Chapter 30 WREN
WREN
I’m taking the day.
No shop, no centerpieces, no phone for anyone but Jace. Sasha and I are going into Manhattan and we are going to find a dress and we are going to drink wine at lunch and I am going to pretend, for one day, that my life is normal.
Sully has the SUV at the curb at nine.
Sasha is on the sidewalk in a little white sundress and sandals and sunglasses, holding two iced coffees. She climbs in beside me, hands me one, slams the door.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You’re glowing.”
“It’s eye cream.”
“Mhm. What kind of cream , Wren?”
“Sasha—”
“I’m just asking.”
She leans forward to the front seat.
“Hi, Sully.”
“Morning, Sasha.”
“How are you?”
“Good, ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She falls back into the seat laughing. Sully pulls off the curb and we head for the bridge.
I look out the back window.
Davis is two cars behind us in a black sedan.
Sasha turns and looks with me.
“Which one is that?”
“Davis.”
“Davis.”
“He’s covering me today.”
“Lucky you.”
“Sasha.”
She’s quiet for a second.
“He is hot, Wren.”
I laugh.
“He is cute, that’s for sure.”
“Cute is for puppies.”
I sneak another look in the rearview. Davis is built. Tall, broad through the shoulders, the kind of arms that fill a sleeve. Not Jace built. Nobody is Jace built. But built.
“Are they all like this?”
“Like what?”
“Jace’s guys. Are they all this jacked?”
“I don’t know, Sash.”
“I am very interested in finding out.”
She glances back at him through the rear window once more, then looks at me and giggles.
“Oh my god.”
“I’m just saying .”
I am laughing. I have not laughed like this in six weeks. Sully is grinning in the rearview mirror and pretending he isn’t.
* * *
Sasha pulls things off racks I would never pull.
She holds up something red and barely there.
I put it back. She holds up a slip dress with a slit up to the hip that would put me in jail.
I put it back. She holds up a green silk that I almost put back.
She doesn’t let me. Pushes me into the dressing room and stands outside the door.
“Wren, if you come out in another modest little black dress I’m calling Jace myself.”
“That last one was very practical.”
“ Wren .”
She isn’t entirely wrong. Sasha has been telling me for years that I have a body and I should let it out of the closet, and I have ignored her.
Four of those years I was ignoring her because Tyler didn’t like it when I cared.
He never said it outright. He didn’t have to.
The first time I wore a skirt in front of him he asked me, very gently, who I was wearing it for.
By the third year I had stopped owning skirts.
By the fourth year I had a closet full of jeans and oversized sweaters and a single black dress for emergencies, and I told myself that was just my style.
The last six weeks I have been pulling things out of my closet I forgot I owned.
Jace hasn’t asked me to. He hasn’t commented on any of it.
He just looks at me when I wear it—really looks.
The way his eyes stay on me a second too long.
The way he reaches for me without thinking.
The way he kissed me up against his desk at noon on Tuesday because I wore a sundress to bring him lunch.
And every time he sees me like that, I remember that I’m twenty-six years old and I have a body and there was never anything wrong with it.
The green silk is the next step on a stairway I didn’t realize I was climbing.
I pull it on.
It’s fitted through the bodice and falls to the floor. The neckline is deep. The back is bare.
I step out of the dressing room.
Sasha goes quiet.
“Oh.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, shit, Wren.”
I turn to the mirror.
The reflection looking back at me is not wearing a safe dress. She’s going to walk into the Botanical tonight on the arm of a man who’s going to take one look at her and forget his own name.
“That’s the one,” Sasha says.
“Yeah.”
“Wren. Jace is going to lose his goddamn mind.”
I don’t answer right away. I run my hands down the silk—over my hips, the curve of my waist, the line of my thigh. I can feel my own body under the fabric. I can see what he is going to see.
“I’m counting on it.”
I bring the dress to the counter. The woman at the register smiles at me.
“You’re all set, sweetheart. Mr. Carrington called.”
I freeze.
“I’m sorry?”
“About fifteen minutes ago. He said you’d be in. Anything she walks out with goes on my account. His exact words.”
Sasha grabs my arm.
“Wren.”
I can’t speak for a second. Davis must have called him the second we walked in. He didn’t tell me he was going to do it. He just did it.
The woman is hand-folding the dress into tissue paper like she does this every Saturday for women whose boyfriends call ahead.
Sasha’s hand is still on my arm.
“He’s something else, Wren.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
We turn toward the door. Davis is at the front of the shop, hands in his pockets, watching us, the smallest smile on his face—the kind a man has when he’s just watched something land exactly the way it was supposed to.
“I have never actually seen Davis outside a car before today.”
Sasha gets a proper look at him for the first time, and her hand goes to her chest.
“Oh my god.”
“I see him, Sash. Keep walking.”
“Wren.”
“Walk.”
She walks. As we pass him she glances up at him—quick, casual, polite—and then she leans into me on the sidewalk and lowers her voice.
“If he were the one paying for the dress I’d already be naked.”
I choke on a laugh.
Davis falls in behind us on the sidewalk.
* * *
We have lunch at a French place on Spring Street that does crepes the size of dinner plates. Davis takes a small table near the door and orders a coffee. Sasha orders a savory crepe and a glass of rosé and I get the same.
The check doesn’t come.
I catch the waiter’s eye after a minute. He shakes his head. “It’s been taken care of, ladies. Have a wonderful afternoon.”
Sasha sets her glass down very carefully and gives me a slow, dreamy smile.
“How lucky are you, you spoiled brat!”
I grin into my rosé.
“When is it my turn?”
“I’ll put a word in.”
“You do that.”
She picks her glass back up and takes a long sip, staring out the window like she’s been personally affected by my entire life. Then she leans across the table.
“Imagine what your boyfriend is going to look like in a tux tonight.”
I choke on my wine.
“That’s the reaction. That man in a tux is going to be a public health crisis.”
“I cannot do this with you.”
“Why are you blushing? You’ve already seen everything he’s got.”
I cannot stop smiling.
We walk out. Sully has the SUV at the curb. Sasha hooks her arm through mine on the sidewalk.
“You’re happy.”
“I am.”
“Good. Don’t lose that.”
* * *
He comes home at four.
I’m in the bedroom in a robe with my hair half-up and one earring in. The green silk is laid out on the bed.
He walks in and tosses his phone on the dresser, loosening his tie as he looks at me.
“Ashford.”
“Hi.”
“You look like trouble.”
“I’m not even dressed yet.”
“Even better.”
He crosses to me. Puts his hands on my hips through the robe. Kisses the side of my neck.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I have an hour and I still have to do my hair.”
“Then I’ll be quick.”
“Jace.”
He laughs against my neck and then lets me go and steps back.
“You’re killing me, Ashford.”
He pulls his tie the rest of the way off and sits down on the edge of the bed, watching me put my second earring in.
“I texted your brother today.”
I go still.
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say?”
“That you’re good. That the order is holding. That I have you.”
“You have me.”
“Yeah.”
I look at him in the mirror.
“What did you tell him about us?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“Nothing.”
I don’t say anything.
I reach for my lipstick and twist it open and put it on. My hand is steady. My hand is steady because I am twenty-six years old and I am not going to make a thing of this right now, twenty minutes before a car comes for us.
“Wren.”
“It’s fine.”
“He’s in a war zone.”
“I know.”
“I’m not telling him anything over a text.”
“I said it’s fine, Jace.”
He holds my eyes in the glass a moment, but he doesn’t push it—just kisses my temple and walks into the bathroom, and a minute later I hear the shower turn on.
I cap the lipstick and sit at the vanity for a second, looking at myself without really seeing myself.
He’s in a war zone. Jace is right.
I have been hiding from my brother by omission for six weeks. Jace isn’t the only one keeping things from Dawson.
I push it away.
Whatever I have to figure out about Dawson, I will figure out tomorrow.
* * *
By the time the shower turns off I am ready.
I stand in front of the full-length mirror by the closet and look.
The dress falls in a long clean line. My hair is up, loose and a little undone, pieces falling at my temples and the back of my neck. My mouth is the color I painted it twenty minutes ago and my eyes are smoke.
The reflection looking back at me is someone I used to be, before I packed her away.
I am going to walk into the Botanical tonight in this dress on Jace Carrington’s arm and he is going to spend the entire evening looking at me, and I am suddenly nervous about it. I have not let a man see me like this in years. I have not let myself see me like this in years.
I take a breath.
The bathroom door opens.
He walks out in his tux pants and nothing else.
His chest is bare, water still on the line of his shoulders, scruff on his jaw from a long day. His abs are cut hard and the tattoos that run down his arm and over his heart are darker against his wet skin, and he is the most unfairly hot man I’ve ever seen.
Heat goes through me, low and immediate.
He stops in the doorway.
His eyes go everywhere. The hair. The dress. The neckline. The heels. Back up. He runs a hand over his jaw and lets out a breath.
“Jesus Christ, Wren.”
I let myself smile and do a little spin for him.
“You like it?”