“Everyone is staring.”
“Let them.”
I rested my head back on his chest and closed my eyes for a moment. He rubbed his hands up and down my back once, then squeezed me slightly against him.
I didn’t say anything else. He didn’t either. When the song faded, he stepped back, and my hand slid down off his neck, to his chest, resting there a second.
“Thank you,” he said, taking my hand in his and kissing it. Then he kept my hand and walked me off the dance floor. He didn’t let go until we were at the edge.
“Alyssa. I should —”
“I know. I’ll catch you again later.”
He went one way through the room. I meant to go back to the table, but took two steps and realized I couldn’t sit down yet. Not after that. My heart was beating like I’d run somewhere and I had no idea what my face was doing. I needed a couple minutes and a mirror.
I headed for the restrooms, but didn’t make it. Sabrina stepped into my path before I reached the end of the corridor.
“You danced with him.”
Her fake smile was gone. Whatever had held her together earlier was not holding now. I could smell the vodka under her perfume.
“Sabrina.” I kept my voice even and moved to step past her. “Have a good night.”
She side-stepped and blocked me. “I’m not finished talking to you.”
“We weren’t talking.” The Jersey version of me was ready to give her a verbal ass whooping. But there were two hundred or more of Julian's guests on the other side of that wall, and I was the new face in a town. Sabrinawas clearly drunk and hoping to bait me into a scene. I wasn't going to hand her one at this event.
“You don’t know what you walked into.” Her voice dropped, harder. “Three years I’ve known that man. Three years. He entertains his little distractions, the new face, the project, whatever’s shiny that month, and every single time he gets bored and comes back to me. Because I know what he likes. I know exactly how to make that man forget his own name.” Her eyes raked me. “You think because he’s playing hero to the sad widow, that means something?”
“Ithinkyou need to move out of my way.”
“He always did have a thing for women who need rescuing. It makes him feel like a god. But the novelty always wears off, and when it does —”
I stepped to go around her again. Her hand shot out and closed on my arm, manicured nails digging in.
And that was the end of my diplomacy. Words were free. Hands cost. “Have you lost your mind?” I took her wrist and twisted until the fingers opened.
She gasped, stumbled back, then her face went ugly and she lunged.
“Back the fuck up, ho.” Taryn was between us before Sabrina finished the motion, Simone a step behind her. “You’ve got three seconds to get out of my girl’s face before I forget where we are.”
Sabrina stopped short. The corridor had gone quiet with people at the edges of it. A phone or two, already up.
Taryn had handed me the exit. I didn’t take it.
“You keep telling me what kind of man he is.” I kept my voice level. “Three years you said? And the only thing you know is what he felt like in the dark. That’s your whole education?” I laughed. “You wanna lecture me about him, but all you’re telling me is the of man heneverlet you meet.”
Her expression faltered and her voice slurred. “You don’t know what I gave up. How long I waited.”
And there it was. I didn’t know her, but I read people for a living so I knew the shape of her.
“I don’t know. But it sounds like you made yourself easy hoping he’d choose you.” I tilted my head. “He didn’t. That sounds like something you did to yourself. It doesn’t become my problem because you decided to putyour hands on me over it.”
“Youbitch—”
“I’m no charity case, and I think you know that.” I took half a step in; she backed into the wall. “I think you came over here because you bid twenty thousand dollars on a man who spent your whole bid looking at somebody else.”
I glared at her. “Walk back the way you came. Finish your evening, or leave, I don’t care which.”
