Chapter Nine
Ella
“Holy shit,” I said as I looked at myself in the mirror. The gown was perfect. The beautiful shade of blue drew a stark contrast to my skin but didn’t wash me out like most blues did, and it fit like it had been made for me. Cinched through the bodice with a built in corset, it made my waist even smaller than it already was. The neckline dipped low, revealing the tops of my breasts, piled high thanks to the aforementioned corset, and the length was a very modern drop-hem, to the knees in the front and to the floor at the back.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever worn and I felt like a princess, scratch that, I felt like a queen in it. I slipped on the incredible, glittering shoes James delivered with the dress and had to take a moment to compose myself.
This is what my father wanted for me, a life of ball gowns and luxury, not one where eviction was a clear possibility if I didn’t figure out where my next paycheck. I dabbed under my eyes, blotting the tears before I ruined my makeup, and took a steadying breath.
Though the gown and presumably the occasion called for a more put together up-do, I let my hair fall in loose waves around my shoulders. I’d caught Kase staring at my auburn locks a few times, and I wanted to him to see it in all its glory, wild and free.
The cheap wall clock in the kitchen chimed. It was midnight.
The second chime was drowned out by the ringing of my doorbell.
This was really happening. I ran to the door, flinging it open expecting to see James. But there Kase stood, white tie and coat tails, and gorgeous as ever. I threw myself into his arms. “Thank you,” I said into his chest. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Not nearly as beautiful as you are, Ella.”
I squeezed him harder, hard enough that he chuckled and pulled me off. “We need to go, are you all ready?”
“Yes,” I said, following him out of the building.
“Your chariot awaits, my lady,” Kase said as James opened the town car door for me.
I didn’t know how to get in a car in a dress like this but I did my best to fold in the layers of trailing fabric neatly next to me. Kase smiled as he situated himself next to me. “You have a grace about you that I haven’t seen since the debutantes on the Upper East Side.”
I looked at my hands, dry skin cracked from stress cleaning and bitten nails that hadn’t seen a manicure in years. “That’s because I am an Upper East Side debutante. Or, I was at least.”
Kase gasped, then nodded slowly. “You’re Cedric Ash’s daughter, aren’t you?”
I nodded, steeling myself against the wave of sorrow washing over me at the sound of my father’s name.
“My father was his estate attorney,” Kase continued. “I remember him talking about it at the dinner table. He was very concerned about the rate at which his new wife spent his money.”
“So was I. That’s why I left. I couldn’t watch her burn through everything my father worked so hard for.”
Kase rubbed his chin, eyes focused somewhere in the distance.
“Wait a minute,” I said, looking at the hulking man next to me. “If your father was my father’s attorney, that would make you, Little Kasey!”
He smiled as I called him by a name he probably hadn’t hear in quite some time, a name that had once been so familiar to me. “Little no, Kasey, yes. But I do prefer Kase now.”
“But you were, little that is. I was taller than you when we were kids.”
“I remember. But I’m not now, am I?” Kase smiled and pulled me into his chest. He definitely wasn’t smaller than me now.
Mr. Waldorf, Kase’s father, used to stop by the penthouse with paperwork quite frequently, often with his dark haired son in tow. “We played together as kids.” I said.
“We did.”
“But your dad stopped coming over after my father remarried.”
“You’re right,” Kase said. “Our fathers were friends and that crazy Tremaine lady made it very clear that she didn’t want my father in her house. So we stopped.”
I leaned into Kase’s shoulder and watched as the streetlights whirred by as we sped down the highway. “Hey, where are we going anyway?”
“The airport,” Kase said simply, with a smirk so broad I could hear it in his tone.