Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
“Ready?” he glanced at her, so shockingly unnerved by the sight before them.
Didn’t he see the contrast?
She cheated. She found shelter away from danger and hid like a coward while the rest of them paid in sacrifice.
She descended the stairs in her soft satin flats while they nursed blisters on their battered feet. Heat rushed to her cheeks as they descended the sprawling staircase like royalty, the weight of their stares pegging her like biblical stones.
She stiffened against Jack’s gentle lead. How easy it would be to lean into that touch, to let herself believe the pressure of his fingers meant permanence. But standing there with him, looking over all the women she should have stood beside, only made her feel incredibly alone.
He prodded her along, whispering something she couldn’t hear over the roar of voices colliding below. Hunters milled among the wreckage in various states of elegant collapse. Tuxedo jackets discarded. Shirttails wrenched free and hung loose over muddied trousers. Bow ties dangling like surrendered flags from unbuttoned collars.
One man she vaguely recognized from the banquet perched on the fountain’s edge with his sleeves shoved to his elbows, cufflinks gone, sharing a cigarette with a tribute whose gown clung to her frame by one remaining strap and sheer defiance. Smoke curled between them in a lazy ribbon as they chatted like equals.
Some still wore masks, but most were disguised by whatever mud and makeup smeared their faces. Each one of them wore the triumphant flush of a deeply satisfied victor, blending like teammates after a violent scrimmage, sipping champagne, recalling moments of triumph and conquest, all while nursing their battle scars and injuries.
Their champagne-soaked carnage was stripped of any sense of opposition. Leaving only a radiating sense of accomplishment and pride.
Jack had orchestrated all of this. His universe was vast and populated with players so infinitely apart from what she was, she couldn’t imagine ever fully fitting into such a world. A peasant among giants.
Yes, her financial situation would change. But at her core, she would always be who she was—just a poor girl from Dagenham.
She swallowed against the stone lodged in her throat and forced her gaze forward.
The sour tang of exhaustion and sweat threaded the air under the cloying sweetness of the flower that had only begun to open. Had it really only been twelve hours? It felt like a lifetime ago when she last descended these stairs.
Silver platters of ransacked canapés wilted beside overturned champagne flutes. A woman’s singular, crimson shoe lay abandoned near the orchestra’s empty chairs.
Daisy’s clean skin prickled as she moved through the debris of their shared ordeal, unable to escape the horrible sense that she was an impostor.
She’d bled in that forest too. She’d run until her lungs caught fire and her feet split open and the rain dissolved every shred of dignity she carried through those gates. But standing here now, polished and dressed in another man’s fortune, she felt less like a survivor and more like a traitor.
And yet — amid the wreckage — laughter. Two tributes near the bar clutched each other, cackling at something private, their faces blazing with exhaustion and what Daisy could only name as savage, uncut joy. Not the polished, performative kind of laughter that tinkled through the banquet, but a raw, almost feral sound that spoke of shared secrets and deeper bonds.
They were conquerors sheathed in the evidence of what they’d survived.
Daisy searched the crowd for Maggie, her throat thickening when she didn’t spot her friend.
She gripped Jack’s arm as they crossed the final stretch of marble, her satin flats soundless among the grit of soiled cocktail napkins strewn across the floor like confetti among the glitter of broken glass. Not a single tribute approached her. And why would they?
She hadn’t had the courage to form alliances like the rest of them. She ran and hid, thinking her strategy was wise. But now, she felt like the biggest coward in the room.
Despite the reality of this fever-dream place, the glitz and glamour only disguised the fake. She might be Jack’s obsession of the moment, but that too would fade when the revelry passed, and reality relentlessly returned.
Staring out over the hollowed-out extravagance, she recalled the closing line of The Great Gatsby, wishing she could remember the exact words. Something about beating on like boats against a current, ceaselessly born back into the past.
It was exactly how she felt in that moment, as some inferior part of her clung to Fitzgerald’s fading words.
Even this, in all of its extravagant impressiveness, was temporary. She was nothing more than Jack Thorne’s fleeting fascination. She would stay, as long as he wanted her there, but life’s opposing currents would eventually pull him away.
The moment Daisy and Jack reached the ballroom floor, crystal chimed, sharp and deliberate, slicing through the din like a blade through silk.