The crowd on Fifth Avenue moved in thick coats, shopping bags swinging from their hands, faces soft and bright with that specific kind of holiday ease. Store windows glowed with reindeer, sleighs, and gift boxes tied in red ribbon.
Christmas Eve in New York never ran short on light. Fireworks bloomed one after another over Manhattan, painting the whole city like a dream that refused to end.
Isolde Devlin sat alone in the most expensive rooftop restaurant in New York, tucked into a corner nobody wanted, a cup of coffee and a small plate of macarons in front of her. She hadn't touched either one.
She wasn't here to eat. She was here to be sacrificed.
---
She thought about the phone call three days ago.
The line had barely connected before Circe's voice came through, sharp and cool with that familiar air of superiority.
"Want to make money? I'll give you two hundred thousand dollars."
Two hundred thousand.
She'd been standing in a hospital hallway at the time, her mother's lab results in one hand and an overdue billing notice in the other. One more missed payment and they'd deny her mother treatment.
She knew Circe never did anything out of kindness. But she couldn't just stand there and watch her mother suffer. So she said yes.
She'd been sick with worry ever since. It wasn't until three hours ago, sitting in the back of Circe's private Mercedes, that she finally found out what the price actually was.
"All you have to do is spend one night with someone. Don't ask who he is. Don't tell him who you are. When it's over, you get the two hundred thousand."
Circe had narrowed her eyes and looked straight at her. "Are we clear?"
Isolde nodded. The shame was so thick she could barely breathe through it.
She closed her eyes and told herself over and over, silently, that it was worth it. For her mom, it was worth it.
If she hadn't kept telling herself that, she would've thrown open the car door and run.
---
Things wrapped up a little earlier than Isolde expected.
Circe was the first to stand. She picked up her wrap and moved around to the man's side of the table, leaning down to say something close to his ear. He tilted his head slightly, and the corner of his mouth curved up.
Circe smiled, stepped back, and walked away.
Her gaze cut clean through the gap in the decorative plants and landed on Isolde's face for just a second. Then she turned, casual as anything, and headed toward the restrooms.
Isolde understood. It was time.
---
Isolde followed Circe up to the penthouse suite on the top floor.
The moment the door closed, the warm and pleasant expression Circe had been wearing all evening dropped away entirely. What was left was something impatient and sharp.
She looked Isolde up and down with a slight frown, then tossed a paper bag at her and dropped onto the bed like she owned the room. "Go shower. Then put that on and get into bed."
Isolde opened the bag. Inside was a white lace slip, spaghetti straps, the hem barely long enough to reach the top of her thighs.
She stared at Circe's face, a face identical to her own, currently twisted with barely contained irritation.
Ten years ago, when their parents divorced, the court split the twins down the middle. Their father took Circe. Their mother took Isolde. One of them grew up with every door open. The other one scraped through the mud.
"Why are you staring at me?" Circe's expression went cold. "You'd do anything for your mother, right? So stop stalling."
When everything was ready, Circe stood in front of her and studied her face for a long moment. She reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Isolde's ear, the way a painter makes one last adjustment before stepping back from the canvas.
"Dyeing it blonde was the right call," she said, with a note of quiet satisfaction that was entirely directed at herself. "You look almost exactly like me now."
Then the satisfaction disappeared. "Remember. You are me. If he asks you anything, just nod. Don't volunteer a single word."
"What if he figures it out?" Isolde asked.
Circe smiled, easy and unbothered. "He won't. We're identical, and besides..." She paused. "He doesn't know me all that well."
Isolde felt something cold settle in her chest. So this was just an arranged match between two families. He barely knew Circe at all.
Funny, really. That was exactly the kind of thing regular people imagined when they pictured old money families. Turned out the cliché was accurate.
She didn't say anything else. She turned and walked to the bed. Behind her, she heard the door open and close.
She lay there in the dim light, staring up at the chandelier overhead, each crystal catching the low lamplight and scattering it into tiny bright fragments across the ceiling.
After a while, she heard the door again. Footsteps came closer, then stopped at the edge of the bed.
A scent wrapped around her, warm and intoxicating, whiskey underneath something faint and woody, like expensive cologne worn down to its base notes.
Edmund sat on the edge of the mattress and leaned down to press his lips to her cheek, a small unhurried curve at the corner of his mouth.
"Did I keep you waiting? Why'd you turn the lights down so low?" His voice was low, lazy with alcohol, rougher than it probably was sober.
Isolde finally got a clear look at him.
His brow was strong, his eyes deep-set, his features almost unreasonably perfect, like someone had used a classical sculpture as a reference. There was an ease to him, the kind of effortless polish that made him look like he'd walked out of a fairy tale. His mouth was slightly parted, the kind of mouth that stuck in your memory.
Isolde remembered the rules. She kept quiet and dropped her gaze.
"Hey." Edmund's voice softened. There was a smile in it. "You nervous?"
He watched her for a moment, then reached out and cupped her chin, tilting her face up. His fingers were cool against her skin. The second they made contact, her heartbeat stumbled and a wave of dizziness rolled through her, strange and weightless.
Edmund leaned in, his nose almost brushing the skin behind her ear, and breathed her in along the curve of her neck and hairline. "You smell so good."
He lifted his head and kissed her. The kiss deepened slowly. His hands moved across her body, her waist, her hips, her thighs.
Isolde felt herself sinking into it, into the warmth of his hands and the unhurried way he touched her, and a soft breathless sound escaped her before she could stop it.
