The Art of Almost

Chapter Five

The Art of Almost

The Sablon ballroom was already half full by the time Wren's car pulled up, headlights sweeping across a red carpet she had absolutely not mentally prepared herself to walk arm-in-arm with Adrian Verrall.

He was waiting at the base of the steps when she got out because of course he was, because he had probably arrived early enough to personally inspect the seating chart, and for one disorienting second, before either of them said a word, he simply looked at her.

Not the assessing look from his office. Something else. Something that made her suddenly, acutely aware of exactly how her dress fit.

"You look…" he started, then stopped, like the sentence had gotten away from him before he'd approved it.

"Convincing enough?" Wren offered, mostly to fill the silence, because his unfinished sentence was doing something unwelcome to her pulse.

"I was going to say something else, but we could make do with ‘convincing enough,’" Adrian said, and didn't finish that thought either. He offered his arm instead, formal, practiced, and she told herself the way her stomach dropped when she took it was purely strategic nerves.

"Rule number two," she murmured as they started up the steps, cameras already flashing. "You are touching me without prior notice. Was that a warning?"

"Consider this your warning for the entire evening," he said, low, close to her ear in a way that made the nearest photographer's shutter go off three times in rapid succession. "I intend to be extremely convincing, Ms. Collins. Try to keep up as much as you can."

"Is that a threat?"

"It is a professional obligation." His mouth curved, just slightly, the first real almost-smile she'd ever seen off a runway or out of a press photo. "Camille is watching from the third table. Smile like you mean it."

Wren smiled. It was, infuriatingly, not hard to do.

—-----

The dinner went better than either of them had any right to expect.

Adrian pulled out her chair without being asked, and when Camille's gaze drifted toward them mid-appetizer, he reached over and, with a warning glance for permission she barely had time to register, laced his fingers through hers on the white tablecloth. It read, to anyone watching, like the easiest thing in the world.

It did not feel that way to Wren. It felt like every nerve ending in her hand had relocated directly under his palm.

"You are doing that thing again," Adrian murmured, leaning close under the pretense of reading the wine list.

"What thing."

"Tensing up every time I touch you. It rather undercuts the illusion."

"Forgive me," Wren said sweetly, not moving her hand, "I have never had to fake being in love with my nemesis in front of a hundred and twenty people before. I am new to this but I'd learn."

"You are doing remarkably well for a novice," Adrian said, and there was something almost warm in it, something that didn't match the ice-water voice she'd spent two years learning to hate.

By the time the second course arrived, they had fallen into an unnerving rhythm.

His hand occasionally finding the small of her back as they crossed the room to greet other guests, her fingers straightening his already-perfect tie in a gesture so natural neither of them clocked it as performance until three separate photographers had already captured it.

Camille watched them from across the room with an expression Wren couldn't read, which was somehow worse than open suspicion.

It was nearly eleven, the dinner winding down, guests drifting toward the exits, when Camille finally approached them directly, for the first time all night she had finally come close enough to speak privately.

"Well," she said, gaze moving between them with something sharper than casual interest. "That was quite a performance."

Wren's stomach dropped at the word “performance”, surely a coincidence, surely she couldn't already…

"I mean that as the highest compliment," Camille continued, before either of them could react. "I have seen a great deal of fake harmony in this industry. But what I saw tonight didn't look fake at all."

Adrian's hand, still resting at the small of Wren's back, went very still.

"I'm satisfied," Camille said. "The contract moves forward. My legal team will have documents to you both by Monday." A small, knowing smile. "Congratulations to you both on the collaboration, and the rest of it."

She walked away before either of them could respond, leaving Wren standing very close to Adrian Verrall in a ballroom that had mostly emptied out, his hand still warm against her back, the two of them alone for the first time all night without a single camera pointed their way.

"We did it," Wren said, a little breathless, a little disbelieving. "She bought it."

"She did," Adrian agreed, but he wasn't looking at Camille's retreating back. He was looking at Wren, close enough that she could see exactly how unsteady his composure had actually gotten underneath the performance, close enough that the six inches of space between them suddenly felt like the most dangerous distance in the room.

"Adrian." His name came out quieter than she meant it to.

"There is no one watching," he said, very low, like he was reminding himself as much as her.

"I know."

Neither of them moved away.

"Wren." Her name in his mouth again, the way it had undone her in the coffee shop, except this time there was no table between them, no witnesses, no rule about warnings before he reached up and tucked a strand of hair back from her face with a gentleness that had absolutely no business belonging to a man who had called her line “loud” in front of a reporter two nights ago.

"This isn't part of the rules," Wren whispered.

"No," Adrian agreed, his hand still at her jaw, his eyes dropping, just once, to her mouth. "It isn't."

And then, in a ballroom gone silent and empty around them, with the ink on a contract that would either save or ruin them both not even dry yet, Adrian Verrall closed the last six inches between them like the rules had never existed at all…

… just as, at the far end of the ballroom, a phone camera lifted, silent and unnoticed, capturing exactly the one moment neither of them had planned for anyone to see.