Chapter Ten
Winona
She wore the green dress.
This was a specific decision. She owned the green dress—a deep hunter silk, structured at the shoulder, bought for a work gala two years ago and worn twice—because it was the dress in which she felt like the most deliberate version of herself.
Not beautiful in a soft way. Formidable in a specific way.
The kind of dress that entered a room and took up the correct amount of space.
Townes, in the bedroom doorway, saw her in it and went still.
"You look—" he started.
"Thanks," she murmured. Not unkindly. She looked at him in his dark suit, his jaw clean-shaved for once, his eyes on her with an attention she had missed so much it hurt to feel it return. "You look good too."
Something flashed across his face—gratitude, she thought, of the deep and specifically marital kind. She let herself receive it and then she squared her shoulders and picked up her bag.
"Ready?" she questioned.
"Ready."
The Merrill Gallery event was held in the main gallery space, which had been cleared of its larger installations and filled with the usual careful art-world arrangement, light, wine, beautiful people performing appreciation.
Winona scanned the room with the comprehensive efficiency of someone who had attended hundreds of these events, identified the three journalists she recognized, two of her own clients, and several faces she'd seen in the social columns.
Madrigal was across the room in ivory, working it with the ease of a woman on her home court. She had not seen them arrive.
Danaka was already there, near the bar, in a position they had coordinated. Gareth Webble was outside. Three other specific people were in the room whose presence Winona had arranged.
Townes's hand was at the small of her back—light, not possessive. Just present. She allowed herself to lean into it, fractionally.
"She's at two o'clock," he whispered, quietly.
"I see her."
They moved through the room. Winona did this with purpose—she stopped, she spoke, she was visible in a way that was not aggressive but was absolutely intentional.
She let herself be seen to be fine, composed, here.
Twice she caught Madrigal's eye across the room and held it, not hostilely, just steadily, until Madrigal was the one who looked away.
The third time, Madrigal came to them.
To her, she thought, because she came to them and managed to interpose herself between Townes and a conversation he was having with a client, touching his arm and saying his name and giving Winona the kind of polite, dismissive smile that was designed to make a wife feel like a guest.
"Townes," Madrigal said. "I hoped you'd come."
"Madrigal." His voice was even. He stepped back—just slightly, but clearly, removing his arm from her radius. "You know my wife."
Madrigal turned the smile to Winona. "Of course. Winona. Lovely to see you."
Winona looked at her. Not the polite social look—the real look, the full attention that she usually reserved for problems she was about to solve. She watched Madrigal's composure register the quality of the attention and recalibrate.
"I wanted to speak with you," Winona said. "Privately, for just a few minutes. Is there somewhere?"
A brief stillness. Then Madrigal gestured toward the small office corridor at the back of the gallery. "Of course."