CHAPTER 22
Return to Aster Hall
Aster Hall looked different when they arrived by choice.
On Thursday, the building had swallowed them after the event, all marble and rain and deserted corridors.
Tonight it glowed from the inside, alive with music and voices, its tall windows throwing gold across the wet pavement.
Valets hurried beneath black umbrellas. Guests stepped from cars in gowns and tailored jackets, laughing as if the storm had been arranged for atmosphere.
Daniel parked across the street instead of using valet. It was not practical, but he needed the walk. He needed the cold rain on his face and the pressure of Elise's hand in his. He needed thirty seconds to remember that the building was only a building and Marcus Hale was only a man.
Then they crossed the street and saw him under the portico.
Marcus stood near the velvet rope, dressed in the same dark suit, earpiece curled discreetly against his ear, one hand folded over the other in front of him. He was speaking to a valet, but his attention shifted before his head did. Daniel saw the moment Marcus knew they had arrived.
He finished the instruction, dismissed the valet with a nod, and looked directly at them.
Elise's fingers tightened around Daniel's.
'There he is,' she said softly.
Daniel could have made a joke. He could have pretended not to hear the little break in her voice. Instead he said, 'I know.'
Marcus's gaze moved once over Elise, not crude, not hurried. The assessment was slower than politeness and cleaner than hunger. It took in the coat, the dark hair gathered at one shoulder, the hint of burgundy beneath the open front. Then it moved to Daniel with the same composed attention.
'Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes,' Marcus said when they reached him.
'Marcus,' Elise replied.
Daniel heard the difference from Thursday. His wife did not say the name as a stranger's name now. She said it as an object warmed in her hand.
Marcus offered a small professional smile. 'Glad you found the main entrance tonight.'
'We did,' Daniel said. 'Though I understand the east corridor has character.'
The corner of Marcus's mouth shifted. 'It does.'
A couple behind them approached, and Marcus stepped back into his role smoothly, checking names, signaling to a host, guiding people around a slick patch of stone.
Daniel watched him work. That should have cooled the fantasy.
Instead, it made Marcus more dangerous. He was not performing seduction.
He was performing competence, and Elise, Daniel realized, was deeply susceptible to competence when it was attached to broad shoulders and a calm voice.
Once they were inside the lobby, Elise exhaled.
'Are you all right?' Daniel asked.
'Yes.' She glanced back through the glass. Marcus had turned away to assist an older woman from a car. 'Are you?'
Daniel looked at the ballroom doors ahead. Inside, string music floated above the murmur of the new private event. The night had not truly begun, and already his skin felt too tight.
'Ask me in five minutes,' he said.
They checked in at the reception table, received small silver place cards, and stepped into the ballroom.
It was the same room, transformed by a different crowd.
White linens had been replaced with charcoal and gold.
The floral centerpieces were taller. Candlelight trembled inside glass.
The dance floor gleamed at the center like a stage waiting for someone to be brave.
Elise removed her coat.
Daniel forgot to breathe.
The burgundy dress fit her with elegant restraint, the neckline modest, the shape devastating because it suggested rather than declared. Her shoulders were bare. Her wedding ring caught candlelight when she handed him the coat.
Across the lobby, beyond the open ballroom doors, Marcus looked up.
Elise felt it. Daniel knew she felt it because she did not turn right away. She stood still, letting herself be seen from a distance, her posture subtly changing under the weight of another man's controlled attention.
Daniel's first instinct was to look away from them both.
He did not.
Instead he touched Elise's ring with his thumb.
She turned her head slightly. 'Guardrail?'
'No,' he said, voice low. 'Anchor.'
Her eyes shone. Then she looked toward Marcus.
The guard gave one small nod, not to her alone, but to them together.
Daniel felt the night accept them.