C1, PT. 2 (Patreon)

Jasmine jutted out her chin. “I’m not afraid of my family,” she lied.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Kira said brightly.

Jasmine scanned the crowd for her sisters or dad. She caught a glimpse of her father once this evening. At the time, he had a captive audience of ten men. If anyone noticed her absence, it would be her sisters. Colette, more specifically. Her oldest sister seemed to have a sixth sense whenever she even contemplated disobeying their father’s endless list of rules. But her sisters were nowhere in sight and had their hands full. Like Kira said, they wouldn’t be gone long…

She glanced at her friends. Penelope was shaking her head, but Kira’s expectant expression made her march resolutely out of the ballroom.

“Are you coming?” Kira hissed at Penelope, who worriedly swished her skirt before she joined them in the hallway.

“I don’t want Jas to get in trouble,” Penelope said.

“She won’t,” Kira said absently as she peered up at a dazzling chandelier. “This is gorgeous.”

“It’s made up of over five hundred thousand crystals,” Jasmine shared.

Kira’s heels clicked on the glossy floor as she walked over to a gold framed painting and leaned forward to admire the brushstrokes. “One thing about your father is he has impeccable taste. I’m not surprised that his residence is decorated like his hotels. I’ve stayed in enough of them to recognize them at a glance.” Kira brushed her finger over the surface of a black marble table. “Opulent, classy, intimidating…” Kira shot Jasmine a big smile. “Which is why he gets along so well with my father.”

“But unlike your father and mine,” Penelope stressed. “Maximus is strict and unforgiving.”

Kira dismissed that with a wave and focused on Jasmine. “Show us your room.”

“I don’t have a room.” When her friends stared at her, she explained, “I only visit a handful of times a year, so there's no need for me to have one.”

“But your dad and sister’s live here?” Penelope asked, clearly having difficulty understanding their living arrangements.

“Yes.”

“So, you basically have your own place with no parents?” Kira looked impressed.

Jasmine’s mouth twitched. “You could say that, though my housekeeper is there as well.”

“Don’t you get lonely?” Penelope asked.

“Not really.” It was all she knew.

“Because of her books,” Kira guessed with an eye roll.

Jasmine crossed her arms across her chest. “What’s wrong with that?”

“No wonder you don’t have a crush! You’re stuck in the country with your nose buried in books,” Kira chastised and continued down the corridor, spinning in a circle to take in the gold laden walls. “Look at this! How can anything in a book compare to your real life?”

Jasmine took in her familiar surroundings. Her father’s residence was designed to strike awe into all who entered. The opulent space was grand, but it wasn’t a home. She preferred the gleaming, aged wood of her home at Tuxedo Park to the glossy gold and marble her father favored.

“How could you bear to be in the country when you could be here?” Kira asked. “Every time I see a photograph of an American celebrity, they’re coming out of Hennessy Tower. Can you imagine who you’d see while eating at one of the restaurants or sitting in the lobby? If I were you, I’d beg your dad to live here instead.”

The fact that Kira thought begging would sway Maximus highlighted how little she understood her father. Begging was the best way to ensure he would never give her what she wanted. Everything with her father had to be earned. Nothing was freely given.

On that thought, she glanced back, expecting to see her father, sisters, or a staff member bearing down on them. The coast was clear. It seemed her family was still occupied. Maybe she’d actually get away with something for once. She glanced down the hallway that led to the catering kitchen and heard the faintest clatter of dishes and chatter.

“Ooh. What’s this?”

She whirled around in time to see Kira and Penelope disappear inside a room that she knew for a fact was always kept closed.

“Guys!” she hissed as she rushed after them, intending to shush them out, but knew at a glance it was a lost cause.

“What is this place?” Penelope asked in hushed tones.

“Is this where they come for their secret meetings?” Kira asked.

“Yes.” Jasmine nervously eyed the door. “And that could happen at any moment, so we should…”

“Is that…?”

She turned at Kira’s reverent tone and pinched the bridge of her nose when she saw her friend holding a bejeweled knight from her father’s one of a kind chessboard.

“Yes, those are real diamonds, gold, and precious stones.” When Kira began to set the knight back on the chessboard, Jasmine warned, “Make sure you place it back exactly where you found it.”

When her friend gave her an exasperated look, Jasmine glared back at her.

“My father has a photographic memory. He’ll notice.”

Kira wrinkled her nose but didn’t argue as she considered the board carefully before she adjusted the knight.

“What are all these pins for?” Penelope asked.

Jasmine joined Penelope, who stood before a revolving globe that was twice as large as a basketball. The three of them stood side by side, watching the globe turn, exposing hundreds of gold pins.

“Are these all the places your dad does business?” Penelope asked, leaning in close to inspect the countries with the most pins.

“I have no idea,” Jasmine murmured.

The door to this room was always firmly shut and the contents within it, not up for discussion. The only time Dad allowed her in here was to grab a book for her studies while she was here for the holidays or summer. They referred to this room as the library because the walls were covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves, but it was more of a gentleman’s lounge. There was a well-stocked wet bar, oversized leather armchairs, a billiard table, a chess game that was always underway, and a long table lined with black velvet with a deck of cards in the center of it. The walls were covered in black and white photographs of her father and grandfather with men that she assumed they’d done business with over the years.

Penelope skirted the table and went to the door that led onto the terrace. “Look at this view!”

“Careful,” Jasmine cautioned as Penelope opened the door.

A strong wind swept through the room and scattered three cards from the top of the deck.

“Aren’t we up eighty flights or something?”

At the strange note in Kira’s voice, Jasmine looked over her shoulder on the way to the door. “We’re over one hundred stories up.”

“I… I think I’ll stay in here.”

Jasmine paused to get a better look at her friend, who looked suddenly pasty. “I didn’t know you were afraid of heights.”

Kira took a step back. “I-I’m not. I just…” Kira’s eyes went wide with fright. “Penelope!”

Jasmine whipped around to see Penelope doing the famous Titanic pose as she leaned into the strong wind. Despite herself, Jasmine chuckled. “She’s fine. She’s like five feet away from the railing.”

“What if the glass shatters? What if a gust of wind just picks her up and…?” Kira gripped the back of one of the chairs. “Please tell her to come in. I think I’m going to faint.”

“So you do have a weakness,” Jasmine teased before she poked her head out and yelled over the wind until Penelope scampered back inside, invigorated and windswept.

“Blimey! That was amazing! I felt like I was on top of the world! Kira, you should… What’s wrong?” Penelope exclaimed.

“Apparently, Kira is afraid of heights,” Jasmine snickered. “Now that you two have thoroughly examined…” Her heart jumped into her throat when she saw movement at the door, but it wasn’t her father who advanced into the room. Weak with relief, she exclaimed, “Uncle Warren!”

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Sins. Please do not share or distribute.

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