Amber blinks at her. “You did what?”
“It was just alcohol, thank God. But I’ve since learned that Vivienne sometimes mixes in… other substances. So yeah.” She nods toward the bar. “I’m sticking with regular drinks tonight.”
“Good call.” I glance back at the poker table. The game has started, and a silence has fallen around the table. “Think they’ll pull it off?”
“I don’t know,” Amber says. There’s bright color on her cheeks. “Four of them in a single game ups the odds, and they play a lot of poker, but against these people?”
“It’ll be tough,” I guess.
“Yes.”
Nora turns to me. She’s holding a martini by the stem, and her green eyes are rimmed with long black lashes. “You and my brother looked very close just now,” she says.
It’s not what I expected her to say. But I nod. “People are watching us here.”
“Yes,” she says, and smiles. “That’s true. It can be very intimate, don’t you think, to be in public? It changes the rules when you have to pretend.”
I think of his hand on my waist, his fingers threaded through mine. How he kissed me at the wedding. How he kissed me just now.
“You’re very perceptive,” I tell her.
It’s not entirely comfortable.
Her smile widens. “I have experience with pretending in public.”
“Is that how you and West got together?”
Amber laughs and turns toward the bar. “Oh boy,” she says. “I’ll need a stronger drink for this.”
“Let me tell you all about it,” Nora says.
Watching people play poker is boring.
But talking to the people who are watchingotherpeople play poker is fascinating. Nora, Amber and I mingle our way through the guests, and everywhere we turn, people are eager to chat. Nora is well-known in these circles, even if it’s only her second party. She’s modeled before and has the Montclair last name.
Andeveryoneis curious about my marriage to Rafe.
We saber champagne on the deck with two members of the royal family of a small European country. We chat with a Thai heiress about reality TV. We trade gossip with two tech billionaires over truffle fries.
Nora looks so much like Rafe, and also so little like him, with hair the color of their mother’s but with the same green eyes. She has a sharp chin where his is broad, and a true smile where his is often hidden.
I think about the bruise under his eye that I covered up.
I think about the scar down his side.
We come to rest side by side at the bar, looking at the poker table across the salon, and the simplest little question slips out. I can’t help myself. Amber is off in the restroom and it’s just the two of us.
“What was your brother like as a child?” I ask her.
She laughs. “Are you looking for ammunition?”
“Ammunition?”
“I know you two fight like it’s foreplay.” Then she covers her mouth and laughs again. “Sorry. I’ve had a bit to drink. I know you two don’t like each other. Well, not officially.”
“Officially?” I ask.
She takes a sip of her drink to hide a smile and doesn’t answer.
