Page 3 of Silks

She wanted to leave. She wants to be in Chicago. Not here.

I need to get over it.

But I can’t. So I just pour myself another glass of whiskey as the sun slants lower on the horizon, which means my parents’ big white mansion is shown to the greatest advantage as it sparkles brilliantly.

Someday it’ll be mine, too.

But I couldn’t give less of a shit. About it or anything. Not my job, not my money, and definitely not my on-again off-again girlfriend.

I raised my head and tipped my glass back, the liquid burning down my throat.

“Geez,” Cressida said, half-jokingly. “What’s the matter? Leave some for the rest of us.”

I flicked my eyes over to her.

I don’t take shit from anyone. I have a reputation as a cold asshole and I earned every fucking bit of it.

“Nothing’s the fucking matter. If you want to monitor my drink intake, I’ll call you an Uber and you can leave.”

Cressida flushed and stumbled over an apology, but I was already looking away, back down at my glass of whiskey.

I could hold my liquor, and I’d need at least another two of these if I wanted to get the exact amount of shit-faced I would need to get through the night.

Cressida could stay or go and it wouldn’t matter to me. I could always find some other woman to fuck.

People at the party were standing talking in little groups, drinking and waiting for the hundreds of plates of sushi my parents had catered.

Raw fish in the middle of Kentucky. Seemed like a great idea.

I leaned against a nearby table, feeling the eyes on me. Being next in line to control the company made me powerful despite my age, meant everyone wanted on my good side, all the anxious eager faces melting into one amorphous blob of grasping, thirsty supplicants.

Just as I motioned for a waiter to bring me another glass, I saw a woman in what looked like a pastel buttercup yellow dress walk up on the back lawns.

I turned idly to wonder who was wearing an old prom dress to one of Louisville’s most exclusive parties, and froze in place.

Jesus God. Fuck.

She’s here.

For a moment I was convinced I must have drunk more than I thought and blacked out. There was no way my sister Ophelia was really here, at the Barrington Selective Breeding Foundation Charity Night.

The last time she was here, she told my mother horse breeding should be illegal, which caused a whole and entire scene. I had to forcibly separate the two of them. But Ophelia loves scenes.

There’s no mistaking my sister’s confident walk.

Not for me, anyway. I can feel her presence even across a football field.

Her long honey blonde hair is wound into a messy bun, and there’s a splash of sunburn across her nose.

She’s dressed in some kind of strapless pastel prom dress, grabbing those big creamy tits that always drove me fucking insane because she’s about to fall out of the gown.

In the first moment I saw her, I wanted to walk over and strangle her, because I’m so pissed she left me and never looked back. In the next moment, I could feel my stomach plummet as she turned toward me, my heart in my throat, the blood pounding in my ears. I fought the urge to be a goddamn wormlike simp for her, like I always was.

Ophelia didn’t look particularly pleased to see me, and at first she didn’t come any closer, only grabbed a waiter and then looked at his platter.

“Oh, god, anything else besides mint juleps?” she asked.

Hearing her voice for the first time in two years was like being dunked in cold water, and I could already feel my stupid cock twitch at hearing her accent.