Debutante’s Curse

Debutante’s Curse JESSA KANE Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Epilogue Chapter One Magnolia It’s the day of my coming out ball, I’m not happy about it—and the whole stupid house is going to know my displeasure. I flounce out of bed and stomp across the floor, my momentum blowing back my caramel waves from my face. Throwing open my closet doors, I look for something to wear so I can go downstairs and yell at the men of the household, because they deserve every shrill epithet that’s going to come out of my mouth. Honestly, I’m only nineteen years old and I’m already being presented to society as marriageable? Being paraded around in a dress so the local dudes can consider me as a wife? It’s the kind of thing that should be confined to history books. I don’t want to get married. The two men I live with never got married—why should I? Shouldn’t I be able to choose whether I have a ball and chain shackled to my ankle for the rest of my life? Before I’m forced to settle down and start making babies, I want to pick flowers in the Swiss Alps and dance on rooftops in Madrid. At the very least. Namely, I want to live! And because the men I live with are so protective, I’ve barely been outside the walls of this house. When I turned eighteen and graduated high school (via private tutors, of course), that was going to change. I was going to be free. But no amount of bargaining or pouting over the last year has persuaded them to let me go live on my own terms. And last night, they informed me of this coming out ball. One they’ve been planning for months without my knowledge. There’s no escaping it. There’s no escaping my guardian, Karson. Or his other ward, Pace. My men. They guard me like two fire-breathing dragons. More importantly, they have keys to all the doors. Resolved to be extra difficult today, I slam the door of my closet and breeze out of my room in nothing but lavender panties. My bare feet slap with concentrated force on the cool marble, air from the spacious mansion rushing my bare skin and giving me the sense of freedom that I crave— But only momentarily. As soon as I pick up a glass vase, preparing to launch it down to the first floor and shatter it to bits, someone catches my wrist from behind, stopping me. “Now, princess.” “Let go of me,” I half-shout, trying to pull my wrist away from Pace. “Haven’t you realized by now that’s never going to happen?” Swiftly, the vase is taken from my hands, set back on its pedestal with a clink—and then I’m being spun around and thrown over my fellow ward’s annoyingly wide shoulder. He slaps my bottom roughly, just once. But it’s enough to give me a very unwanted twist of unfulfilled…something in my belly. And as Pace strides back toward my bedroom, anger and purpose in his every step, I admit to myself that maybe, just maybe, I’m boiling mad over this coming out ball because it means Pace doesn’t want me for himself. Which is…obvious! Such a ridiculous thing to be miffed about. I mean, we’re practically brother and sister, even if we’re not related. Karson assumed his guardianship over us six years ago in an effort to appear philanthropic. Pace is four years older than me, making him twenty-three, but he behaves like a man twice his age—and down deep in the navy blue of his eyes, it’s easy to see he has lived enough for two difficult lifetimes already. That worldliness is part of why I love him so much. A very confusing, very twisted kind of love that I will never untangle or understand. I love him like a brother…and I also want him to kiss me. Make sense of that. We enter my room and Pace throws me down on the bed, plowing five fingers through the russet, shoulder-length hair that stops just above his shoulders, regarding me with glittering eyes. Chest rising once and shuddering back down. Very carefully, he removes the gun from his shoulder holster and sets it aside, before coming down on top of me, muscle pressing onto softness, his clothes rasping on my bare skin. A familiar flicker of longing builds on his features, growing more potent by the second. “Don’t you ever, ever, leave this room without putting on clothes again, Magnolia.” “Or what?” Slowly, his tongue drags along the inside of his bottom lip. “You need to watch your smart mouth around me today. Do you understand?” His right hand circles my throat. “There are people—some of them men—downstairs decorating and cooking for the party tonight. You march out there with these spoiled brat tits out, you’re going to incite a fucking riot. You want a dozen dead cater waiters on your conscience, princess?” This little blame game prods my ire. “Maybe I do. Maybe I want to burn the whole world down instead of having some antiquated debutante ball so everyone can ogle me!” His eyes blaze in such an intense way that I can’t control my resulting shiver. “Take what you’re feeling and multiply it by a thousand, you might land somewhere in the neighborhood of how I feel about this ball.” I can’t stand the hope that leaps in my chest. “You…don’t want me to be presented to society tonight, either, Pace?” He puffs a humorless laugh. “I form a militia to guard you for your walks in the garden, complete with snipers on the roof.” His hand tightens roughly around my throat, words pushing through his teeth. “I am a psychotic fucking mess about tonight.” “Is it just because you’re a control freak?” I wet my lips and do my very best to keep the hope out of my eyes. “Or is