4. Moreno
MORENO
The man puts his hand around Valentina’s wrist, and I am out of my chair before Max finishes saying my name.
She stands at the ballroom edge with an empty tray tucked under one arm.
The silver-leaf mask has been watching her most of the night.
Now he grips her wrist hard enough to pull her half a step toward him.
“I told you to come back to my table,” he says.
Valentina looks down at his hand. Her stance tells me what I need before I reach them: weight balanced, tray angled away, free hand loose where she can use it. She is calculating the cost of whatever she does next.
I take his wrist before she finishes deciding.
He turns toward me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Let go.”
“I’m speaking to the server.”
“You don’t need your hand to do that.”
His grip tightens reflexively. I rotate his wrist just enough to make the fingers fail. Valentina pulls free without stumbling and moves one pace sideways, taking her own space rather than hiding behind mine.
The man’s face reddens beneath the mask. “Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
That bothers him more than pain would.
“Moreno,” Valentina says.
I look at her. The request is in the way she says my name, not in the volume. She has the tray between her body and the guest now, shoulders level, eyes alert.
“I’ve got it.”
I release him.
He takes a step toward me anyway, anger outrunning judgment. I do not move. My eyes drop once to his hands and return to his face.
“Touch her again,” I say, “and this conversation changes.”
Valentina’s gaze cuts to me, warning against turning her job into a scene. I leave the threat there instead of improving it.
The guest looks from me to her, realizes several tables are watching, and adjusts his jacket as if dignity can be restored by fabric. “Your supervisor will hear about this.”
“She should,” Valentina says. “Please include the part where you grabbed me.”
His mouth opens. Nothing useful comes out. He leaves for the bar.
Valentina watches until he is gone, then exhales once and turns on me. “I had that handled.”
“I know.”
“You still stepped in.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted his hand off you.”
The answer stops her for half a second. “Not because I couldn’t get it off?”
“No.”
Her eyes move over my face as if she expected a different lie. “That is a much better answer.”
“It is also true.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“Truth?”
“Answering questions correctly.”
Colette is already crossing the ballroom toward us.
Valentina intercepts her before the older woman has to ask, explains in a low voice what happened, and points out the guest without embellishment.
Colette’s polished expression cools. She tells Valentina to take ten minutes in the service corridor and says she will handle him herself.
I wait until Valentina walks away before following.
She hears me halfway down the corridor. “I did not invite an escort.”
“I know.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Yes.”
She stops near an alcove where the music from the ballroom becomes a muted pulse. “Do you have other words?”
“Sometimes.”
“Reassuring.”
She sets the tray on a narrow shelf and flexes the wrist the man grabbed. Red marks already show around the skin.
I look at them longer than I should.
“He did not injure me,” she says.
“I can see that.”
“You are making the face of somebody planning an argument with his hands.”
“I already had the argument.”
That almost gets a laugh. She steps closer instead.
“What happens when you’re wrong?”
“About what?”
“Who needs your help.”
The question matters more than flirting. I answer it the same way.
“Then I move.”
“Out of the way?”
“If that is what the person needs.”
Her gaze drops briefly to my mouth before returning. “You’re very serious.”
“Max uses enough words for both of us.”
“He does seem committed.”
She reaches up and straightens the edge of my mask with two fingers. The touch is unnecessary. So is the way she leaves her hand against my cheek afterward.
I wait.
Valentina’s eyes narrow. “What?”
“You decide.”
“Decide what?”
“If you want me closer.”
The corner of her mouth lifts. “You were faster when somebody else touched me.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“He did not ask.”
She catches the front of my jacket and pulls me down.
The first kiss is not careful. Her mouth opens under mine before I can make a second decision, one hand stays fisted in my lapel while the other catches the back of my neck. I put a palm against the wall beside her instead of on her body, giving her room to turn away if she changes her mind.
She does the opposite.
Her fingers tighten at my neck and change the angle.
I taste champagne and the lipstick she is going to blame on me later.
When I touch her hip, it is because she presses closer first. The uniform fabric is smooth under my thumb.
Her body is warm, solid, balanced even while she kisses me hard enough to make the ballroom disappear.
She bites my lower lip.
I ease back a fraction.
“Problem?” she asks.
“I slowed down.”
“I noticed.”
“You can tell me to stop.”
“I can also tell you to keep going.”
“Then say what you want.”
Her smile is sharper now. “Kiss me again.”
I do.
Our masks knock together on the second attempt. Valentina laughs against my mouth and pulls away just enough to look at me.
“Very seductive.”
“Take yours off.”
“Staff rule.”
“Then stop laughing.”
“Make me.”
I kiss her until the laughter turns into breath, my hand still at her hip and the other planted beside her head. I do not pin her there. I do not need to. She keeps me exactly where she wants me with her fist in my jacket.
When I finally lift my head, her lipstick is ruined beneath the mask.
“That what you offer?” I ask.
“Part of it.”
“Still arrogant.”
“Still here.”
She bites my lip again just as footsteps reach the corridor.
Max stops in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and his mask pushed higher on his forehead. Calder stands beside him, expression controlled in the specific way he gets when a room is about to become complicated.
Max looks at Valentina’s mouth, then mine. “Terrible manners, Moreno. Starting without us.”
Valentina laughs and releases my jacket. “You took too long.”
“I was respecting your shift.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“You’ve known me one evening and already you’re cruel.”
Calder’s gaze moves from her to me and back. “Colette is looking for you.”
He gives her practical information, but his attention stays on her after the sentence ends. Valentina notices.
She straightens her jacket and touches one finger to her lower lip. “I suppose I should earn the money before I get fired for corrupting guests.”
“You think you corrupted him?” Max asks.
“Don’t make me prove I can multitask.”
She lifts the tray and starts toward the ballroom, walking backward for several steps so she can include all three of us in the look she gives over it.
“You should try being more interesting tomorrow.”
Max puts a hand over his heart. “I have never been more insulted.”
“Work harder.”
Her eyes settle on Calder for one quiet second, then return to me before she turns away.
Max waits until she is out of hearing. “I like her.”
“You like everyone who laughs at you,” Calder says.
“Not true. Some people laugh incorrectly.”
Calder looks at me. “You all right?”
The kiss is not what he is asking about. We have never needed formal rules to know when one of us is moving into something the other two need to understand.
Through the ballroom doors, Valentina has already found Colette. Before she moves to another table, she checks the hallway and catches all three of us still standing there.
“She wants all of us,” I say.
Max answers immediately. “That works for me.”
Calder says nothing, but he does not deny it.