I Was Hired To Seduce My Sister's Husband... Then Fell

“Please don’t make me go.”

Lyra looked at me through the mirror while she struggled with the clasp on her earring. “I’m not asking you to go to war, Isla. It’s a charity dinner.”

“You say that as if charity dinners are normal things people do for fun. There will be hundreds of people there, and they’ll all know which fork to use, where to stand, who to talk to, and probably what the wine costs without having to look at the bottle. I don’t know any of those things.”

“There are two hundred and twelve guests.”

I stared at her reflection.

She finally got the earring fastened and smiled at me. “I checked.”

“Of course you checked.”

Lyra had always been like that. She could tell you the exact number of people attending an event she wasn't even going to attend, remember the birthday of some investor's wife she'd met once three years ago, and somehow forget to mention the important part of the story until you were already halfway into a problem. Like now. She had shown up in my apartment with a garment bag over her arm, told me she couldn't go to the Holt Foundation dinner, and expected me to understand that putting on a dress was apparently the obvious solution.

I looked at the garment bag.

“No.”

“Isla.”

“No.”

“You haven't seen it.”

“I don't need to see it.”

She unzipped it anyway.

The dress was dark green silk, fitted around the waist and loose from there down, the sort of dress that probably looked perfectly normal in a ballroom full of people who owned houses with names but looked completely ridiculous hanging beside my old wardrobe. One of my dining chairs was still sitting in the corner with a crack down the leg because I'd glued it together three weeks ago instead of buying another one, and Lyra had brought me something that looked like it needed its own security detail.

“You're wearing it,” she said.

“I am absolutely not wearing that.”

“You are.”

“Why?”

“Because I can't go.”

I stopped.

It was the first thing she'd said all evening that didn't sound rehearsed.

I looked at her again, and this time she didn't meet my eyes immediately. She started adjusting the bracelet on her wrist instead, even though it was already sitting perfectly.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Lyra.”

“Nothing happened.”

“You're doing that thing.”

She looked up. “What thing?”

“The thing where you say nothing happened while making it extremely obvious that something happened.”

She laughed, but it didn't sound natural. “It's just Damien.”

I didn't answer.

There were certain names that didn't need explaining, and his was one of them. Damien Holt. My sister's husband. The man I had spent years making a very deliberate effort not to think about in any way that might make me hate myself.

“You had a fight?”

“No.”

“Then why aren't you going?”

“I don't want to be there.”

“That still isn't an answer.”

“It is the answer you're getting.”

“Lyra.”

She came toward me before I could start another argument and took my hands. Her fingers were cold.

“Please.”

That was unfair.

Lyra knew it was unfair, too, because she rarely asked me for anything twice. She was the sort of person who could walk into a room full of people twice her age and somehow make them listen to her without raising her voice, so when she stood in front of me looking exhausted and said please, she knew exactly what she was doing.

I sighed. “Two hours.”

Her whole face changed.

“Two hours,” I repeated. “I go there, I stay for two hours, I stand beside you, and then I come home.”

“You'll stand beside Damien.”

I gave her a look.

She immediately shook her head. “That sounded terrible.”

“It sounded exactly like what you're asking me to do.”

“Isla, he's my husband.”

“I know.”

“He isn't going to eat you.”

“I didn't say he was.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking that I'd probably feel more comfortable at a dinner with an actual wild animal.”

She laughed then, properly this time, and I wished she hadn't because it made me feel as though I'd already agreed.

An hour later, I was standing inside the Holt Foundation ballroom wondering why I had ever loved my sister enough to do things like this for her.

Everything was expensive.

That was the first thing I noticed. Not beautiful. Expensive. The flowers were arranged so perfectly that touching one seemed like something you could be fined for, the chandeliers were bigger than the living room in my apartment, and the waiters moved around carrying champagne as if nobody in the room had ever had to check their bank balance before ordering a drink.

I stood near the edge of the room for a while, pretending I was waiting for someone.

Nobody was coming.

So I accepted a glass from a passing waiter because having something in my hand made me look less like I'd accidentally walked into the wrong building. I took a sip, then remembered Lyra had told me not to drink because she knew I'd have to drive home.

I took another sip anyway.

“That's champagne.”

I turned too quickly and nearly spilled it.

The man standing beside me laughed. I recognized him after a second. Damien's younger brother, Marcus. We'd met several times, although mostly at family events where I'd spent more time trying not to look at the Holt family than actually talking to them.

“I know.”

“You looked surprised.”

“I was.”

“By champagne?”

“By the fact that someone is apparently paying enough for one glass of it to cover my electricity bill.”

He laughed. “Marcus.”

“I know who you are.”

His eyebrows rose. “You do?”

“You're Damien's brother.”

“And you're Lyra's sister.”

“Unfortunately.”

That made him laugh again, and this time I smiled too.

Then his attention moved past me.

“Oh.”

I turned to see what he was looking at.

Damien had just walked into the ballroom.

I'd seen him plenty of times before, so there was no reason for my reaction to be what it was. I'd seen him at family dinners, at Christmas, at Lyra's birthday, in photographs, and once standing outside the hospital after Lyra had gotten sick and I'd spent the entire night pretending I wasn't watching him because he was the only person in the family who looked as worried as I felt.

But seeing him across a room like this was different, and I couldn't have explained why without sounding completely ridiculous.

He was talking to two men near the entrance, one hand in his pocket, listening while the other man spoke. His suit was black and simple, although I knew enough about Damien to know that “simple” probably meant it had cost more than my entire wardrobe. He didn't look particularly interested in the conversation, but he had that calm way of standing there that made everyone else seem slightly more eager to impress him.

Then he looked across the room.

At me.

I immediately looked down at my glass.

Marcus glanced at me. “Don't.”

“Don't what?”

“You're doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking guilty.”

“I am not guilty.”

“You look guilty.”

“I haven't done anything.”

“That's why I said you look guilty.”

I was about to tell him that made no sense when Damien started walking toward us.

Marcus straightened a little. “Brother.”

“Marcus.”

Damien's eyes moved to me.

“Isla.”

There was nothing unusual about the way he said my name. Nothing at all.

I still noticed it.

“Hi.”

His gaze dropped briefly to the dress I was wearing before coming back to my face. “You came.”

“My sister couldn't.”

“I know.”

That answer caught me off guard.

“Of course you know.”

He looked at me.

I suddenly wished I'd said something else.

“You don't have to stay long,” he said.

“I wasn't planning to.”

“How long?”

“Two hours.”

His mouth moved slightly, almost a smile. “Two?”

“That's the deal.”

“With Lyra?”

“Yes.”

He glanced across the room. “She doesn't usually make deals she doesn't intend to keep.”

“I'm beginning to think I should have asked for three hours.”

“You probably should have.”

I looked at him properly then. “You sound annoyed with her.”

“Do I?”

“A little.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I am.”

“Did you two fight?”

His eyes stayed on mine for a moment.

“Why?”

“Because you sound like you did.”

“I don't.”

“You do.”

He smiled. “You're more talkative than I remember.”

I frowned. “You've noticed?”

“I notice things.”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I looked down at my glass again.

He moved a little closer, probably because someone had passed behind him and the room was getting crowded, but I noticed anyway.

“You're nervous.”

“I don't like these things.”

“You don't like crowds?”

I looked around.

“Have you seen how many people are here?”

He glanced around too. “This isn't a crowd.”

I stared at him.

“There are at least two hundred people.”

“Two hundred and twelve.”

I laughed despite myself. “You and Lyra are perfect for each other.”

That wiped the smile from his face for half a second.

I regretted saying it.

“I should find Marcus.”

“He's over there.”

I turned.

Marcus was nowhere near where Damien had pointed.

When I looked back, Damien was watching me.

“You were trying to escape.”

“I was not.”

“You were.”

“I was looking for your brother.”

“Who happens to have moved.”

“That isn't my fault.”

He smiled again.

I hated how easy it was to forget myself around him.

Someone called his name from across the room, and this time he turned.

“I should go.”

“Probably.”

He took a step away, then looked back at me.

“Enjoy the champagne.”

I looked at the glass in my hand.

“This is water.”

He stared at it.

Then he looked at me.

“Isla, that's champagne.”

I frowned and took another sip.

It was definitely champagne.

He laughed under his breath and walked away.

I watched him for a few seconds before realizing I was doing it and turning toward the nearest table.

This was a terrible idea.

I had known that before I put the dress on, before I walked into the ballroom, and certainly before Damien Holt had started talking to me as if we were two people who had somehow missed several years of knowing each other.

I needed to remember one very important fact.

He was my sister's husband.

Across the ballroom, Damien stopped beside Marcus, who said something he didn't hear properly because he was still looking toward the table where Isla had disappeared.

There was something about her that bothered him.

Not because she was awkward. She was, but plenty of people were awkward around him. Not because she was Lyra's sister either. He had known Isla for years, at least in the vague way people knew members of their in-laws' families.

This was different.

The way she'd looked at him tonight wasn't the way she'd looked at him before.

Or maybe it was.

Maybe he'd simply never paid enough attention.

Damien frowned as he watched her laugh at something one of the waiters said.

He had the strange feeling that there was something he was supposed to remember.

He just couldn't figure out what.

Isla

By the time I got back to my apartment, I'd already decided the evening had been perfectly ordinary, which was a ridiculous thing to decide because I had spent most of the drive home replaying my conversation with Damien Holt and wondering why I'd remembered so many completely unnecessary details. I remembered the way he'd laughed when I called him a rich person, the way he'd looked at me when he said he noticed things, and, most annoyingly, the exact tone of his voice when he'd told me to enjoy the evening. None of it meant anything. I knew that. People said things all the time without attaching some secret meaning to every word, and Damien probably couldn't remember half the conversation by the time he got home.

I was still wearing one earring when I reached my bathroom, and I stood there staring at myself in the mirror while trying to remember where I'd put the other one. I checked the counter, the sink, the little tray beside the perfume bottles, then wen