23. Quin
— ? —
Quin
I’d seen Clara in a thousand different outfits. Casual jeans and flannel for work on the ranch. Elegant gowns for galas and fundraisers. The soft pajamas she wore when we were alone, the ones with the faded flowers that she’d had since before we got married.
I’d never seen her look like this.
The door opened, and every word I’d ever known fell out of my head.
The dress was red. Not a subtle red or a muted red. A red that demanded attention, that refused to be ignored. It fit her body like it had been made specifically for her curves, leaving her shoulders bare, the fabric skimming down her waist and over her hips in a way that made my mouth go dry.
She was wearing the diamond earrings I’d given her on our first anniversary, the ones I wasn’t sure she’d kept.
They caught the light from her tiny entryway every time she turned her head.
Her hair was swept up to show the line of her neck, that long, familiar line I used to kiss without thinking, the one I hadn’t put my mouth on in far too long.
Her eyes were dark with makeup that made them look enormous.
She was wearing lipstick the same color as the dress.
She looked like fire. She looked like every fantasy I’d ever had come to life, and I had to lock my hands at my sides so I wouldn’t reach for her like a man who had forgotten we were supposed to walk out of this apartment as something civilized.
I wanted to put my mouth on her throat. I wanted to find out if that lipstick would smear. I wanted to slide one finger under the edge of that dress, just to see if she was wearing anything underneath it, and I wanted to do it slowly enough that she’d feel every inch of the question.
I did none of those things.
I looked at my wife, and I remembered how to breathe.
“You look…” I had to stop. My voice wasn’t working properly. I cleared my throat and tried again, and even then it came out rougher than I meant it to. “Clara, you look…”
There wasn’t a word big enough. Beautiful was too small. Stunning was something you said to a stranger. She looked like the reason I had ever wanted anything.
“I know.” She smiled, and it wasn’t the soft, uncertain smile I was used to.
It was the smile of a woman who knew exactly how powerful she was and didn’t care who saw it.
She stepped closer, close enough that I caught her perfume, something warm, something I used to find on my pillows, and her eyes dropped, briefly, to my mouth. “Let’s go make an entrance.”
I offered her my arm because if I put my hands anywhere else, we were not making it to the car.
She took it. Her fingers settled in the crook of my elbow, and the simple contact went through me like a live wire.
Bare shoulders. Warm skin. That dress whispering against my sleeve every time she moved.
I walked her to the car like a gentleman and thought, the entire way down three flights of stairs, about how easily I could have turned her around and taken that lipstick off with my mouth.
The drive to the gala was quiet but not uncomfortable. Clara was calm beside me, almost eerily so. There was no nervous fidgeting, no last-minute doubts. She knew exactly what she was walking into and she was walking in anyway.
I kept both hands on the wheel.
It took more discipline than any board meeting I had ever sat through.
Because she was right there. Crossed legs.
Red silk riding just high enough on her thigh that I could see the start of skin and had to drag my eyes back to the road.
The diamond at her ear flashing every time we passed a streetlight.
I could feel her without touching her. The awareness of her, sitting less than a foot away in a dress that looked like it had been poured on, knowing I had no right tonight to do anything but stand beside her and let her burn the room down.
“You’re sure about this?” I asked as we pulled up to the venue, and I was asking about Eva, about the room, about walking in together after everything.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
She said it looking at the entrance, not at me. Chin lifted. I sat there for one extra second after the valet opened her door, just watching the way she unfolded from the car.
Mine, I thought, and the word landed in my chest with a heat that had nothing to do with pride and everything to do with the line of her back.
The gala was at the civic center downtown, people in their finest pretending they were more important than they were. The kind of event I used to love, back when I thought wealth and influence were the measures of a man.
Now I just wanted to survive long enough to watch my wife do whatever she’d come here to do. And I wanted, with a hunger I was not going to show anyone in this building, to be the man who took her home afterward.
We paused at the entrance. I offered my arm again. She took it, and this time her fingers curled a little tighter, like she knew exactly what she was doing to me and had decided to be kind about it.
Or unkind. I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care.
And we walked in.
The whispers started immediately.
“Is that…”
“I thought they were separated…”
“Did you see her dress…”
“They’re here together…”
Clara didn’t react. Didn’t acknowledge the stares, the murmurs, the phones coming out to snap photos. She just walked, her hand on my arm, her chin high, her smile serene.
She was magnificent.
I kept my expression polite and my thoughts anything but.
Every time someone looked at her too long, something old and territorial in me sat up and paid attention.
I wanted them to look. I wanted them to see what they couldn’t have.
I wanted, later, when this was over and the jewelry was on the dresser and that zipper was in my hands, to remind her that I had spent the entire night being good.
I spotted Eva across the room within thirty seconds. Hard to miss. She was stationed near the stage in a white dress, surrounded by donors and admirers and her father’s various cronies. She was laughing at something someone had said, that perfect, practiced laugh I used to find charming.
Then she saw us.
The laugh died. Her smile froze.
I felt Clara’s hand tighten on my arm, just slightly. Then it relaxed again. The contrast almost undid me. That small, private squeeze, meant only for me, while her face stayed perfectly calm for the rest of the room.
“Let her come to us,” Clara murmured.
Her voice was low. I caught the warmth of it against my jaw and had to look straight ahead so I wouldn’t turn into her mouth in the middle of a packed ballroom.
“Are you sure you want…”
“I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”
So we didn’t go to Eva. We worked the room.
Clara moved through the crowd like she’d never left, greeting donors by name, asking about their families, mentioning projects and programs with an ease that made it clear she hadn’t forgotten a single thing.
She charmed. She deflected. She reclaimed every inch of space Eva had tried to take from her.
I stayed at her side, my hand on the small of her back.
That was the only place I allowed myself to touch her, and even that felt like too much and not enough.
The dress was thin there. I could feel the heat of her through it, the slight dip of her spine, the way she leaned into my palm when she laughed at something Mrs. Callahan said.
A gentleman’s hand. Perfectly appropriate.
My thumb wanted to move. Just a fraction. Just enough to feel the edge of the fabric, the beginning of bare skin.
I didn’t speak for her. I let her shine.
This was her night. Her victory. I was just lucky enough to witness it, standing close enough to smell her perfume and far enough, in every way that counted, that no one in this room would know I was already undressing her in my head.
“Your eyes are always on me,” she said, so softly only I could hear it, without looking at me.
“I know. I can’t take my eyes off you.”
“Hmmm. Good.”
That single word went through me hotter than the dress.
We were talking to the Barrets, major donors, old money, the kind of people who never forgot a slight, when I sensed Eva approaching. There was a disturbance in the crowd, people stepping aside, attention shifting.
Clara turned.
The movement sent the red silk whispering against my hand. I left it there, steady at the small of her back, a silent I’m with you, and felt her breathe in once.
Eva cut through the crowd toward us, champagne in hand, smile fixed in place. Up close, I could see the cracks in it. The strain around her eyes. The way her jaw was set a little too tight.
Clara watched her come with calmness.
And God help me, standing there with my wife’s heat under my palm and that red dress burning in the corner of my eye, I had never wanted her more.
I kept my face composed.
I kept my hand where it belonged.