Chapter 21
EVIE
The last guest leaves the Belleroque carrying my card, and my husband locks the reception doors behind her with a container of cold chicken tucked beneath one arm.
“You were supposed to eat that,” Keegan says.
“I had an olive.”
“Sienna betrayed you.” He returns to the central display, black suit fitted across shoulders still carrying the game. A faint bruise shadows his jaw. His tie hangs loose because I used it to pull him into a kiss in front of three photographers. “Sit.”
“That sounded dangerously like an order.”
“It was a desperate appeal to a woman who believes garnish is a food group.” Keegan pulls a chair from the nearest table and turns it toward me. “Please sit before I feed you in front of the hotel staff.”
Sienna closes her laptop at the registration table. “I would stay for that.”
“You’ve stayed for enough,” I tell her. “Go home.”
“Your gratitude is overwhelming.” She slides the laptop into its case and looks at Keegan. “No carrying anything she did not hand you.”
“I know the rules.”
“He has a binder,” I say.
Keegan opens the food container and tests the temperature with one finger against the side. “Color-coded.”
Sienna pulls on her coat. “The red section is presumably crimes against marriage.”
“Red is plumbing,” he says. “I’m only permitted one written recommendation.”
My sister stares between us. “You two deserve each other.”
“That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Keegan offers her his fist. She considers leaving it unanswered, then knocks her knuckles against his.
The gesture is small. It catches behind my ribs anyway. Sienna does not forgive cheaply, and Keegan no longer expects affection to erase the reason it became expensive.
“Lock up,” she tells me. “And eat.”
When the door closes behind her, the hotel’s private reception room settles around the completed displays.
Blue stone at the center. Three platinum settings along the east wall.
The bracelet beneath glass with its hidden clasp lying perfectly flat.
Months of work, revisions, and one client who changed dimensions after approving them now glow beneath carefully corrected light.
Keegan sets the food on the table beside me. “Did the bracelet give you trouble during the demonstration?”
“The safety caught once.” I take the fork because the look on his face suggests he will make good on the feeding threat. “No one noticed.”
“You noticed.” Keegan leans closer to the secured case as if the invisible failure might still announce itself to him.
“I know where the release should sit.”
“Can you change it without rebuilding the clasp?” His fingertip follows the line of the glass above the hidden mechanism without touching the display.
I look up. “Yes.”
His mouth curves. “Competent question?”
“Almost.” I take another bite and make him wait for the verdict.
“Put it on my grave.”
“We used that joke already.” I point the fork at him, refusing to reward recycled material even when the shared history warms me.
“Marriage is repetition with better lighting.”
I laugh around a bite of chicken. Keegan braces both hands on the table and watches me eat with the satisfaction of a man who believes dinner is now a measurable marital achievement.
“Stop staring.”
“My wife is eating the food I brought her after launching the best installation in the building.” His pale eyes travel over my face, unhurried and hot. “I have earned staring.”
“The hotel may have other installations.” I close the food container before his attention convinces me to eat past full.
“They’re irrelevant.” Keegan folds the lid down firmly, apparently deciding I need three more bites.
“You learned so much and remained arrogant.”
“Recovery is not a personality transplant.” His smile holds every arrogant, hungry thing I nearly lost. Thank God for that.
I finish half the meal while he follows my packing instructions. He carries the empty presentation trays to their cases, leaves the tools for me, and does not touch the center display until I place the key in his palm.
“This one?” he asks, indicating the blue-stone case.
“Careful. The rear bracket is temporary until tomorrow.”
Keegan slides both hands beneath the base. The same arms that drove a man into the boards hours ago lift my work without a tremor. Power is not the problem. It never was. The direction of it decides whether I have room to breathe.
He catches me watching. “What?”
"You're useful when supervised."
"I'm useful in the dark, too." His gaze drops to my mouth.
"Presumptuous."
"Proven."
Heat warms my skin beneath the black dress. I point toward the transport case before he can turn a locked reception room into evidence. “Work first.”
“You’re cruel after success.”
"I'm focused."
Keegan’s smile arrives bright enough to rival the display lights. “That too.”
We leave the secured pieces for the hotel staff and carry only my tools and personal case. At the service elevator, Keegan reaches for both. I hand him the heavier case and retain the tool roll.
Months ago, he would have taken everything because strength made the decision obvious. Tonight he accepts the division without turning it into a lesson.
At home, the kitchen island is buried beneath ordinary life.
My sketchbook lies open beside the fruit bowl.
Keegan’s water waits near a stack of team mail.
The lawyer’s confirmation that the dissolution petition was dismissed is folded inside the shallow drawer, not displayed like a trophy.
My ring flashes over a pencil smudge when I move tomorrow’s notes away from his plate.
Keegan sets my case on the floor exactly where I point. Then his phone vibrates beside the water.
He checks the screen. “Jake.”
“Captain Jake,” I correct.
“Do not encourage him.” He reads the message and snorts. “He wants to know whether I stole the ginger ale from the captain’s refrigerator.”
“Did you?”
“There is no captain’s refrigerator. He put a label on one shelf.” Keegan types a response, silences the phone, and sets it facedown. “I told him possession requires defense.”
“You’re going to get traded.”
“He threatened that too.” Keegan’s mouth curves against my shoulder.
“I like him as captain.”
Keegan comes around the island, slow enough that I could move and certain enough that he knows I will not. “Careful.”
“Is the former captain jealous?”
“The former captain is deciding whether that title sounds good in your mouth.” He stops inside my space, heat and clean postgame soap surrounding me. “Say it again.”
“Jake is Captain.”
His eyes narrow. “Wrong title.”
“Former Captain.” I hook one finger beneath his loosened tie. The power struggle changes instantly because I am the one who draws him closer. “Decorative stitching.”
“That joke was disrespectful when I made it.” His hands settle on the island behind me, not caging so much as promising. “From you, it’s foreplay.”
“Your ego remains a chronic condition.”
“Your legs are about to become my chronic condition.” I pull his tie.
Keegan closes the distance with a growl, mouth taking mine while his hands move from the island to my hips.
I feel the exact instant he reads my answer in the way I lean into him.
The last fraction of control vanishes. He lifts me onto the island between my sketchbook and his water, laughter breaking through the kiss when I wrap my legs around him.
“This surface has history,” I say against his mouth.
“I’m improving it.”
“Arrogant.”
“Radiant.” His calloused hand slides along my thigh beneath the dress, warm and possessive where I have invited it. “I listened.”
“Once.” I tighten my legs around his hips, making the argument with more than words.
“Ask me about the bracelet.” Keegan’s mouth moves along my jaw while one hand steadies me against the island edge.
I bite his lower lip. “Take me upstairs.”
“Even better question.” His grip shifts beneath my thighs, ready before I finish asking.
He carries me because I ask, and because being known by him no longer means being decided for.
Later, the house is dark and quiet without feeling empty.
Keegan sleeps beside me, one heavy arm loose across the mattress rather than locked around my body.
His alarm is set for the morning support meeting.
Mine is set for the hotel adjustment. Two lives.
One bed. Neither abandoned for the other.
I wake once before dawn and reach across the dark.
He is already reaching back.