Climbing Into My Sister's Fiancé's Bed novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Green Dress
At her sister's engagement party, Jolene is sent to the service door, then tells the groom on the terrace she will be in his bed before the wedding and slips a key into his pocket.
The Tattnall house had two doors, and the woman at the front one pointed me toward the second.
"Caterers and staff use the side entrance," Lavinia Tattnall said.
She did not even look at my dress.
It was emerald satin, cut low in the back, and it had cost me a week of tips.
"I'm not staff," I said. "I'm Corinna's sister."
"Ah." Her pale eyes finally moved over me. "The other one."
Behind her, forty guests in cream and navy held champagne flutes and pretended not to hear.
This was my sister's engagement party, in the house of the man she was going to marry.
Lavinia was his mother. She chaired the foundation that paid for my mother's dialysis.
She wore pearls the size of chickpeas and had never once said my name right.
"Jolene," I said. "It's Jolene."
"Of course it is, dear. Do go around."
I smiled at her.
Then I walked through the front door anyway, and she let me, because making a scene would have cost her more than I did.
Inside, everything smelled like lilies and money.
My sister stood under a chandelier with a ring on her left hand that caught the light from every angle.
Corinna was twenty-nine, tall, blonde and perfect, and she had been the good daughter since the day she was born.
She saw me and her whole face lit up.
"You came," she said, and kissed my cheek. "Green. Jolene, you look incredible."
"You told me to wear it," I said.
"I did, didn't I." She squeezed my hands. "And you're in the Marlowe tonight, room 412, all paid. No arguing."
"A sisters' gift," she said. "Now go find a drink, I have to give a speech."
I found a club soda with lime.
I wanted a clear head tonight, and I had not touched a drop of alcohol.
I found a corner by the piano too, and from there I watched the man at the center of the room.
Sullivan Tattnall was thirty-three and six foot three, with dark hair and grey eyes.
He had a way of standing very still while people talked at him.
I had met him twice before.
Both times he had been polite to me, and both times I had gone home and thought about his hands.
Corinna's speech was about gratitude.
She thanked Lavinia for a second time and thanked the Foundation for a third.
She said that our mother, Bernadette, was too unwell to come tonight and was the strongest woman she knew.
Everyone clapped. Lavinia touched her pearls.
Sullivan smiled at my sister, and it was a good smile, and it did not reach his eyes.
I noticed that. I put it away for later.
I had spent eight months noticing small things about him, and I knew what I was doing.
I did not drift toward him. I planned it.
When he slipped out through the glass doors to the terrace alone, I waited ninety seconds and followed.
The air outside was thick and warm, and the live oaks hung over the lawn.
He stood at the stone rail with his tie loosened by one finger's width.
"Jolene," he said without turning around. "Corinna's looking for you."
"No, she isn't. She's busy being toasted."
He turned. He looked at me, and for a second he looked at all of me, and then he made himself stop.
"You shouldn't be out here."
"Probably not."
I came to the rail and stood close enough that my arm brushed his sleeve.
"I'm going to tell you something," I said. "I'd like you to hear all of it before you say anything."
His jaw moved. "Jolene."
"I want you."
He went very still.
"I've wanted you since the first dinner, when you passed me the bread and didn't look at my chest."
"I don't care that you're engaged to my sister."
"That's enough."
"It's not. I'm going to be in your bed before the wedding. I'm telling you now so you can't say I crept."
I took the key card out of my clutch.
It said Marlowe Hotel, Room 412, the room my sister had given me.
I did not feel bad about that.
I slid it into the breast pocket of his jacket and flattened the pocket with two fingers, over his heart.
His heart was going hard.
"Tonight," I said. "Or never. Your choice, Sullivan."
Then I walked back inside, past his mother and my sister and forty people holding glasses.
I left by the front door I had been told not to use.
I sat on a hotel bed my sister had paid for.
I still had the green dress on, and I watched the clock.
At one in the morning, someone knocked.
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