Chapter 117

The dress hung on the hanger, hooked over the top of the wardrobe door and looking like the blackest of wraiths dancing in mid-air. I would have recognised that dress anywhere. How could I possibly forget it? It was the dress I had worn to the Walter and Noble Christmas charity gala. The dress that Brandon had insisted I wore. A rich silk floor length gown, the fabric draping all the way down to the small of my back, revealing a wide expanse of flesh. I remembered that night for a number of reasons. Most noticeably for the number of times that some of Brandon's colleagues had taken advantage of the backless gown, putting their arms around my waist under pretence of an innocent welcome, but their fingers finding my bare skin all too often, lingering on the small of my back. And more significantly, for Brandon's post-party confession that he had enjoyed all the gluttonous stares and the fastidious efforts of his cohorts to get close to me, to covet what only he could taste. And taste he