearance of remaining single and interested, I can't dance with anyone else." I smirk, knowing I won the argument. I waited for a rebuttal and slunk out of there. I unbuttoned my vest and tie, not caring who saw me.
Walking down the hallway, I changed my mind about going to the door and turned to a hallway that circles back to the ballroom. I needed to see if he was there. Keeping out of sight, I used the darkness to shield me.
The Uncle wasn't standing anywhere. Not that I could see, in fact, the main host wasn't there either. Someone was coming to the stage and it didn't look like her family. Shit, I was running out of time. I run back the other way, outside and looked around. High end cars were still parked, the Victorian mansion stood still against the mountains behind me. Wouldn't he be outside, escorting the guests? I jumped down the stairs and hid under it, though it was almost impossible. Once I got into position, a stick poked my leg through my sock.
I didn't have to wait long. One pair by another, someone was leading them out. I couldn't tell by the shadow however. There were overlapping voices, and I froze when I heard my Mother speaking as she went down. Crap, they could leave me here.
It took two hours for everyone to leave and before the door shut, someone called out Uncle Indo. My heart fluttered and I slowly inched closer to try and get a better look of his lovely (or not) face.
"We've discussed this before! I need to talk to every partner first before you make a connection! I need to know if there's a security issue, or if we can benefit from them! Every time you go against my wishes, your aunt's wishes, we don't know what they want!" Indo had a smooth voice which held a lovely growl as it raised. He still had the mask on.
"You invite me to the Family's Dance and bawk when I make the first move! He was nice! He has a big family too, and was very interested in the Cause. We had polite conversation."
"Yes I met him." Indo takes off the mask and I have to hold in my gasp. He has a striking goatee, perfectly black, a small subtle line going down to his chin that sticks out slightly. This guy was exactly my type and for a slight moment, I almost felt bad for using Isobel to get close to him. I could stare at him for hours. "He seemed skittish. We will set up a meeting with his family. You are not to talk to him before this."
