Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
That’s exactly what happens when I enter the dining room and see my little sister.
49
TOM COBALT
The regal dining room is laid out for an elaborate feast, all prepared by our family’s chef. Roasted goose, seitan, potatoes, and vegetables wedge between ornate candelabras and candlesticks. All lit and dripping with wax while a gilded chandelier sparkles above us. But I’m not focused on the theatrical tablescape that rarely, if ever, has changed since I was kid.
My gaze pins on my sister, who’s standing and filling her goblet with a deep, dark merlot. We’ve been allowed to have one glass of wine at dinner since we were teenagers—so Audrey drinking is not why I’ve stalled out in the doorway.
It’s her dress.
“Why are you wearing a nightgown?” I ask her.
“It’s not a nightgown,” Audrey counters. “It’s a slip dress.”
“It’s a black silk nightgown.” With tiny spaghetti straps. She looks like she’s ready to go to a cocktail party with rich twentysomethings that just got done gallery hopping through Chelsea and the Lower East Side. I know the type. I party with the type.
I’m just not used to my sister embodying it.
It’s been five seconds, and I already miss her costume dresses.
Ben is totally cool, calm, and collected. Not even breaking a sweat as if this isn’t the most abnormal thing we’ve encountered tonight.
As soon as he sees my slack-jawed expression, he tells me, “Audrey showed me the dress in advance. The shock wore off hours ago.”
“Where was my advanced notice, Audrey Virginia?” I accuse.
She lifts her goblet. “Become my favorite brother, and maybe you’d receive one.”
“I’m not unseating Ben, okay.” I pull out a chair and tell my brother, “Your position in her life is safe.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Ben smiles.
He says just the right thing to make Audrey beam.
I take a seat across from my two youngest siblings and scroll through my phone—trying to stop myself from opening my mouth. I can’t help myself. I really can’t. “Is it to piss off our older brothers?” I ask her. “Because I’m almost positive they’re going to pretend you arrived in a paper bag.”
Audrey sinks down in her chair. “No, I have better and more fun ways to do that if I truly wanted.” She narrows a hurt look at me. “Charlie has shown up shirtless countless times. But I show a little bit of shoulder and suddenly the world is burning?”
“Hey, it’s me—I love fire,” I defend. “And it’s not the shoulders. I’m just making sure you’re okay because this…” I wave my hand at her. “Seems like a cry for help.”
She untangles a strand of orange hair from her small gold hoop earring. “I have news. I thought I’d look the part. That’s all, really.”
“Fair. I did the same thing.” I motion to my face with the partial skeleton paint. “I’m dating Phoenix. I have a boyfriend.”
She applauds rapidly in excitement, but then abruptly stops.
“No, no, keep going.” I gesture her on.
Her face has fallen. “Why are you telling me now? Don’t you want to announce it?”
I rock back on my chair legs. “Unfortunately, I’ve been a fucking broken dam all night. Mom and Dad will be the last to know.”
“Unless Dad already knows,” Ben says.
“And Mother,” Audrey adds.
“Doubtful,” I say. “This literally just happened.”
“Mother and Father have sixth senses, though,” Audrey notes. She’s really the only one who calls our parents Mother and Father.
It reminds me of the night Phoenix met my sister, and he told me, “Your sister sounds very proper.”
“She purposefully layers it on at times,” I told him. “She did it when she was little to try to sound older than she was since she’s the baby of the family. But it kind of stuck. Whereas I love using as much slang as possible because it drives my dad nuts. He should’ve never let slip that he can’t stand the word dude.”
Thinking about that conversation is easier on my brain than Audrey’s impending bomb-drop.
I hold out my hand. “Merlot me,” I tell Audrey.
She stands and passes the bottle of wine across the table. Grabbing it by the neck, I put the rim to my lips.
“Starting without me, brother?” Eliot saunters into the room. His eyes are on me, not even sparing a single glance for Audrey. In fact, the rest of our brothers do the same thing. Charlie and Beckett file in one after the other and silently take a seat at the long ornate table.
Jane follows close behind with a baby monitor in hand. Maeve must be down for a nap. Thatcher, Jane’s husband, got called in as extra security for one of my cousins tonight. He’s a lead bodyguard on the team, so he often gets assigned elsewhere when Jane doesn’t need a security detail.
Eliot scoots his chair closer to mine, just to whisper more seriously, “Our sister is barely clothed, isn’t she?”