Vasso’s very public former flame.
She laughs, a sound like ice cracking under stilettos. “Naomi. How charming. I didn’t realizeyouwere the reason Vasso suddenly discovered monogamy.”
“Marriage can be… persuasive,” I say.
“You must have beenverypersuasive, then.”
“She was,” Vasso says, the silk of his voice wrapped around steel. His fingers shift on my back, a deliberate slide that makes my breath misbehave. “Still is.”
I cut him a look sharp enough to draw blood. He meets it with a smirk that is pure challenge and entirely private.
Vivienne’s eyes narrow, calculation sparking. “We’llcatch uplater,” she purrs to me, which sounds less like a plan and more like a threat, and then she glides away to kiss both cheeks of a trustee whose wife is definitely watching.
As soon as she’s gone, I step forward, away from his hand; the absence feels like a bruise. “What the hell was that?”
“Exactly what it needed to be,” he says mildly. “She’s on the board. She needed to believe this isn’t a performance.”
“You didn’t have to touch me.”
He leans in, not quite touching now, cruel with proximity. “Didn’t I?”
The chandelier light paints him in gold and shadow. He looks like sin in a suit and I hate that my body keeps sending up flares.
We make it to our table overlooking the terrace. The bay is ink-blue beyond the glass, the lighthouse beam sweeping with its slow, holy metronome.
Place cards declare where power sits; donors drift past to be seen being seen. Conversation is a current, and I keep my head above water by counting breaths and cataloging enemies.
He knows it. He watches me with the same unblinking focus he gives a volatile stock. When I reach for my wine, my fingers find his; I yank back as if I’ve touched a wire.
“You’re jumpy tonight,” he says, voice pitched for me alone.
“Maybe because your ex was practically undressing you with her eyes.”
“Jealous,Mrs. Dillinger?”
“Ofthat? Hardly.” My voice cracks on the last syllable like a branch under too much snow.
He hears it. Worse, he enjoys it.
Courses arrive—caviar that tastes like clean salt, lamb that falls apart when you look at it. The quartet softens into something lush and forgettable. Between smiles for the table and bland comments about the restoration exhibit, Vasso keeps invading my space in small, exquisite ways. His thigh brackets mine under the tablecloth when he turns to address the chair; his shoulder brushes my bare arm when he leans to pour water I don’t need; the back of his hand ghosts my wrist when he reaches for bread he won’t eat. None of it photographable. All of it devastating.
Across the room, Vivienne laughs with the trustee, then slides her gaze to me like a blade and smiles. Everything in me goes tight. I lift my glass to give my hands purpose. The ring flashes in a cold starburst.
Dessert arrives—some architectural nonsense that tastes like cloud. That’s when his hand finds my knee under the linen, warm and unapologetic.
I freeze.
“Vasso,” I hiss without moving my lips.
He doesn’t look at me. He smiles at a passing donor like the devil paying a social call. “You want to sell this marriage?” he murmurs. “Then act like you want me.”
“I don’t.”
His thumb draws a slow stroke on the inside of my knee, and the heat rockets up my spine like a firework. My breath catches; the room tilts; the lighthouse beam washes the glass and keeps going.
“You’re lying,” he says simply, which is the worst part because he’s right and my body offers no defense.
On the terrace, the wind lifts the edge of a tent and the ocean answers.
