Genevieve had really pulled out all the stops for the engagement party. The ballroom had been properly cleaned and polished up, it looked like the room was properly cared for- as opposed to a room we hadn't actually dusted off in a couple of years.

I was up in my room, finishing getting ready for the party. My black dress clung to my body like a second skin, something that wasn't at all bridal- but so very Coco. My hair was loose and my heels were sky-high, as heels should be.

I didn't dress like this for men's attention- I mean maybe at first because I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but I liked it, I liked how I looked in a skin-tight dress. I liked that the heels made me feel powerful. Lipstick was my drug, and I didn't do it for the sake of the men in the world, I did it all for me. I leaned in close to the mirror and cleaned up the lines of my lipstick.

"Perfect." I deflated just a little as my gaze was drawn to the ring, it sat on my bedside table, glinting in the light, mocking me. I knew I'd have to wear it all night, there was no getting out of it. Because everyone was going to want to see it and they were going to comment on how beautiful it was as if it wasn't a noose tightening around my neck more and more with each passing day.

Never mind that it wasn't my taste at all. It was large and showy. It was a pretty ring, sure, but it wasn't anything I would have ever chosen for myself.

But then again, neither was the man I was going to be walking down the aisle with. So perhaps it was fitting.

Finally, I made myself put the ring on and headed out of my room. I knew people were already there, already making themselves comfortable in the ballroom, helping themselves to the food that Genevieve had catered in. She was thriving as the hostess. It broke my heart a little knowing this was the life she wanted. She loved socializing, she wanted to be the hostess, and she wanted to be the woman at the center of the party.

For the past ten years, she'd been the woman they whispered about, the one on the outside who wasn't allowed in all because her husband sucked.

I stopped at the top of the stairs and forced myself to stop thinking about that- to stop thinking about my father and how he screwed us all. To stop thinking about the life we might have had. Would it have been happy? Probably not, but we would never know.

I shook my hair back and headed down the stairs, finding my mother rushing around, her own high heels abandoned as she finished a few last-minute things.

"Shouldn't someone be out there entertaining?" I asked. Genevieve stopped and whirled.

"Oh finally- That's what you're wearing?"

"Yes." I made no move to hide it or to even act like I would offer to change. Genevieve sighed- obviously annoyed.

"Fine, get out there, Rochester and Theodore arrived fifteen minutes ago. I'll be out in a moment." She promised as if that was why I was hesitating.

"Great," I muttered, heading in that direction, I was about to walk through the open doors when a floating tray of champagne passed by, I grabbed two, one I downed in half a second and the other I held onto before stepping through into the engagement party that I didn't ask for.

"There she is!" Came a happy squeal. I tried to place it before I saw the person but all the squeals sounded the same to me.

Tracey Davis crossed the small distance between us and hugged me as if we were old friends. I just barely managed to hold off the urge to pour my drink down her back.

"Tracey."

"Oh my goodness, you wouldn't believe how shocked we were to hear that you were marrying Theodore." Tracey gushed, a couple more figures walked up behind her- more girls that had been in our class.

"Not nearly as shocked as I was," I muttered.

"What?" Tracey's big smile faltered slightly.

"Nothing." Came an answer from a much deeper voice than my own. "You know Coco, she just- talks."

I was glad I hadn't poured the drink over Tracey, now I had it free to throw at my brother. However, it seemed his powers of divination were in overdrive as he slipped between Tracey and one of the other girls, his fingers slipping around the stem of the champagne flute, slipping it out of my grasp.

"I hate you," I informed him.

"Liar." He tipped his head back, downing the contents of my glass.

"Thief," I replied. "Yes- I was also surprised, I hadn't thought- it was coming." I managed to force the words out. Arranged marriages were still a thing among our group but one didn't outright talk about it in unfamiliar company. Also, it wasn't really fun to say 'Yeah my parents made this happen for me'.

"Yes well, maybe you could come to tea sometime."

"Maybe." I nodded. Tracey and her friends tittered happily as they hurried away. "I would rather die, Bastian, death, I would rather enjoy tea in hell with the demons than-"

"Charming." Baz shook his head. "Here." Another tray floated by and He grabbed each of us a glass. "Your beloved is over there." He nodded his head, and I turned to look, wrinkling my nose.

He was dressed in black and white- typical. And of course, the damn suit was perfectly fitted to his stupid body. It was obviously made just for him, the lines of the suit making him seem tall and thin but it hugged his arms in a way that showed under it all I'd find just the right amount of muscle.

"Ew." I tore my eyes away, looking to Baz, only to see my twin giving me a knowing look. "I'm going to punch you in the face," I warned.

"I didn't do anything." He argued.

"Go away." I waved him off and he grinned before turning and heading off. I took a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh before I headed in the direction of Theodore, He stood next to Blaise, the two of them in deep, quiet conversation. Both of them clammed up as I walked over, Theodore's eyes focusing on my body before snapping up to my face.

My brain immediately flew back to the kiss- calling it a kiss didn't feel right- it was more than that. I had never been so affected by another person's lips on mine. My heart rate spiked in real time and I did my best to force it to chill out- as if they could hear it.

"Nott."

"Selwyn."

"I can feel the sparks." Blaise's voice was dry.

"I can make you feel spar-"

"No." Theodore interrupted. I opened my mouth to snap at him but I saw the look on Blaise's face. He had gone pale. I closed my mouth and cleared my throat.

"Right-" I had heard… something about Blaise and fire. I knew if I really stopped and thought about it I could figure it out but I wasn't given a chance as yet another person was calling my name, as well as Theodore's. My shoulders tensed on instinct and a hand gripped my wrist gently. It took me far too long to realize the person purposefully trying to help me calm down was Theodore.

I ripped my arm out of his grasp just as the Greengrass family walked up and Blaise quickly excused himself, zipping out of the ballroom.

They really were a stunning family. Julius Greengrass was a handsome man, what he lacked in height he made up for in bulk. His muscle straining against his deep red suit. Sade Greengrass was tall and willowy, her skin a deep brown that seemed even more rich against the matching red dress. Daphne stood a little behind them, a sour look on her face. I didn't blame her, this sucked, but she could at least try to pretend like she wasn't miserable. That was my job.

"Mr. Greengrass." The color had gone from Theodore's face, I assumed in response to being faced with the father of his ex-girlfriend, a relationship that had ended painfully abruptly.

"Theodore, you know you can call me Julius." The man was a bit tense but he didn't seem truly angry. I hoped it was because he understood this wasn't our choice.

"We just wanted to give our congratulations." Sade's voice was still tinged with her natural Nigerian accent, but by this point, it was mostly British. "You will make a beautiful bride."

"Thank you." I hated that word. Bride.

"Well? Let's see the ring, my boy." Julius had a loud booming voice, deep and his accent was as posh as they came, but he was loud.

"It is actually on my hand and not his," I commented. "But I'd be happy to show you." I quickly found out that Daphne inherited that sour look from her mother as Sade's face morphed. I held my hand out and Julius, after a moment of hesitation, took it to inspect the ring on my finger.

"It's lovely," Julius commented, gently turning my hand so the lights would reflect on the surface.

Behind them- Daphne let out a squeak

"That's my ring."

"Excuse me?" I froze and beside me, Theodore tensed.

"This is my ring."

"Daphne-" Her mother's voice was sharp, but Daphne didn't stop, ripping my hand out of her father's, her pale pink painted nails digging into my skin as she ranted.

"The emerald cut ruby! White gold band with the accent rubies. Fourteen of them- for each of the women in my family."

I froze, she was right, the ring had the fourteen accent rubies. I had counted them over and over while enjoying my pity party after getting the ring

"You gave her my ring." Daphne's voice had dropped from a shout to a wobbly whisper. She released my hand and turned, she didn't run away, she did quickly speed walk out of the ballroom, whispers following after her.

"I am- so sorry." Sade apologized.

"It's not your fault." I insisted as she and Julius turned to go. "You, however, are an idiot." I snapped in a whisper at my fiance, pushing past him to follow Daphne out of the ballroom I went to the closest bathroom, figuring that was where she would escape to and sure enough, I pushed the door open and I heard the soft sounds of sobbing. When the door clicked shut it was obvious that she tried to muffle it.

"Daphne."

"Go away." She snapped, suddenly not bothering to muffle anyway.

"Daphne please, I'm sorry. I didn't know that this was- yours." I took the ring off, it was a lovely ring, it just wasn't my style and now it was obvious why. This was a ring that was picked specifically for Daphne, for her family, and for her history. The ring had felt heavy on my finger before but now it felt 100 kilos heavier.

"How would you have known that?" She finally answered. This bathroom was meant for parties. There was a powder room- where I was standing, that had a small settee, as well as the sink and everything, and there was another room where the actual toilet was and that was closed off by a door. Finally, the door opened and Daphne stepped out, still looking miserable.

"I told him everything about my dream engagement ring because- because I thought that we would be-"

"Yeah." I watched as she plopped on the settee, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.

"I feel so stupid, everyone out there is talking about it- about me about how I lost my man to-" She gestured at me. "No offense."

"I mean, I do actually take offense to that." She dropped her hands and gave me a look. "I am trying to sympathize with you here, Daphne and you are making it incredibly difficult."

She sighed and after a moment, opened her mouth to speak again.

"Sorry."

"I didn't ask for this, Daphne. In my perfect world, this ring would be yours, this party would be yours. Theodore would be your problem and not mine. We aren't enemies. I didn't steal your man. Rochester did."

"Why?"

"So far the only answer I have is because he's a power-hungry dick bag who gets off on ruining lives." That managed to get a small smile out of her.

"He was kind of the worst when Theodore and I were seeing each other." I didn't point out that it didn't seem like she and Theodore were actually dating as much as hooking up- as that felt mean and she was already crying.

"Just- We will pretend all that never happened- I'll make Theodore spend the money to get me a new ring." Daphne gave me a look like I was the dumbest bitch in the world.

"People have already seen this ring."

"So?" I shrugged. "By the time you get engaged, everyone will have forgotten what the original ring looked like." The words were out before I could really think about it and Daphne's face morphed back into the rage demon.

"You're such a bitch." She snapped.

"That wasn't- I didn't. I'm going to go find Pansy and send her in." I held my hands up in surrender and turned to walk away, "You might want to lock the door behind me. You look unhinged."

I let the door close behind me before I could listen to her go off on me about that one.

It took a minute to find Pansy and when I did I simply relayed to her that Theodore was a moron and Daphne was in the bathroom having a fit. Pansy gave me an appropriately dirty look before excusing herself to presumably go help her friend.

"I hate parties." I groaned, going on the hunt for a champagne tray, the last ten minutes had completely dulled any sort of buzz I had been building up as a wall between me and the rest of the world. I did have to stop to talk to a few more people- showing off the ring, people gasped about how unique it was, and unlike Daphne, I didn't have a powerful story to back it up.

Finally, I got my hands on another glass of champagne when yet another person called my name. I bit hard on my tongue to keep from snapping before turning to face Ariella Warrington.

Oh god.

"Ariella." Ariella Warrington was- actually about the same age as Tate Fawley, I vaguely recalled that the two of them had dated for a while. She was the quintessential mean girl. When they designed the first mean girl, Ariella was the blueprint.

"Congratulations, Cordelia." She tilted her head to the right slightly, looking me up and down. "I have to say, we were all quite… shocked to hear the news."

"We really were." I agreed, slowly swirling the glass in my hand, and watching the bubbles spin.

"Pretty curious how you went from nothing to marrying Theodore Nott so quickly." Her eyes pointedly trailed down my body, settling on my stomach. I cleared my throat so that her clear blue eyes shot back up to my face before I tossed back the alcohol, just as pointedly, champagne made a terrible shot.

"It's called a betrothal, Ariella, perhaps if your parents had gone for that you wouldn't be a spinster." She wasn't- not technically. She was two years away from that but I saw how saying it affected her and quite frankly that was funny enough that I didn't care about the misinformation.

"Excuse me?" she snapped.

"You just make friends everywhere you go, don't you?" Theodore walked up from the right, he didn't have champagne, he had a glass of amber liquid that I reached out and took- tossing it back as well.

"Merlin's- fuck." I coughed as the strong booze hit the back of my throat. I was expecting something smooth, this was straight gasoline.

"That was mine." Was all Theodore said, the glass refilled itself and he took it from my hand. "Ariella, a pleasure." His free hand patted my back as my coughing subsided.

"Wish I could say the same." Ariella eyed me like I was the gum on the bottom of her designer shoe before sniffing and turning to go the other way.

"It's not actually required for you to be unpleasant everywhere you go," Theodore informed me.

"I know it's not, It's my gift to the world." I shrugged one shoulder. His eyes trailed over my bare shoulder to my collar bone then up to my throat before settling on my lips, I swallowed hard, gripping the empty champagne flute a little tighter in my hand- a serious threat of repeating what happened the night of the announcement. He reached out and took the flute from me, apparently thinking the same thing.

"Coco-"

"There you are. I've been looking for the two of you all night." Rochester came up from behind Theodore and the spell was broken.

"How funny, I've been avoiding you all night," I replied to the man, his smile didn't so much as waver.

"Charming." My second of the night.

"I do so strive to impress you." If anything his smile grew wider. My urge to punch him grew as well.

"I heard there was an incident."

"It was nothing," Theodore answered. Rochester looked at me, I don't know what exactly he thought was going to go on here, the enemy of my enemy was also my fucking enemy. He and I would not be teaming up against Theodore or anything like that. I simply covered up a yawn.

"What the hell is that?" Rochester's hand shot out and grabbed mine- something I was growing distressingly used to.

"That is my hand- it's attached to my body, lest you forget and rip it away from my wrist."

"Not that, this." His thumb bumped the ring.

"That would be the engagement ring." There was slight red splotching around Rochester's collar- the first time I'd ever seen any sign of emotion from the man. I turned to Theodore who was white as a ghost.

"We need to talk. Now." Rochester growled. He let go of my hand and grabbed Theodore's arm, yanking him towards the door. "Not you." Rochester snapped as I started to follow. "I need a word with my son."