Page 55 of The Wright Man

"Back at the wedding—"

We both laughed.

"Of course," she said, smiling and shaking her head. "Jinx."

I grinned. "I guess we both had a few things to apologize for."

She nodded, but neither of us said what we were really apologizing for.

The fight. The silence. The way I begged her not to marry him and how she walked out anyway... How I let her.

We stayed away from all of it, like stepping too close would set the whole room on fire.

"So... you and the Riddler," I said, trying to sound casual.

She winced. "Still married. Technically."

Technically.

"He treating you right?"

She hesitated. "He's... trying."

I let that hang in the air. A lie I wasn't gonna call out. Men like Gavin Riddle didn't "try"—they performed. Managed optics. Said the right shit and did the bare minimum to keep the leash slack. If he was trying, it meant she was hurting.

I remembered what Cap said when I asked how she was doing. I remembered how she'd looked at the wedding, happy but... stretched.

I filed it away. Let the lie sit for now.

I quickly pivoted. "Green, huh?" I said, nodding at her dress. "That's bold. Considering your long-standing beef with the color."

She smirked. "A guy gave me a core memory of it once. Decided it wasn't so bad."

"Whoever he was, he sounds charming."

"Debatable."

Shifting the conversation to the dress was a bad idea.

I felt it. She did too. We both caught the shift at the same time. Sexual tension thicker than J. Cole's eyebrows.

Her eyes flicked to my mouth.

Yeah, I was definitely imagining how she tasted now.

It had never been a secret that I thought Angelica was beautiful. I spent most of my childhood years trying not to stare, and my teens wondering what it would feel like to kiss her again.

But now?

Kissing her wasn't even the most dangerous thing I wanted to do.

We had to get out of that room.

Neither of us moved. Not for a full breath. Her eyes stayed on mine, and mine stayed on hers, and whatever was sitting between us had a name neither of us was going to say out loud.

Not yet.

"So..." I said, glancing over at her, "you still bake?"