Lucien POV.
The moment she stepped out of the house, the rest of the evening ceased to matter. The dress she had worn for the evening was a deliberate torture.
Black silk flowed over her body as though it had been made solely to trace her shape.
It clung to her waist before falling in a sleek line to the floor, interrupted only by the high slit that revealed the length of her thigh whenever she moved.
Lights from the restaurant entrance caught against her skin, turning it into something luminous against the night.
When I stepped out of the car and came around to open her door, conversations nearby did not cease, but they softened. Heads inclined subtly. Shoulders straightened. The shift was instinctive rather than theatrical.
She noticed.
Her fingers slid into the crook of my arm a
