The Drugged Room

My wedding eve should have ended with champagne and last-minute promises. I woke to vanilla instead. A musky note sat underneath it, turning my stomach while heat crawled across my skin. A silk blindfold covered my eyes. More silk held my wrists and ankles to the corners of an angled bed, forcing my hips up and leaving my body exposed to anyone who entered. I ordered my legs to move, then tried again. They barely twitched. Whatever they had given me had turned every limb heavy while leaving a sick, unwanted heat low in my belly. The candle. Martha had set a lavender and vanilla candle on my nightstand that afternoon and lit it herself. “For the wedding nerves, my dear.” Her smile had been as polished as the pearls at her throat. That same scent now coated my tongue and the back of my throat. I pulled both wrists at once until the silk burned through the skin. The knots only tightened. The lock clicked. Shoes crossed the hardwood at an easy pace, each step clear in the quiet room. They stopped beside the bed. I held my breath and listened for another person. A large, warm hand settled on my thigh. I jerked against the ropes. The touch paused as if assessing my reaction, then moved over the thin lace someone had dressed me in. “You're new.” The man's voice was low and familiar. Julian Thorne. Arthur's uncle, head of the Thorne empire, and a man people mentioned only after checking who else could hear. I tried to say his name and tell him to stop. My swollen tongue pressed uselessly against my teeth and turned the warning into a broken sound. His hand stopped. “They didn't mention you were this committed to the role.” Dry amusement still touched his voice. He thought someone had hired an escort to wait for him, and my face burned under the blindfold. I shook my head as far as the pillow allowed and pulled against the restraints again. Tears soaked the silk over my eyes and ran into my hair. His fingers touched the wet edge of the blindfold. “Those tears are real.” He leaned close enough for me to smell soap and wool. “This isn't a game, is it?” Before I could answer, the hotel door flew open. It struck the wall. Camera flashes pulsed through the blindfold in rapid white bursts. Reporters crowded the doorway, shouting my name over the click of shutters. “Evelyn!” Arthur. My fiancé had arrived with every line ready for an audience. “How could you do this? The night before our wedding!” I turned toward him. Between the flashes, I caught his face through a gap below the blindfold. His mouth performed outrage, but satisfaction had settled around his eyes. He had known exactly what would be behind the door. The cameras kept firing while I lay bound beneath Julian's jacket. By morning, those pictures would be on every screen that mattered to the Vanderbilt board. Arthur stepped closer as if he meant to claim the scene. Julian moved in front of the bed, spread his suit jacket over me, and blocked the worst of the cameras with his back. My stepmother shrieked from the hallway. “My baby!” Martha pushed toward the room. “Oh God. What has she done now?”