The Silent Hour (The Silent Hours Duet #1)

CHAPTER ONE

MY MOTHER ALWAYS SAID there were two kinds of mistakes a woman could make.

The ones she regretted.

And the ones she made peace with before deciding whether somebody else needed to regret them for her.

I was twenty-four the night I met Ethan Marcelli, and back then, I hadn't accumulated enough mistakes to appreciate the difference.

Toya would've argued differently.

She'd already confiscated my keys, shoved two shots into my hands, and informed me that whatever happened during her cousin's bachelorette party would be between us, God, and whichever bartender was unfortunate enough to remember it tomorrow.

The bass from the club rattled through my chest, lights strobing pink and gold across a sea of sequins and liquor glasses.

Latoya shoved the scavenger hunt list back into my hands.

"Your turn!"

Her cousin Mehgan was already halfway through hers, daring a bartender to let her do belly shots off him, her dark curls wild and untamed.

I looked down at the list with determination. I wasn't about to lose just because she was the bride-to-be.

Item seven: Borrow a man's tie.

Easy enough. I scanned the crowd and all the men who fit the criteria until I saw him.

Damn.

Broad shoulders, dark suit, sleeves rolled just enough to show a flash of ink at his wrist. He leaned against the second bar with a group of men who looked like they'd stepped out of a GQ spread.

I knew his type or thought I did. Men like him had been wandering in and out of my peripheral vision since childhood. Mama had taught me to watch their hands.

Tato had taught me to watch everyone else's.

Right then I watched neither, because he was wearing a tie. Motherfucking jackpot.

I smoothed my hair back, straightened my with the bride sash, and walked right up to him. His eyes found mine instantly, steady and sharp as I held his stare.

"You," I announced, stopping in front of him. "I need a man with a tie."

His eyebrows lifted. "That's all I'm good for?"

"Sorry, but yeah." I waved the list between us. "You're number seven."

His friends laughed and elbowed him. He didn't look at them. He loosened his tie with one hand, slid it free, and held it out.

"Then cross me off."

I took it, my fingers catching his. Something shot up my arm that I had no business feeling. I scribbled the checkmark and draped the tie around my shoulders.

"I'll bring this back to?" I let it hang.

"Ethan."

His mouth had curved into something slow and certain, and up close I was noticing things I had no business noticing either. Smoke and whiskey underneath the cologne. A black ink band at his wrist where his sleeve had ridden up, and the suggestion of another tattoo where his collar sat open.

I made myself look back up at his glorious face.

"Ethan," I repeated, like I was just confirming it and not trying to see straight through his clothing.

Then I turned and walked back to Latoya before I could do anything stupid. She was already fanning herself with the scavenger list, swaying in her red bottoms, long hair swinging, eyes fixed on Ethan and his group like she was deciding which one to eat first.

"Gurl." She pointed with her empty shot glass. “He ain't just fine. That's a different category of fine entirely.”

“And you're drunk. Whatever happened to I can hold my liquor more than all you bitches?"

"I'm still standing, aren’t I?"

I shook my head and straightened the tie around my shoulders. "Whatever. I've got four left. How many do you?" I stopped. She wasn't listening, too busy staring. "Toya."

She grinned, slow and wicked. "What? They're fine, and the way I'm feeling tonight, I wouldn't mind being used in all..." She held her hand up and counted off her fingers. “Five holes.”

“Bitch, did you count your ears?” I asked, laughing as I playfully shoved her, then grabbed her arm when she nearly went sideways in her heels.

We were both losing it then, cackling loud enough to turn heads, and neither of us cared even a little. She pulled me by the wrist toward the far bar, where Mehgan was already flagging us down over another round.

For a while, I almost managed to forget him, Ethan. But every time I threw my head back laughing or we hit the dance floor, I could feel it. A steady gaze from across the whole damn room.

I caught him watching me and pretended I didn’t. Eventually, Toya caught me watching him back.

“Go talk to him!” she yelled louder than was necessary.

“I don’t have anything to say,” I shouted back at a more reasonable level.

That was a bold-faced lie. I had plenty to say, but I wasn’t sure adding that man to my list of bedfellows was a smart move.

Toya grinned around her skinny little straw. “You still have that man's tie around your neck.”

I looked down.

Shit.

Somewhere between finishing the scavenger hunt and Mehgan scoring us another round, I'd completely forgotten about it.

“I should probably give it back.”

“Or take it home and sleep with it under your pillow.”

I reached for my drink instead, only to find mostly melted ice waiting for me.

I'd officially hit my limit anyway. The pleasant buzz I'd been riding for the last hour was beginning to tip toward drink some water before tomorrow becomes a crime scene.

I pushed the glass away. "I'm getting water."

Toya made a face. "Boring ass."

"Alive, you mean?" I laughed and turned toward the bar.

A few steps later, I nearly walked straight into a dark suit. I stopped short. The cologne hit me first, before I even looked up.

Ethan.

The strobing lights had softened to something amber at this end of the room, and up close he was somehow even nicer to look at. The ink at his wrist caught my eye again where his sleeve had ridden up further than before.

His gaze dropped to the burgundy silk still hanging around my shoulders, then came back up slowly.

"I was starting to think you stole it."

I touched the tie. The fabric was warm from sitting against my skin all night. "I was coming to give it back."

"No, you weren't."

My mouth fell open. "Excuse me?"

"I've been watching you forget you're wearing it for the two hours."

I pulled it from around my shoulders and held it toward him. "Fine you got me. Here."

He looked at my hand but didn’t take it.

"You can keep it."

I stared at him, confused. "Why would I want your tie forever?"

That slow smile came back. The one that had no business being that attractive.

"So, I have a reason to see you again."

Well.

Fuck.

Behind me, I heard a very distinct noise from Toya that sounded suspiciously like someone choking to death on purpose.

I ignored her drunk ass.

Mostly because Ethan was still looking at me like we had all night and he already knew how it ended.

"And what makes you think I want to see you again?"

"I don't."

That caught me off guard. He stepped a little closer—not enough to crowd me, just enough that the bass from the speakers seemed to drop out and it was only the cologne and the low light and the way he was looking at me.

"That's why I'm asking."

"Asking what?"

His eyes held mine. Dark and patient. "For your number, Seven."

I stared back at him for half a second, and despite every lesson Mama had ever taught me about making a man work harder than that, and the image of Tato stroking out somewhere in my peripheral conscience, I smiled.

"Julia."

His brow lifted.

"My name," I clarified. "If you're asking for my number, you should probably know what to save it under."

Something moved through his expression before he masked it.

"Julia," he repeated.

The way he said it, like he was deciding what to do with it, made my stomach do something incredibly stupid. That same feeling a coaster drop gives you.

I held out the scavenger hunt list, a little crumpled now, smelling faintly of spilled drinks.

"Find somewhere to write."

His smile widened into something that should have been a warning.

And that was how Ethan Marcelli went from number seven on a drunken scavenger hunt to the man whose last name I would eventually put behind my own, but that night, I didn't know any of that.

I only knew the lights were warm, the tie was still in my hand, and the way he'd said my name was going to be very hard to forget.

Later, there would be a thousand things I remembered about Ethan. The way he loved me would be one of them.

So would the way he broke my heart.