38. Dominic #2
“I’m sure she does.” Jenna’s fingers shift on my shoulder, a tiny flex that feels intimate as hell in a room full of people pretending not to watch us.
“Question one: did the evening meet expectations? Answer: yes, although my husband used the philanthropic dance floor to conduct unauthorized textile exploration.”
“Your husband sounds handsome and misunderstood.”
“You’re handsome and overfunded.”
“That’s basically the same thing in Chicago.”
She laughs again, softer this time, and I feel something unclench in my ribs.
A minute ago she was all fight and arson; now she’s just here, in my arms, letting me lead.
If time with her was up for auction tonight, I would spend a year’s salary to keep her right here on this floor, surrounded by the blue-glass glow and the faint sound of people envying us.
We waltz through two songs, and then she slides the hand from my shoulder up into my hair, fingernails dragging gently along my scalp like she’s trying to make sure I’m paying attention.
“I can’t believe I almost didn’t let myself have this.”
“Tonight?”
She shakes her head. “Us.”
“It would have been a catastrophic error in judgment,” I say, and she hums.
“Would you have let me walk?”
“Never.” I spin us a little, slow, carving out a radius that belongs only to us, and the motion makes her smile, even if she tries to hide it in my lapel. “You could have locked yourself in a vault, and I’d have personally bought the bank.”
She tilts her head back, her eyes so clear they punch right through me. “That is not a healthy attachment style, Cruz.”
“I’ll never pass a psych eval. You’re the only reason I have a soul.” I grin, but she doesn’t smile back, and for a half-beat my heart stutters, disorientation setting in until I realize it’s because she’s looking at me like I’m the only man she’s ever seen.
“You are a lot to take in, Mr. Cruz.”
“Yeah. But every part of me is yours, sweetheart.”
Her fingers curl against the nape of my neck. “I love you, Dominic.”
For a few beats, Thursday disappears. So does the speech, the box against my heart and every careful thing I’ve arranged to persuade her to stay.
She loves me.
Every time she says it, the truth lands a little deeper.
I press my mouth to her temple. “I love you too.”
I hold her like that for a moment, just swaying to the music and thinking about how lucky I am. Then she pulls back an inch to look at me.
“Are you about to try and make this weird?”
“I’m trying very hard not to express my enthusiasm by breakdancing in the center of this dance floor.”
“Do you even know how to breakdance?”
“No.”
“You’re insane.”
“Insanely in love with you? Yes.”
She laughs and then kisses me, and it’s a little harder than necessary and doesn’t give a fuck for decorum. I hear Bennett Mercer’s laugh somewhere behind me.
“Get a room, Cruz,” he calls, voice carrying over the music.
I wish.
Dinner is called at nine. The migration to tables begins—two hundred guests’ worth of silk finding their place cards.
Willa’s personal guests sit at Willa’s table, front and center beneath the stage—the rest of us banished to the regular tables—so I walk her to her seat with her hand tucked into the crook of my elbow.
“Is Hailey with me or you?” she asks, looking around for her sister. She spots her standing at the edge of the room laughing with Miranda and her husband, not even hunting for their seats yet. But at least they seem to be having a good time.
“She won’t be with you. But I’ll make sure she’s either at my table or Bennett’s. She won’t be sitting with strangers.”
“Thank you,” she says, flashing me a smile. “You’re a good husband.”
A skitter of adrenaline spikes through me. “I aim to be a phenomenal husband.” I kiss her hand and deposit her at her table. “Try to remember us little people when you’re running this town.”
“Dominic.” She catches my hand, and her eyes come up, and for a second the whole night is just in them, bright and terrified and happy—happy, my wife, in public, unarmored. “Thank you. For . . . before. And for tonight. It’s meant a lot.”
“Tonight,” I tell her, “is only half over.” And I kiss her knuckles and walk to my table like a man who isn’t planning the greatest grand gesture of all. Besides the slight hiccup when Jenna doubted her worth, tonight is going off without a hitch.
I plant myself at my designated table—Mercer, Layla, Logan and Audrey, Serena and Caleb, even David and Nora are already spaced out around it.
“Something tells me you’ve all been swapping name cards,” I say, glancing at the table beside us where Roz and her husband sit with Mercer’s COO Vicky.
Caleb just smiles. “Mercer Capital and Cruz Financial are so mixed up in business it makes sense to blend us all together.”
“Of course,” I say. “And where have we put Hailey Pemberton and Jenna’s best friend, Miranda?”
Nora laughs at that. “They’re sitting at the Canfield table. Xavier Field and Miranda’s husband, Rob, hit it off earlier.”
I glance over and see Hailey and Miranda talking to each other like old friends while Rob and Xavier do the same. There’s no sign of Thomas Canning, which is a shame because Hailey still hasn’t met him.
“Is Thomas not here?” I ask no one in particular.
Bennett glances over his shoulder at the empty chair.
“I don’t think he’s arrived yet. Thomas has been making himself scarce since the divorce.
” He turns his attention back to me. “But I’m more interested in your next move, my friend.
Word is we’re all bearing witness to the greatest date night that ever there was.
How is operation make-Jenna-decide-she-can’t-live-without-your-particular-brand-of-annoying-charm going? ”
“You’ll know if we’re both still wearing our rings next Friday,” I reply, taking the bottle of wine from the center of the table and pouring myself a glass.
Layla casts a glance across the sea of sequins to where Jenna is engaging an honest-to-God federal judge and Willa James at the same time, her smile at full command. “She looks like she’s having a wonderful time,” Layla says. “How do you get her to smile like that?”
“That’s not me. That’s just her remembering what she’s made of,” I say, then shrug, because I’ll never take credit for the raw material. Jenna is the steel beam. I just keep the roof up while she does her thing.
“Well, I’d say your plan is working just fine,” Audrey puts in. “Both Logan and Bennett have noted that Jenna has been so much happier at work since you decided to trial your marriage in the open. If I were allowed to have a vote in the outcome, I’d vote yes—you two belong together.”
I tip my glass toward her. “Noted, doc.”
“I second the yes,” Layla says instantly, hand straight up. “I’ve had my vote ready since the group chat. It’s been notarized.”
“Yes,” Serena says, “with the caveat that I knew first, so mine counts double.”
“The chair recognizes the yes from crisis PR.” Caleb taps his knife on his glass like it’s a gavel. “My own vote is also yes, and I want it disclosed that I hold a significant financial position on this marriage, so it’s less a vote and more a portfolio defense.”