out a breath. And when Eleanor looked up, something else glittered in her gaze.
“That’s fair enough. I can’t deny that I reacted a bit poorly when I arrived at Groves House. I guess it all took me by surprise.”
“You were jealous.” Eleanor held her sister’s gaze, and dared her to refute it.
But Vivi only shrugged, making the curls she’d piled on the top of her head bob a bit. “I don’t know what I was. I’ve worked hard, for years.”
Eleanor wanted to argue that, but something made her hold her tongue. Vivi’s gaze darkened.
“I’ve put up with people you wouldn’t tolerate for the length of a simple conversation, thank you. I thought we were on the same page. I thought we had specific roles to play. And then it looked as if maybe everything I was doing was beside the point and I didn’t know how to handle that.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I’m not as perfect as you are.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You could have told me how much you liked him.” Vivi’s voice cracked slightly, startling them both. “You could have told me that, Eleanor.”
“I didn’t think you would have listened if I had.”
Vivi shook her head, as if that had hurt her and she was reeling. “Of course I would have listened. You’re my sister. It’s you and me against the world, remember?”
“I remember,” Eleanor whispered. “Of course I remember.”
They sat there for a moment, and something shifted inside of Eleanor as they did. That ugly, clawed weight seemed to dissipate a little.
“But this is what I wanted to talk to you about even if it makes you turn red. You don’t know about men like Hugo, Eleanor. I do.”
“I was under the impression that there were no men like Hugo.”
She knew that was true for her. She thought it might also be true for the world, given the way they talked about him as if he’d rounded them all up, abused them horribly and personally, and then booted them out of a speeding vehicle.
“Men are more alike than not.” And there was a weariness in Vivi’s voice that pricked at Eleanor. She’d been so concentrated on herself. So focused on all the ways she felt overlooked. Taken advantage of. Why had it never occurred to her to wonder if her sister felt the same way? “Keen to take what they can get. No matter what. But it doesn’t necessarily mean more than that.”
And Eleanor wanted to argue. She wanted to tell Vivi that she was wrong. That she didn’t know Hugo. But the fact was... Neither did Eleanor. She’d lived in his house, true. He’d flirted with her, she’d given him her virginity—but despite what that meant to her, it was likely all in a day’s work for the likes of Hugo.
She believed that he wasn’t the monster the tabloids had made him out to be. But that didn’t make him a monk. It didn’t make her any less of a fool. She felt her eyes fill up, and ducked her head to hide it. And blink the tears back before they could fall.
“I feel like such a fool,” she whispered.
“I can’t think of a woman who wouldn’t fall for Hugo Grovesmoor,” Vivi said, distinctly. “Not one. He’s gorgeous and evil and everyone knows he’s wild in bed. You never stood a chance.”
She could talk about more of this than she’d thought, it turned out. But she couldn’t talk about Hugo’s reputation in bed. There was only so much she could be expected to handle, surely. Without cracking apart into little pieces, all over the floor, that she knew her careless sister would never sweep up.
“And what now?” Eleanor asked instead, lifting up her hands and then letting them drop back to her lap. “What am I supposed to do now?” She moved one hand in a lazy, circular motion that encompassed the whole of her chest. “With all of this.”
Vivi laughed, then. It was that merry laugh of hers that still warmed up the room. It astonished Eleanor how welcoming she found the sound.
“That I can help with.” Vivi got to her feet and reached out her hand, beckoning for Eleanor to join her. “Come on, then. The night is young and filled with trouble for us to throw ourselves into.”
“Oh, no,” Eleanor said then, with a frown. “I don’t get into trouble. I—”
“You don’t have a job that you have to go to bed early for. You have nowhere to be in the morning.”
“Well—”
“And unless I’m mistaken, you’re a bit of a scarlet woman, fresh from a shocking affair with the most hated man in England.”
“But it’s a Wednesday,” Eleanor said. Scandalized.
“Ah, grasshopper,” Vivi replied mischievously. “I have so much to teach you.”
And that was how Eleanor found herself out at one of those desperately chic clubs that Vivi spent so much of her time in. This one was so new it was considered a coup to get in, Vivi informed Eleanor as she got them waved past the line that snaked off down the block and around the corner. On a blustery Wednesday.
Inside, it was a cavernous place, filled with too many dizzying lights and far too many people dressed sleek and sharp. Not exactly the sort of crowd Eleanor felt at home in. But Vivi had asked Eleanor to trust that she knew what she was doing, and Eleanor had agreed to do it.
That was how she’d ended up in the ridiculous outfit her sister picked out for her, sourced more from Vivi’s closet than her own.
“I told you it would fit,” Vivi had said with great satisfaction when she’d finished her handiwork back at the flat. “It’s quite Cinderella, isn’t it?”
“If Cinderella was a bit of a tart.”
Eleanor ran her hands over the slinky, stretchy dress that gave her curves absolutely nowhere to hide. For the seventeenth time, and it still accomplished nothing. She was still all breasts and hips. There was only one person alive who had ever made her feel beautiful—
But there was no use thinking about Hugo. The sooner she accepted that, the better. He wouldn’t have wanted to deal with an overly sentimental virgin for long anyway. That was what Eleanor kept telling herself. No one liked clingy, especially in an employee. Vivi’s tabloid story had only hastened the inevitable.
Strange how that failed to make her feel any better.
“There’s nothing wrong with a tart,” Vivi had admonished her, then flashed one of her grins. “It’s all in the quality of the pastry, I promise you.”
Eleanor didn’t know what that meant. Or, rather, she opted not to pick up on her sister’s innuendo. What she did know, within seconds of entering the club, was that she was most certainly too old for this scene. Perhaps not chronologically. But she had nothing in common with the blissed-out, gleaming creatures who danced madly and drank deeply and didn’t seem remotely aware of the fact that there was a world outside where people were already tucked up in their beds, ready for the next morning.
And yet, as soon as she recognized that she
