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“Eyes off my fiancée,” Gulliver snarls, narrowing his eyes.
Without even glancing in his direction, Izzy flings back her hand and smacks him in the stomach. “Behave.” She laughs.
When her gaze lands on my girl, her smile instantly widens. “Penelope, you look beautiful,” Izzy cries, rushing over to her sister and taking her hand to make her twirl.
“You too,” my Princess easily replies, tucking a strand of hair that’s escaped from Izzy’s artfully-messy hairstyle back behind her ear.
As the girls chatter comfortably, I take a moment to watch them, and I know the others do too. Two months ago, they were enemies, and now they’re sisters, twins, the affection between them so palpable you can literally feel it. At first glance, they’re eerily identical, even with the slight changes they’ve made to their appearances. But before, their energies were polar opposites, where Izzy was free and relaxed, Penelope was tense and wound tight, but looking at them now, they share a happy, easy joy that makes my heart jump in my chest.
I’m not a sentimental person, I’m a man, and most of the time my dick is solidly in control, but knowing and seeing my girl calm, relaxed, and happy, it makes me feel those things too.
I love her.
It shouldn’t be a startling realization. I knew I was falling in love with her, but there’s no falling anymore, I’ve fallen. I love her, and I know it now as certainly as I know I love my family and my brothers. The small black velvet box that’s nestled in my inside breast pocket seems to heat up as I think about what I plan to do tonight. I want her, I need her, and I can’t see that ever changing.
34
PENELOPE
The huge doors to the ballroom are already open when we get downstairs. As we’re the hosts, we really should have been here to greet our guests, but we let Mr. Winslow and Kip’s parents do the honors so we could make an entrance.
Swallowing thickly, I try to dislodge the huge lump in my throat, but my mouth feels too dry, and the worry that’s lodged inside of me makes it almost impossible. Tonight feels like a mistake.
The people waiting beyond the doors are the boys and men on my great-grandfather’s approved husband list and their families. It’s public knowledge that I’m no longer in line to inherit the Rhodes fortune, so the only reason the people who accepted our invite tonight are here is to point and laugh at the girl who was stupid enough to walk away from billions.
My parents are in there too, or at least they RSVP’d to say they were coming. I’m not sure if they’re hoping to watch me embarrass myself, if they’ve come to gloat about humiliating me in the national press, or if they just want to make sure everyone knows they’re not actually dead. But having them here only adds to the mounting pool of dread in my stomach.
When we sent out the invites, we never gave a reason for the ball, we simply said that Penelope and Izabella Rhodes requested the pleasure of their company, and here they all are, waiting for the heir who ruined her life and the spare who no one knew existed to make their grand entrance.
As the six of us pause just outside the entrance, I turn and glance at Hawthorn at my side, then at the others behind me. I inhale sharply when a small, warm hand slides into mine.
“It’s going to be okay,” Izzy says, trying to reassure me. “We’ll go in and do a couple of laps of the room, then we’ll make the announcement that you’re no longer the beneficiary of the will. We’ll make sure everyone sees you and Hawthorn together, then we can go upstairs and order ice cream and brownies.”
Nodding, I squeeze her hand. “Let’s get this over with.”
Izzy stops me as I start to take a step forward and turns to Gulliver at her side. “I think Penelope and I should go in alone first. We need to indisputably let them all see that the two of us are united. Everyone already knows that we’re engaged, so if Penelope and I walk in alone, it’ll be more impactful when Hawthorn comes to her on the stage where everyone can see.”
Gulliver’s brow furrows and his jaw hardens. It’s clear that he hates the idea of Izzy entering this room of hungry vultures waiting to pick at the bones of my reputation alone, but eventually he nods. When I turn and look at Hawthorn, it’s obvious that he’s not any happier about the idea either, but he nods as well, taking a tiny step back and letting Izzy and I take the lead.
Inhaling sharply, I squeeze Izzy’s hand, ready to release it, but she just holds me tighter. Smiling, I take a step forward, and she matches my pace. We glide into the room with our hands joined, our heads held high, and practiced smiles gracing our faces as the first people notice our arrival.
A hushed whisper rolls around the room as hundreds of eyes turn to us. When a waiter appears at my side, I reach out and take a martini from the tray he offers me. The glass is filled with pale-blue liquid, and I lift it to my lips as an identical waiter offers Izzy a silver-colored drink. It’s a little ridiculous that we’ve arranged for the drinks to match our outfits, but when she turns to me and lifts her glass, I do the same, tapping mine against hers in a silent cheers motion before the first group of people approaches us.
“Penelope, sweetheart, you look as beautiful as ever,” Mrs. Appleby says before she looks at Izzy with a genuine smile. “You must be Izabella, it’s lovely to meet you, dear.”
Mrs. Appleby’s son, Henry, appears at her shoulder, not even trying to hide the way he eyes us both appreciatively. “Penelope, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” he says, his eyes lingering on me for a moment before he turns to Izzy. “Izabella, congratulations on your engagement, it’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Izzy says politely.
“We heard about the inheritance,” Mrs. Appleby says quietly.
“I imagined you had.”
“I don’t care,” Henry says a little more loudly than is polite. “I think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I’ve never cared about the money. I would love to get to know you better,” he blurts.
His mother turns and smiles at him before looking back at me. “We think you did the right thing, dear,” she whispers, leaning in to me. “We always thought the will was wrong.”
Izzy’s grip on my hand tightens as my lips part in a silent, shocked gasp. “Thank you,” I eventually say.
