CHAPTER 85
The Husband’s Chair
Daniel did not know how long they stayed that way, Elise leaning into him while Marcus sat quietly across the table. Time in the library had begun to behave strangely. A minute could hold an entire argument. A breath could become a decision. A hand on fabric could become the center of a marriage.
When Elise finally lifted her head, her eyes searched Daniel's face with such tenderness that he had to look down before it undid him.
'Too much?' she asked.
He almost said no because he wanted to be brave for her. Then he heard the lie before it left his mouth.
'Almost,' he said.
Elise nodded immediately. Not disappointed. Not impatient. Just receiving the truth.
Marcus leaned back slightly, giving them more space without making a show of retreating. 'Almost is useful information.'
Daniel gave a quiet laugh. 'You have a very calm way of saying terrifying things.'
'Panic is rarely clarifying.'
'Have you considered putting that on a business card?'
This time Marcus laughed, brief and low, and Elise's smile widened at the sound. Daniel felt the pang again, but softer now, almost familiar. Not harmless. Never harmless. But no longer an ambush.
The husband’s chair, he thought suddenly.
That was where he was sitting. Not the witness chair.
Not the loser’s chair. Not the place fantasy had once tried to humiliate him into wanting.
The husband’s chair. Close enough to touch Elise first. Close enough to say stop.
Close enough to be chosen again and again.
He straightened in it.
Elise noticed. Of course she did. 'What changed?'
Daniel glanced at Marcus, then back at her. 'I remembered where I am sitting.'
Her eyes warmed. 'Where?'
'Beside you.'
The answer seemed to move through her more deeply than he expected. She took his hand and kissed his knuckles, quick and reverent. Marcus looked away again, and Daniel liked him for it against all reason.
'I want to ask something,' Daniel said.
Elise waited.
Marcus waited.
'Not for tonight,' Daniel added quickly. 'Maybe not at all. I just want to know if the thought is allowed in the room.'
Elise's fingers tightened. 'Say it.'
Daniel stared at the table. 'I wondered what it would feel like to stand instead of sit. To be behind you. To have his hand at your shoulder while my hands are on yours.'
The confession left him exposed in a way that the earlier watching had not. It was one thing to permit another man's touch. It was another to admit he wanted to arrange himself inside the image, not outside it.
Elise's face changed slowly, heat rising beneath the softness. 'Daniel.'
Marcus remained still. 'That is a different configuration.'
'I know.'
'It may feel more intense because it makes your presence physical, not only verbal.'
Daniel looked at him. 'That is what scares me.'
'And what interests you,' Marcus said.
Daniel exhaled. 'Yes.'
Elise did not look away from her husband. 'I would try that. Only hands. Only shoulder. You behind me.'
The room seemed to tilt toward the next possibility.
Daniel held up a hand, surprising himself. 'Not yet. I need a minute.'
'Take it,' Elise said at once.
Marcus nodded. 'The pace is yours as much as hers.'
That sentence did something important. It placed Daniel’s desire and Daniel’s fear on equal ground with Elise’s wanting. Not above it. Not beneath it. Beside it.
He breathed until the room returned to its proper shape.
Then he stood.
Elise looked up at him, startled and luminous.
'One minute became enough?' she asked.
'No,' he said. 'One minute told me I was not trying to prove anything.'
He stepped behind her chair and placed both hands gently over hers on the armrests.
Marcus did not move until Daniel looked at him and said, 'Ask her.'