Cognac Villain

Chapter 3 Episode 3

So that’s my predicament in a nutshell: hottest guy I’ve ever seen plus one hell of a wardrobe malfunction. I’m a waitress, not a mathematician, but even I know that that doesn’t add up to anything great.

“Relax,” he rumbles. “You don’t have to worry. I handled it.”

“Yep. Relax. Working on it.” It’s difficult to talk, given how hard I’m trying not to move for fear of ripping the dress further.

I have a delirious mental image of just staying planted right here for the rest of the night. They can use my arms like a coat rack. The clean-up crew will have to get a crowbar to pry me out of the corner in the morning.

“I’d advise you to start by inhaling,” he suggests. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. That sort of thing.” There’s an undercurrent of dark laughter in his voice.

I wrinkle my nose. “Which part of this is funny to you?”

He doesn’t seem bothered in the least by my sharp voice. “The part where you look like you’re about to have an aneurysm if you don’t take a breath in the near future.”

He’s right—I really am clenching dangerously hard. For medical reasons, if nothing else, I sigh and take a big sip of air.

As I do, I feel another stitch in the seam give way.

“You know, you look like a busy, important man,” I say, doing my best to keep my ever-growing desperation out of my voice. “I’m sure other busy, important men and women would very much like your attention somewhere else in the party, right?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Hard to say.”

“But easy to find out! You could go…over there, maybe!” I jut my chin in the direction of the back lawn. “Or there. Or there. Anywhere, really. Lots of people are no doubt extremely eager to ask you about, uh, world politics or the economy or who you think is gonna win Naked & Afraid this season.”

Unfortunately, Prince Testosterone doesn’t take any of my suggestions. “Then they can wait.” He inches closer, which I really, really wish he wouldn’t do. “What’s your name?”

“No, the other girl cowering in the corner.”

I force a laugh. “Oh, I’m nobody. Not busy or important in the least, and I don’t even watch Naked & Afraid!”

It feels like the walls are closing in. I’m making silent oaths in my head and hoping that some deities above are listening and will take mercy on me. I’ll wear only pants for the rest of my life if you get me out of this mess. Just please, for God’s sake, help me!

If anyone up above hears, they show no sign of it.

He edges closer still. I can smell his cologne now. Cedarwood and sage. It’s making my head spin.

Over his shoulders, most of the other attendees have turned back to their conversations, though I still feel a few stray eyes drifting in our direction here and there. It’s hard to look anywhere but at him, though. He’s just got this confidence, this magnetism, that brings me back to his gaze again and again.

For his part, he doesn’t seem to have any problem blocking out the whole world to focus on just me. “You’re a strange one.”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” I promise him. “Seriously. I’d run if I were you.”

I’d run if I were me, too, I add silently.

He still doesn’t smile or show any signs of a departure in the near-future. “I’ll ask you one more time: what’s your name?”

I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as lies and distractions go. Between that and the tickle of cold air on my bare skin and the tick-tick-tick sound-s***h-sensation of more stitches giving way and my ever-growing terror that somehow, some way, this terrifying man knows who I am—who I really am—I’m about this close to just telling him the truth.

Or maybe I’m just sick of lying. Of hiding. Of running. It’s been years of it now and it’s starting to get old.

So I open my mouth. My real name is right on my lips. “I’m—”

Then someone taps the man on the shoulder.

He straightens and turns with a scowl on his lips. The person interrupting us is slender and tall, with a wiry frame and a shock of brown hair. He’s got the same kind of serious composure in his face that Prince Testosterone has. A do-not-f**k-with-me-ness.

The new man whispers something urgent in his ear. Both their scowls deepen. Their eyes flit out to the lawn.

I see that for what it is.

With one last prayer to the heavens above just in case any of those celestial assholes have decided to tune in, I clamp the ruined halves of my dress together as best as I can, pirouette on my heel, and take off waddle-running down the nearest hallway before the two men turn back to realize I’m gone.

My plan is simple: I’m going to find somewhere quiet to fix my dress. Then I’m going to find Jorden and we’re going to get the hell out of here.

With any luck, I’ll never see that man again.

Bad news: this place is a labyrinth. I feel like I’ve been running for hours, twisting and turning down hall after hall. The one silver lining is that at least I’m leaving the super Hulk behind.

I shiver at the thought of him. He was too perfect to be real. His bone structure was brutally sharp. Those lips had a cruel slant to them. And those eyes—Lord have mercy, those amber eyes could hypnotize a girl if she’s not careful.

He hadn’t laid so much as a finger on me, but the way he looked at me was a physical touch in and of itself. It stroked the deepest parts of me.

As if I didn’t already feel plenty naked with a gaping rip in the backside of my dress.

I shake off the memory just as a door with a thin slice of light at the bottom beckons. It looks like a bathroom, so I push through—

And come to a screeching halt.

A trio of girls is clustered around a hand mirror balanced on top of the sink. Their hair is expertly curled, their dresses flawless, their manicures glistening in the candlelight.

Two of them don’t notice me enter. The third looks up from where she’s bent over the mirror with a straw pressed to her nostril. Her face is reflected on the surface below, although it’s broken up by five or six neatly arranged lines of white powder.

When she sees me, she frowns. It’s not a frown of surprise at being barged in on, though.

It’s a frown of recognition.

“Cordelia?” she says in shock. “Is that you?”

Cordelia. A dead name. A nobody name.

My heart jumps into my throat. One thought blares through my head like a tornado siren: run.

This time, I hold nothing back. I run and run and run. High heels be damned. Ripped dress be damned.

I keep running, down hallways and up stairs, until my breath burns in my lungs. Then I burst through the nearest door I see and slam it shut behind me.

Inside the darkened room, I keel over, elbows on my knees, and try to inhale. I’m so tired I don’t give a rat’s ass about the fact that anyone who comes up from behind me could get a high-def view of where the sun don’t shine.

I stay there for a while. Even when I catch my breath, though, my heart continues to pitter-patter in my chest.

She saw me. She knew me.

I shudder again. Cordelia. God, I hate how that sounds.

Eventually, my heart calms down, though the tang of fear never truly leaves my mouth. When I’m as at ease as I’m gonna get, I look around the room.

I’m in an office of some sort. Very masculine, dark palette, brooding. It’s shadowy in here, though there’s light coming through a set of French doors. When I walk over, I realize the attached balcony looks out over the rear lawn. Most of the crowd has shuffled outside, so it’s a maze of bodies. The sound of laughter and clinking glasses rises up to meet me. There’s no sign of Prince Testosterone or his friend.

I turn my back on the balcony and fish my phone out of my purse. I press Jorden’s contact and hold it up to my ear. It rings and rings, and then:

“Heeeey! Girl, where’d you go? This party is crazy!”

Oh jeez. Jorden is blitzed beyond belief. I know that looseness in her voice, that cackle. The girl is D-R-U-N-K. She isn’t coming to save me.

I’m all on my own.

“Uh, never mind,” I mumble into the phone. “Butt dial. I’m coming to find you. One sec.” I hang up and drop my phone onto the nearby couch.

I find a lamp in the corner and click it on. The rip is in the back, so I need to get this dress off and try to finagle some kind of safety pin stopgap solution good enough to get me out of here without mooning every partygoer in attendance. With a grimace and a prayer, I start trying to peel off the dress while doing the least damage possible.