Gilded Age by Claire McMillan

Author:Claire McMillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

• 16 •

The After-Party

Ellie stood in the middle of the swirling party talking to what had to be the two most boring men in town and wondered, as she had in similar circumstances, what the hell she was doing there. She’d liked the idea of the tableaux when the museum approached her. Here was something a little artsy, a little creative. She’d thought her pose might cause a petite scandale—just a small delicious amount. But now that she was the spectacle for the evening, frankly, she was finding it tiresome—men talking to her chest, blushing, stammering, or flirting ham-handedly. She’d wanted to entice one man—Selden—the one who’d seemed disgusted. She decided another glass of champagne was in order.

She watched William Selden out of the corner of her eye. He was the last person she’d thought would be provincial about her pose, but there was no ignoring his dismissal of her just now. She’d miscalculated. Based on Diana’s tawdry text, Ellie thought that maybe Selden went in for exhibitionism, a little voyeurism. And if that was the case, Ellie could do sexting one better. She should have known better, should have known that Diana wasn’t smooth enough to calculate what Selden liked and then give him a little more to lure him back. Ellie should have seen Diana’s message for what it was—a desperate and probably drunken attempt to find something, anything, to get his attention. Straight-up amateur. Ellie sighed.

Ellie had been hanging out with Selden for over two weeks. There’d been kissing, and she’d spent a chaste and deliciously restful night asleep in his bed. Neither of them wanted to rush this. Selden was hesitant around her. Was he unsure of himself, or intimidated, or did he have her up on a pedestal? She’d decided that tonight she’d jump down off that pedestal and give him a little encouragement. And so she’d kept her pose a secret, thinking he’d be surprised, turned on. She’d have a whole room of men at her feet, literally, and then she’d make it known she only wanted him. Okay, so maybe the wink was taking it a little far, but she’d wanted to get the message across. She’d thought it would get him hot, that tonight would end in his bed, both of them excited by her display, their attraction acknowledged and consummated. But his reaction? As tightly wound and convention bound as any of them, despite his licking booze off her like an oversexed frat boy, his binding her wrist, his insistence that pleasure was what mattered. She watched him leave—without her—out a side door and knew he wasn’t coming back.

“Bastard,” she breathed, so that the director leaned in closer over her chest.

“Sorry?” he said, blushing.

Gus Trenor, in a thick pink silk tie, broke into her conversation then, winking at the curator and shaking hands with the writer.

“Star of the evening,” he said to Ellie as the other two men drifted away.

Ellie sighed, and Gus exchanged Ellie’s empty glass with a full glass of champagne off a passing tray.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.