Read Online The Darkest of Shadows by Lisse Smith - Free Book Online

not waiting to see if I was willing, pulled me up from the seat and very nearly dragged me out toward the main area of the party.
    “Ah, I don’t dance.” I muttered to his back, but with my hand clasped firmly in his, it appeared I wasn’t going to be given an option.
    “I do,” he responded without pausing.
    I wondered why I wasn’t more worried, more cautious, but as a space cleared around us and he pulled my body into his arms, all I felt was excitement. This wasn’t real, this didn’t matter; and for tonight, I could be whoever I wanted to be.
    He was a good dancer, certainly good enough that he could lead me suitably well.
    We danced in silence, our bodies moving relatively easily to the jazz music that was playing through the room. Several other couples danced around us, and I was surprised at how easy it was to forget our audience.
    The music ended, and a more classical number started, a slow, methodical piece that didn’t require much attention to movements. Lawrence slowed, and he drew my body more closely against his.
    “Who are you?” Lawrence asked the question in his deep quiet voice.
    “No one.”
    “I don’t believe that for a moment.”
    “You can believe whatever you want. Who am I to convince you otherwise?”
    “That’s exactly what I want to know,” he replied. “You’re not scared of me at all, are you?”
    “Should I be?” I asked.
    “Most people are.”
    “I’m not most people.”
    “I’m beginning to realize that.”
    I don’t think this was what Patrick had in mind when he said to say out of Monterey’s notice.
    “What do you think of the party?” he asked, when I didn’t respond to his comment.
    “Truthfully?” I wondered how much I could push before he took offense and I caused harm to Patrick and the company.
    “No one else would dare to tell me, so please, enlighten me.”
    I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You asked,” I reminded him, then told him my opinion. “I think it’s excessively ostentatious and bordering on a vulgar display of elitism. Were you deliberately setting out to create an archaic gentleman’s club atmosphere, or was that an accident?”
    I had already deduced that this was a man who rarely showed emotion and even that little outburst of mine didn’t crack his carefully maintained facade. And here I was, thinking that I managed a pretty neutral existence. I could take lessons from him.
    “Vulgar?” he asked quietly.
    “Don’t you think it’s a bit rude to ask people to come to a party and then, when they get here, keep them penned into a little space in the middle, so that you and your friends can watch them from your safe little luxury booths off to the side?”
    “I hadn’t actually looked at it from that point of view,” he admitted after a moment. “The intention was to create areas where people could conduct business with likeminded individuals who share common interests.”
    “Yes, but if that was the intention, then tell me why the only people conducting business are the most powerful of your friends.”
    “They’re not my friends,” Lawrence corrected. “And there are no restrictions on the use of those spaces.”
    “Look around you, Lawrence.” I spoke more harshly than I probably meant to. “This isn’t so much a party as an opportunity for those in power to show themselves above the rest of us.”
    I had to give him credit, he did actually glance around the room, and I did see his eyes narrow fractionally as, probably for the first time, he saw the room the way that I saw it.
    “These are good, honest men,” I continued. “They deserve better than to have what you are thrusting on them in this manner. They have built their companies up—maybe not to the level that you have, but most of them are proud of what they have accomplished, and it’s wrong for you to treat them this way.”
    Lawrence gaze locked with mine for a long, tense moment. We had stopped dancing, and I hadn’t even noticed. “Who are