“Do you really need me to go to this thing with you?” I asked, flopping down on the ludicrously large beanbag in my sister’s living room. Having a rock band for a pack definitely had its benefits.
“Yes, I do. And you’re going to wear whatever I put you in.”
“Eva.”
“Esme.”
I groaned. “I think I would rather have bamboo shoved under my nails.”
“Listen.” She sat on the coffee table, identical face looking at me seriously. “Going to this thing and looking fucking fabulous is only going to help you. I know you hate the press attention, but if they think you’re happy and thriving they’ll back off. People always want to read more about drama than happiness.”
I threw an arm over my face, intentionally dramatic. “Why do you have to be right when all I want to do is sulk? I know this will help the ‘rumors,’ or whatever the hell Katarina was talking about yesterday.”
Eva smacked my knee. “I knew you were listening.”
“You did not.”
“I did. And yeah, that bitch was way out of line. The next time I see Mom alone I’m telling her to dump her ass.”
I smirked. Eva had stood up and had her hands on her hips like a superhero. To the rest of the world, she was Eva May Williams, the darling sweetheart. Behind the scenes, she was as snarky as I was. If the paparazzi knew how much Eva swore, her whole career would be different.
“Shut up.”
“I said nothing.”
The door closed. “Hello? I brought home pizza. Oh, hey, Esme.”
I waved to Liam, one of Eva’s Alphas. Both their scents immediately got stronger. Eva’s roses and coffee, and Liam’s bourbon. The good kind. He’d barely put down the stack of pizza boxes before she was in his arms. The way she melted before he leaned down to kiss her—smiling the whole time—made my stomach flip with longing.
Pulling out my phone was the only way to distract myself without leaving the room. A year ago at the Designation Choice Awards, Eva ran into Mindless Delirium backstage and instantly started perfuming.
Scent-sympathetic they called it. A very clinical name for when scents were so compatible you just knew. It didn’t always work, but this time it had.
They went home together and basically never separated. A few months later, their bonding ceremony was televised—the event of the decade—and I was there. Looking like I would do anything to be in her place.
It was the footage Kat had mentioned. Whenever the press deigned to give me attention, it was usually those pictures or videos, with either a true, twisted, or entirely fabricated story about how I’d chased off yet another pack.
Eva and Liam were practically making out now, her twisting up and around him like he was a tree and she was a vine. I heard his purr from here. “Get a room, please.”
My sister just flipped me off and kissed him a little more before breaking away with a laugh. “We have to get ready, anyway.”
“Get ready for what?” Jack, another one of Eva’s Alphas, stood in the doorway to their kitchen, shirtless.
“Studio party, remember? I’m dragging Esme with me.”
“Though I’m perfectly willing to just go home.”
“No, you’re not.” She came over and hauled me to my feet, dragging me upstairs into her sprawling bedroom.
Eva lived in a two-story penthouse in one of the most secure buildings in Slate City. I could probably afford to live here if I cared to, but the high-rise life wasn’t for me. My place was plenty secure, but it wasn’t downtown. I lived on the edge of the city where I could get out easily and run in the park and outside the city boundaries if I needed to.
I frequently needed to.
“Okay, what vibe are we feeling tonight?”
“There are no vibes. I have no vibes. I am not a vibe.”
“Sexy as hell it is.” She disappeared into the massive closet.
I groaned. Once my sister got a hold of an idea, especially when it came to me and fashion, there was almost no stopping her.
“Here. I’ve been dying to wear this, but my publicist absolutely forbid it, so I’m going to have to live vicariously through you.”
I looked at the dress she was holding and stared at her. “There’s no way in hell I can pull that off.”
The dress was gold and slinky, ruched at the sides just enough to make sure it would show off every curve I had, and I would be lucky if it fell mid-thigh. Spaghetti straps and a cowl neckline, and the outfit would cover just as much of my skin as it revealed. Fifty-fifty.
I wasn’t ashamed of my body or showing skin, but I wasn’t sure about giving the paparazzi that kind of ammunition if I had a wardrobe malfunction. Which, you know, wasn’t unheard of.
“You can one-hundred-percent pull this off. How do I know? Because it looks fucking fabulous on me, and we’re identical twins. Put it on.”
Sticking out my tongue, I reached for the dress. It wouldn’t hurt to try it on. When Eva saw how uncomfortable I was in the dress she would change her mind. “Are your Alphas going to come waltzing in here? Or should I change in the bathroom?”
She laughed, but bit her lip. “I mean, it’s not their room,” it was, in the sense I knew all of them slept in here most nights, “but yeah, maybe use the bathroom.”
That was fine with me. The last thing I wanted tonight was for one of my sister’s pack to see me naked.
The dress itself was cool to the touch, made out of a metal mesh on the outside and silk on the inside. There was absolutely no way I could wear a bra with this thing. I slipped it on and looked in the mirror, already cursing.
It looked amazing—there was no way to deny it. The golden tone highlighted my skin and brought out the warmer colors in my hair. Even my eyes looked brighter.
“Just so you know,” I called. “I hate you.”
“I know. Get your ass out here.”
Padding back into the room, her jaw dropped. “Holy shit, Esme.”
“Have I mentioned I really hate it when you’re right? I’m going to need to borrow make-up, though.”
She gestured to her cluttered vanity. “Have at it.”
Most of the time Eva’s team did her make-up and hair, but for smaller events like this she gave them time off. I was glad tonight, since it meant the reveal of the dress was limited to only her. You know, before all of Slate City’s paparazzi saw me.
Fine. If I was going to do this? Then I was going to do this. I leaned into the look of the dress, making my eyes dark and smoky with a hint of metallic gold at the inner corners. Just enough gloss on my lips to make people wonder what I’d been doing, and I ran some hairspray through with my fingers, attempting to corral the flyaways in my waves.
“What do you think of this?”
Her dress was white, falling to her knees. It had a similar neckline to mine, so we wouldn’t look completely out of sync, but it was a much more toned-down, wholesome version of what I was wearing. “It’s pretty.”
She sighed. “I would kill to wear what you’re wearing right now. I’ve been begging Jasmine and Brian to let me go a little edgier, but the whole team thinks it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because I still have three more Summer Saga movies coming up, and they don’t want to piss off the studio. Which is one of the reasons we’re going to this party.”
Grabbing an overflowing jewelry box, I picked through the jewelry until I found some dangly gold earrings which matched.
“Hold on, I have something else perfect for that.” She disappeared into the closet again and reappeared with her shoes, gold heels for me, and a gold wire armband that twisted into swirls and rested on my bicep. “God, you’re such a badass.”
“Remind me why I’m going to this party again?”
This was at the core of my problems with the packs who had come to court me. I wasn’t Eva. I didn’t love parties, preferring silence or my own music to rooms filled with pounding bass and people. I wasn’t afraid of people, but most of the time they exhausted me. On the whole, I was built for a different life than this one.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. No one could have seen our lives turning out this way. But sometimes I wished I could simply disappear, if that wouldn’t draw even more media attention and make life hell for Eva.
“Don’t the guys want to go?”
“They would go if I asked, but I told them not to. I’m trying to help you, remember? Pictures of you in this dress are going to have packs begging to meet you. And none of them will think you’re me when I’m wearing a white sack.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a sack.”
“You get the point.”
Tugging on the shoes, I looked at her. “What if I don’t want packs knocking down my door? What if I just want what you have? To meet the right pack at the right time and for everything to be simple. I don’t think that’s going to happen with Katarina lining up every pack made up of suit-wearing Alphas.”
“It’ll happen, May-may. Promise.”
I wished I could believe her. The ache which lodged itself in my chest yesterday hadn’t really left, and I didn’t think a party like this was going to help. But Eva was trying to do something for me, and I could help her by making her look wholesome by comparison.
A win-win.
Sort of.
“Okay, I think I’m ready,” I said.
“Hold on,” she said, holding out a little perfume roller. “Put this on. Scent canceller. Not for you, but these things are just a mess of everyone, so if you need to clear your head it’s good. I mean, they’ll be spraying scent cancellers, but you can’t be too careful.”
I raised my eyebrows. I’d never had this stuff before. Only the kind of soap and spray that cleaned other scents off you. And she meant I couldn’t be too careful because I was going to this party to help my rumors and my Omega instincts rising in the middle of a party because there were too many nearby Alphas wasn’t going to help those.
“I’ll keep it with me, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
The only other thing I had was my phone, and I shoved it in the little black clutch Eva tossed to me on our way out of the room.
Her four Alphas were all in a line at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to see her off, and the whole room was suddenly a mess of their scents. “I’ll wait for you in the hall.”
“Looking good, Esme,” Tyler called after me, and I waved without turning back. They meant it, but right now they wanted to be with my sister, and she wanted to be with them. If I looked back, I would crack open seeing the kind of love which sang between them.
I stepped out the front door into the hallway which led only to the elevator, and Neil, Eva’s head of security, laughed. “I can smell the happiness from here.”
“Why do you think I’m not waiting in there?”
Scrolling on my phone, I was suddenly seeing the rumors Katarina had mentioned now that I was looking for them. Williams sister terrorizes more Alphas? A blurry looking photo of my family’s estate and the guys from yesterday leaving. They wouldn’t talk—Kat made everyone sign non-disclosure agreements tighter than a noose—but it was still frustrating. They had no proof it had gone badly, just a guess.
Eva came out of her apartment beaming. “Ready.”
I closed the flashy news story before she could spot it on my phone. “How’s it looking tonight, Neil?”
“About average. I’m expecting it to be much tighter at the venue. When we get there, straight from the car to the door, no questions.”
The elevator dropped, my stomach whooshing in response.
“Yeah, Jasmine said as much. No questions from reporters outside. You too, Esme. We’re controlling the story as much as we can for the release next month.”
I resisted the urge to laugh, as if I would voluntarily stop and talk to one of the people trying to make me look like a monstrous shrew to everyone in the world.
Sighing, I leaned against the wall of the elevator. Even to me, I was starting to sound like what they accused me of. Maybe I was hangry. I should have grabbed a slice of that pizza Liam brought home.
The cameras started flashing as soon as the elevator doors opened into the glassed-in lobby. Not nearly as many as there would be later.
“Smile on?” Eva asked, looping her elbow through mine like all the times we’d done this before.
I didn’t have much of a choice, but I looked amazing, and if I was going to be dragged to this party anyway, I needed to get my head on straight and try to have some fun.
“Smile on.”
