CHAPTER 44
MILES CHOOSES
By noon the next day, Miles had made three decisions and regretted all of them at least once.
He reserved the counterpour. He chose a navy jacket instead of the black one Serena said made him look like he was attending either a gala or a sentencing. He selected the burgundy dress from the back of her closet and laid it on the bed without pretending it had ended up there by accident.
That last decision nearly undid him.
The dress was not new. Serena had worn it to a winter charity dinner two years earlier, back when they still flirted in hotel elevators without feeling self-conscious about it.
It was modest by the standards of the vineyard and dangerous by the standards of his memory.
Soft fabric. Clean lines. A neckline that did not reveal too much so much as invite the imagination to do better work.
Serena found it at three o'clock.
Miles was in the bedroom doorway when she turned. For one second, neither spoke.
'You chose this?' she asked.
'I did.'
'For me?'
'For us.'
She touched the shoulder seam. Her expression was difficult to read, and that was fair. He had spent years being subtle enough to deny himself. Now he was being obvious, and obviousness needed practice.
'Tell me why,' she said.
Miles leaned against the doorframe to keep from fidgeting. 'Because I remember wanting you in it and acting like the night was normal.'
'It was a charity dinner.'
'Exactly. People were talking about endowments and silent auction baskets, and I spent twenty minutes watching the way men noticed you near the dessert table.'
Her eyebrows lifted. 'Twenty minutes?'
'Rough estimate.'
'You never said.'
'I made a joke about the tiramisu.'
'That was your confession?'
'I was not highly developed.'
She laughed, then grew quiet. Her fingers still held the seam. 'And tonight?'
'Tonight I am saying it before we leave the house.'
Something moved through her face that was not simply pleasure. Relief, perhaps. Or grief for all the times desire had been present but untranslated.
'Thank you,' she said.
He had expected teasing. Her gratitude made his chest ache.
'There is more,' he admitted.
'Of course there is. You look like a man carrying a tray of unstable glassware.'
'I asked Julian to pour for me first.'
Serena's hand fell from the dress. 'Not for me?'
'Not first.'
The sentence had taken him fifteen minutes to compose in an email and another ten to send. Julian's reply had been almost immediate: Then arrive five minutes early, and do not let your courage depend on her reaction.
Serena sat on the edge of the bed. 'How do you feel about that?'
'Terrified in a clean way.'
'Clean?'
'Like the fear belongs to the choice, not to shame.'
She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. 'That makes sense.'
He crossed the room and sat beside her, leaving enough space that the dress lay between them like a third presence. 'I need to ask one thing.'
'Ask.'
'Tonight, if I become quiet, do not rescue me too quickly.'
Serena's mouth tightened. 'Miles.'
'I know. I am not asking you to ignore me. If I say corked, we stop. If I reach for you, take my hand. But if I am quiet because I am working through it, let me work.'
Her eyes shone with worry and pride. 'That is hard for me.'
'I know.'
'When you hurt, I want to fix the room.'
'I do too. That is why nothing changes.'
The truth sat with them more gently than it would have a week ago. Maybe honesty became less cruel when it stopped being rare.
Serena picked up the burgundy dress and held it against herself. 'Then I will wear this.'
Miles's throat went dry with a simplicity that felt almost adolescent. 'Thank you.'
'Do not thank me yet.'
'Why?'
Her smile turned playful, but her eyes stayed sincere. 'Because tonight you are choosing, and I intend to let myself be chosen.'
He felt the floor tilt slightly beneath him.
At six-thirty, they stood before the hallway mirror. Serena in burgundy. Miles in navy. Husband and wife, both recognizable, both altered by what they had agreed to see.
Before opening the front door, Serena touched his sleeve. 'Last check.'
'No surprises,' he said.
'Corked means stop.'
'Aftercare required.'
'No punishing the truth.'
He nodded. 'And one more.'
'What?'
He looked at her reflection beside his. 'We leave together unless we both choose otherwise.'
Serena's face softened. 'We leave together.'
Then Miles opened the door, and for once the invitation did not happen to them.
He carried it out of the house himself.