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.No, I meant thousand.Twenty-five thousand for the dress, three hundred thousand for the necklace.And while I’m at it, the purse you picked out is almost four thousand, but the shoes are a steal compared to everything else.They aren’t even a thousand dollars.Just three digits.” He held up three fingers and smiled warmly at her, but Madeline felt like a fool.She could feel Bea and Buford watching her.Was it with pity? Embarrassment?A cool hand landed on her shoulder.“Honey, why ever would you want to know how much this all costs anyway?” Bea looked sincerely perplexed, and Madeline wondered what planet she was on.She had never in her life purchased anything without looking at the price first.She only rarely bought anything at full price, but if she did, it was cheap to begin with.“This…um…I can’t possibly.This has to cost a—” Madeline did a vague calculation of the total cost of her evening dress with all of its glittery and fabulous accouterments, but her stomach turned at just the price of the necklace.Her fingers grazed it, and she let out a laugh to keep from crying.They were real sapphires and diamonds.Real and really big to boot.“But what if it falls off and I lose it? I’ve never had anything this nice before and—”“Well, it’s about time you’ve had something this nice.” Bea smoothed a wisp of Madeline’s hair over her ear as she spoke.“Every girl deserves a diamond or two or three dozen.”“And besides,” Buford said, “you aren’t going to lose it.Once you got the clasp on tight—and I’ll show you how it works later—it ain’t going anywhere, honey.Plus, it’s got top-notch construction so you couldn’t rip it off if you tried.” He quirked an eyebrow at Bea and planted his hand on his slim hips.“So don’t you get any ideas, Ms.Bea.No, this is a strong piece of jewelry, and I don’t think you could lose it if you tried.” Bea stuck her tongue out, and Madeline managed a chuckle.“By the look in her eyes and the drool forming around her lips, I’d say wild horses couldn’t take that thing away from her now.” Bea grinned.“I don’t know, it’s simply too much, and I’m not used to having others pay for me or buy things for me.You and your brothers have already been so generous to me, and it would just make me feel better if I could pay for something myself.” As she made her offer, Madeline’s stomach churned and she felt sweat prickling on her lower back, probably ruining the lining of the dress.Forget maxing out a credit card or two, her first plan.She’d have to mortgage a house, which she couldn’t even afford to buy, to pay for the shoes and dress alone.The thought of buying the necklace had her stomach reeling.That was out of the question.“Don’t be ridiculous, Maddie.We’d never expect you to pay for any of this.In fact, we wouldn’t even allow it.”Something about that statement hit Madeline hard in the gut.Or maybe it was her pride.“And why not?” Madeline realized her tone sounded almost accusing, which wasn’t fair to Bea.“Well…” Bea struggled to come up with an explanation, but Madeline knew the reason.Because they knew unquestioningly that she couldn’t afford it, that all of this would be well above her means, which she hadn’t thought were particularly meager until that moment.“Maybe I could try to find a dress on my own? And I already have all these shoes that Dalton and Garrett got for me.There’s really no need to buy another—”“Oh, no, that won’t do.How do I phrase this…” Bea motioned for one of the attendants to hand her the glass of champagne.She downed the whole flute in two gulps.“Sweetheart, I think what Bea is trying to say is that this dress is just too perfect for you to pass up.It looks to die for on you and hits just the right combination of standing out while fitting in.Everyone at the cotillion will be wearing thousand-dollar dresses.”“Thousands,” Bea interjected, emphasizing that it was plural.“No one would be caught dead wearing a dress that was less than a thousand dollars.Honey, it’s just not done in Male Order.Especially not for the cotillion.”“I see.” What Madeline saw was that a future with Dalton and Garrett meant having to keep up with the rest of the Male Order elites whom the Ellises rubbed elbows with on a daily basis.Wearing clothes that she could afford, being herself, clearly just wouldn’t do in this town.Madeline hoped her nodding would divert their attention from the glassiness of her eyes as they prickled with tears, tears from anger, frustration, and sadness.She felt foolish enough as it was without having everyone in Male Order’s toniest department store know that not only was she fucking like an animal, but she was a crybaby as well.“Listen, it might sound like a lot of money to you, but believe me, it’s nothing.Nothing at all.Plus, it’s a special occasion.” Bea grabbed the shoes and the purse and waved her hand at Buford.“Put it all on our tab.End of story.”But if spending nearly four hundred thousand dollars on one dress and all its sparkly accessories was nothing at all, what did that make her? They practically used dollar bills as toilet paper, and they drank the finest champagne as if it were water, or at least Bea did.Money was never an object.Madeline had thought the brothers did all this for her because maybe they thought she was special, worthy of all this extravagance.With the Ellis brothers, she suddenly couldn’t decide if they thought she was worth every penny or if, to them, pennies and all the gold and diamonds in the world weren’t worth very much at all.This was all just a drop in the bucket.She gazed at herself in the mirror, looking at the beautiful princess they seemed to be molding her into.Even though she looked like a mermaid, she felt like a fish out of water.Chapter ElevenMadeline opened the glass door to the children’s center, located in a strip mall in South Dallas.It wasn’t the nicest building in the world, but it was at the heart of the community it served [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]