The Jewel
I didn’t know what I was thinking when I suggested we go dancing. He wasn’t going to be too comfortable in a club, with loud music and all sorts of obnoxious, drunk tourists and sweaty weirdos crammed so tightly together. But I’d never been to a club, and I’d always wanted to go.
Colton had taken me dancing a couple of times, at the county fair and other such venues, but I’d seen in movies that dancing could mean way more than what you found at a county fair. Going to a club sounded like a surreal experience. I was excited, and a little worried I wasn’t dressed for it.
I thought perhaps there was another reason why Winston was stalling. “If you’re not comfortable with the idea, we could always—”
The spoon landed on the plate, rattling. His hand clasped mine over the table. “No,” he said. “Don’t think that. I’d go anywhere with you. I’d follow you to hell and back.” His eyes locked on mine, the intensity in them dizzying.
“Quite the comparison,” I laughed, feeling a bit uneasy. “A dance club with me versus hell. Huh . . .” I reached to wipe a bit of chocolate sauce off his upper lip. “Now I know how you really feel about it!”
He captured my fingers and kissed them softly.
“Anywhere,” he repeated, still looking at me. “Only, this venue needs a bit of doing.” His phone chimed. He read the message and smiled. “We’re all set.”
We stood, not waiting for the check, and walked away. The matter must’ve been handled by Rose’s invisible and highly effective touch.
“I have my car here,” I said, heading toward the Paris hotel.
“It’s right across the street,” he said, pointing at the ARIA towers. “I thought you’d enjoy revisiting your old stomping grounds. You might know this club.”
That made me curious. “Okay, where are you taking me?”
“The Jewel.” His eyes lit up, and it took me a while to realize he was responding to my reaction.
Excitement brimmed inside me. I’d heard about that place—read about it on the internet, and seen pictures of it in magazines.
Opulent and extravagant, the club had been made famous by the city’s elite, who gathered there to see and be seen in rhythms of electronic dance music and top-dance-chart mash-ups that kept the place buzzing all night long.
I was dying to see if everything I’d read about was real.
We walked across the brightly lit, crowded ARIA lobby, and Winston didn’t let go of my hand.
He wasn’t hiding our relationship; quite the opposite, he seemed to be flaunting it, and that gave me a bit of pause.
Was his marriage one of those flexible relationships where spouses are openly polyamorous?
He would’ve said something by now, or I would’ve heard about it during my research, at least some rumors about it. Evelyn surely would’ve mentioned it.
No, it wasn’t that.
I recalled the many photos I’d seen of him and his wife, and the way she clutched his arm, the way she clung to him insecurely.
He didn’t care about her anymore. Or perhaps he just cared that much about me .
. . enough to have made decisions he wasn’t sharing with me yet. About her. About his marriage.
Lost in my thoughts, I nearly missed the two tall, bulky men with military haircuts who emerged from the crowd and started following us closely.
They wore dark suits with white shirts, their jackets taut over their thick arms. Were they Jack’s colleagues?
The men he’d been warning me about, sent to kill me?
I shivered and drew closer to Winston. He slowed his pace and looked at me with concern, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, studying my face with a slight frown creasing his brow. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yes, I’m fine,” I replied, managing a smile and deciding to keep my fears hidden. I could already hear club music thundering through the walls. We were almost there.
As I was learning always happened when I was with him, things seemed to have been arranged before our arrival. We were recognized and escorted inside by a hostess wearing a ridiculously short sequined dress and equally ridiculous high heels.
The moment we stepped inside the club, I was immediately struck by the atmosphere of the place.
The club was infinitely more than the pictures I’d seen.
The walls and ceiling were covered in pulsating lights and mirrors, reflecting hues of red and blue and purple over the dance floor.
David Guetta’s hypnotic beats seemed to resonate with the rhythm of my heart, driving my body to respond with instinctive movement.
The hostess led us to a booth by the dance floor, where we took a seat side by side on a plush couch upholstered in red leather, watching the dancers on the floor give their best. I leaned closer to Winston and thanked him, but he didn’t hear me. It was going to be impossible to talk.
But we weren’t there for that purpose.
The hostess returned with a bottle of champagne and showed it to me before opening it.
Our glasses met in the air, and we sipped the chilled liquid while looking at each other, feeling the air between us sizzle with electricity.
I didn’t sense what the champagne was like; I was too overwhelmed with everything—the emotions, the sounds, the lights, the people—to register something as simple as the taste of Dom Pérignon Rosé.
After a few more minutes, the opening beat of Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” pulsed through the speakers, sending a jolt of energy through me. A grin spread across my face before I could stop it.
Winston caught the shift immediately. “Something you like?”
I nodded, already pushing to my feet, swaying a little as the bass line kicked in. “Come on,” I said, grabbing his hand without giving him a chance to refuse.
He let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head but following me onto the packed dance floor.
At first, we were stiff, self-conscious, moving more out of obligation than instinct.
The flashing neon lights, the thrumming energy of the club, the sheer newness of seeing Winston in a place like this—it all felt surreal.
But then the music took over, melting away my self-consciousness.
I closed my eyes for a second, letting the beat sink into my bones, then moved—hips swaying, arms lifting as I let go of whatever hesitation had held me back. When I opened my eyes, I found Winston watching me, his guarded stance slipping as he took my cue.
He rolled his shoulders, loosened up, and the next thing I knew, he was actually dancing, his unpracticed moves slightly awkward in an endearing kind of way.
And he was smiling.
Not just the polished, camera-ready grin I’d seen before, but something real—something easy and uninhibited.
I laughed, stepping in closer, our movements syncing up naturally. The neon glow reflected in his eyes, the music vibrating through the floor beneath us, and, yet again, I wasn’t thinking about anything but that moment.
The DJ expertly transitioned into a new Imagine Dragons remix, the beat shifting to something deeper, more engaging. I adjusted instinctively, rolling my hips to match the new rhythm, letting the music guide me.
That was when I noticed him.
A guy in a Nevada State University T-shirt and worn-out jeans, moving closer. At first, I thought he was just passing through the crowd, but then his glassy eyes locked on to me, his steps becoming deliberate.
He slid into my space, edging between me and Winston.
I shifted left, closing the distance between me and Winston, hoping the guy would take the hint. But he didn’t. He mirrored my movement, angling toward me again, his stare insistent, running up and down my body, clinging to my shape.
I kept my focus on Winston, deliberately ignoring the guy’s presence, but he wasn’t getting the message. His body language was clear—he wasn’t just here to dance.
Winston noticed.
His movements slowed for half a beat, his eyes flicking toward the guy, assessing, before coming back to me. He didn’t speak, didn’t react outright, but I could feel the shift in him, like a wire tightening between us.
I stopped moving and held my breath, unsure which one of them would make the next move first. Unexpectedly, the stranger grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him, and I freaked out and shrieked.
The action triggered bad memories for me, of when my father used to do the same to force me to get closer to him, to give in.
My scream didn’t cover the music, but Winston’s fist landed squarely in the guy’s jaw.
What happened afterward was a mess.
The college guy tried to hit Winston back, but he dodged the blow, already getting ready to hit the college guy again. I saw people aim their phones at us. By tomorrow, this entire sordid incident would be splashed all over the media.
I shouted, “No!” and tried to stop Winston from throwing a second punch.
At the same time, one of the men I’d noticed trailing us earlier clasped the college guy’s forearm in a tight, merciless grip, twisting it behind his back.
The other guy from earlier flanked him on the left side, and they both escorted him out. Winston nodded briefly at them.
The two men hadn’t been there to stalk me. They were Winston’s security detail.
For a moment, I felt exposed, my anonymity slipping under their watchful eyes.
What must they think of me, standing here by his side?
The thought prickled, sharp and unwelcome.
But instead of running, I straightened my spine.
Let them look. Let them wonder. If they’d already judged me, so be it—I’d lived through worse.
A girl in a fishnet dress was shamelessly filming us, her camera in our faces—in Winston’s, mostly.
Annoyance flared in me. People had no boundaries anymore. No shame.
I turned my back to her and tugged at Winston’s hand. “Let’s go!” I shouted in his ear over the pounding bass.
He nodded, already moving with me toward the edge of the dance floor. But just as we started weaving through the crowd, the music shifted, the heavy beat fading into something slower, smoother. Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.”
I froze.
The opening chords wrapped around me like a slow embrace, stopping me in my tracks before I could think better of it. The urge was instant, overwhelming. Just this once.
Winston turned, brows lifting in question. My grip on his hand tightened for a second, hesitating.
Then I looked up at him, a soft smile playing on my lips—an unspoken invitation in my eyes.
Understanding flickered across his face, and before I could second-guess myself, he pulled me toward him.
I let him.
Phones, gawkers, security—none of it mattered. Not right now. His arms wrapped around my body, holding me close. He moved easily to the slower rhythm. The shift suited him, with the controlled grace of a man who didn’t need to prove anything.
Being in his arms felt like sinking into warmth, his body solid and steady against mine.
His hand pressed gently against my back, fingers warm through the fabric of my dress, guiding me in a way that felt both natural and deliberate.
The faint scent of him, of his skin, a hint of lavender, wrapped around me, mixing with the subtle spice of his cologne.
Our bodies swayed together, finding an effortless rhythm, the space between us shrinking with every slow turn.
His breath fanned against my temple, and the heat of his touch lingered, sending little sparks along my skin.
The moment stretched, stretched again, dissolving everything beyond the music and the quiet tension threading between us.
I rested my head on his chest, sensing his strong, steady heartbeat beneath the soft fabric of his shirt, the scent of him stronger, filling my nostrils.
The connection between us sizzled and deepened while the lyrics of the song seemed to tell our story, the story that could’ve been, a lifetime spent loving each other after falling in love right there, right then.
Still dancing, I raised my head and looked deeply into his eyes. His forehead rested against mine for a moment, and then he kissed my lips softly.
“Stay with me tonight,” he said, and I nearly said yes. As the song ended, we kissed again, hungrily. When the thumping beats of another mash-up started pounding, I pulled away from him. He led me to the table, but I shook my head. He mouthed, Thank you, and laughed all the way to the exit.
We rushed through the hotel lobby, heading outside. I didn’t regret cutting my dance club experience short; that final dance with him had made it all worthwhile, and nothing could ever top that. Once we stepped out in the cool evening breeze, he wrapped me in his arms again for a smoldering kiss.
“Come with me tonight,” he said, looking at me as if he were about to lose me forever. “I have a suite at the Cosmopolitan.”
I pulled away and pressed my lips together to stifle a sigh. “I can’t, Winston.” The sadness in my voice wasn’t an act. “What am I to you?” I asked, looking at him through a blur of tears. “You’re married! Someone’s waiting for you to come home, and you’re here with me. We talked about this.”
He looked away for a moment, but then met my eyes with that persuasive obstinance I was learning to recognize. “We’re separated, my wife and I, almost—”
“Almost?” I asked, cutting him off bitterly. “I won’t be a home-wrecker, Winston. Just your friend. Perhaps.” I stroked his face with slightly trembling fingers, saying goodbye without words. “Thank you for a wonderful time tonight.”
I pulled away from him, walking away while I could still find the strength to.
“And tomorrow?” he called. “What should I plan for us?”
Looking over my shoulder, I smiled. He stood there, arms open, inviting me back. He was addictive, relentless . . . impossible to resist. So right for me, and oh-so impossibly wrong.
“Surprise me.”