Secret Heir (Dynasty #1)(69)
“Yes!” He shouts. He moves towards me then, quick as a flash of light. His hands are holding my face, his fingers devastatingly gentle, although his words rage like fire.
“I know how messed up I am. Trust me, I know. I’m fucked up because when I’m around you, I can’t think straight. Because the thought of you with someone else makes me feel like I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.”
His words floor me and at the same time, they make me come alive. My heart is pounding so fast, it feels like it might burst out of my chest. There are a million questions roaring through my mind, but when I look into those midnight blue eyes, I see the answer, and everything inside me stills.
“But none of it matters, right? Because you don’t want me?”
He closes his eyes then and lets go. That impossibly beautiful face is a picture of defeat. But he’s not the only one who’s lost, we both have.
“It can’t matter, Jaz. I can’t want you. You deserve …” he lets out a long breath. “More. So much more. But it doesn’t matter, because I can’t give you more—I don’t have more to give.”
It was almost cruel for him to tell me all of that, only to say that none of it even matters, that it could never matter.
There’s nothing left in me as I pick up the dress bag and turn to face him one last time.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Then, to answer your question, I am going with Devon.”
I don’t stay to listen to what else he might have to say, because as we’ve both just admitted to each other, none of it can matter anyway.
22
I’m grateful for Keller’s choice because even I can’t deny that this red dress is smoking hot. The dress clings to my curves and is cut low in all the right places, so as to entice a little, but not too much. The silk makes the ensemble look elegant, while the lace makes it just the right kind of sexy.
My jet black hair falls like a silken waterfall down my lace covered back and is swept back from my face by diamond encrusted clasps.
I almost died of shock when Keller dragged me to Ivy’s room earlier to have my make-up done, because I would have thought that the girl would sooner claw her own face off than help me in any way.
But Keller had been right about Ivy—her bark was worse than her bite and she isn’t Layla. She didn’t say much as she applied the powders and tints in all the right places, but she didn’t need to. I got it—her loyalties are with her friend, but it didn’t need to be anything personal against me. I can respect that.
I expected her to bring up Dani and Lance. But weirdly, she didn’t and I wonder how much she actually cares.
I have to hand it to the girl, though, Keller is right, Ivy knows how to work a make-up brush. The dark brown, grey and black powders are perfectly blended around my eyes in what has to be the best smoky eye look I’ve ever seen in real life. I usually hate drawing attention to those violet eyes with the silver rings. But tonight, the kohl lining makes that unnatural coloring look almost beautiful, stunning. The hint of blush across my cheekbones is just the right flush and the deep ruby red tint that Ivy expertly applied to my lips makes them look both sensual and demure.
“Jazmine—get your sexy butt down here.”
I take a deep breath because despite the dress and the make-up, I’m nervous as hell or maybe it’s because of them that the nerves are jangling through my body. Is it too much? I hate being the center of attention, eyes on me. I’m so used to just trying to stay invisible, drifting from place to place, observing life around me with my artist’s eye, rather than living it. But that all changed when I came to Eden, the looks, the attention and even though I’ve felt hate, been hated, had my hopes and maybe even my heart crushed, I realize that at least, I’ve been living.
And tonight, as I walk down the sweeping marble staircase at Sovereign Hall, every fiber in my being does feel alive.
The large reception hall falls silent as I descend the marbles steps. Baron is standing on the side nearest to the kitchen, pouring drinks for his not one, but two dates. He misses one of the glasses and vodka sloshes onto the counter as his jaw practically hits the floor. I almost want to laugh, despite feeling embarrassed as hell.
Lance is standing with Dani, near Baron. Both of them are looking at me like they’ve never seen me before.
Keller’s date is trying hard not to stare, but Keller doesn’t seem to mind, she picked this dress after all, so she’s to blame. Ivy and her date stand next to Keller and I’m surprised to see the pride in Ivy’s face as she surveys her work.
I try not to look at the figure by the door. But clearly, I’m a glutton for punishment because my eyes find Raph anyway. They always do.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him in a tux. The dark tux he’s wearing tonight is similar to the one he wore at that first ceremony—finely made and elegantly cut to fit his tall, yet powerfully muscled frame. But tonight, his beauty is utterly devastating and I feel an ache in my chest as I take in that golden hair, those uncanny blue eyes and that impossibly perfect face. The face of an angel. He carries himself like he knows that he has the world at his feet, and in that moment, he looks every inch the heir to the throne that he is. His aura emanating the authority of the crown that is his by birthright.
Those blue eyes burn into mine and something flickers in their depths as he takes in the sight of me. I see the way his throat works, the way his lips part slightly and the way his chest hitches as he takes a sharp intake of breath. He steps forward, as if almost involuntarily drawn and I feel the universe narrowing so that nothing exists but the two of us standing there in the vastness of time and space.