Somewhere Between Us

Chapter 6: Dinner and Deception

The Sterling estate at night looked like something out of a period drama, ivy-draped stone, lit windows spilling gold onto a lawn manicured within an inch of its life. Zoey stood at the base of the front steps in a dress Marguerite had insisted on having sent over, smoothing a wrinkle that wasn't there, while Dylan adjusted his cufflinks beside her with the particular stiffness of a man bracing for something.

"You look like you're walking into a deposition," she said.

"Close enough." He offered his arm, more habit than romance. "Just remember, we're disgustingly happy. Inside jokes. Meaningful glances. The whole performance."

"I don't have any inside jokes with you."

"Then we'll invent one on the spot. High risk, high reward." He knocked before she could argue further, and the door opened on Marguerite, resplendent in emerald silk, arms already outstretched.

"There they are." She pulled Zoey into an embrace that smelled of gardenia and something colder underneath it, then held her at arm's length to inspect her like a piece brought back from an auction. "Radiant. Married life agrees with you."

"It's only been a few weeks."

"The good ones show early." Marguerite's smile didn't waver, though her eyes flicked, briefly, to Dylan, some private calculation passing behind them before she turned and led them inside.

The dining room was too large for six people and lit like a stage. Julian was already seated, tie loosened, a glass of something amber in his hand that Zoey suspected wasn't his first. Claire waved them over with genuine enthusiasm, patting the seat beside her for Zoey like they were old friends rather than two-week acquaintances.

"You made it," Claire said. "I told Julian you'd actually come. He had money on you canceling."

"I don't gamble," Julian said, not looking up from his glass. "I just have low expectations of people who marry into money."

"Julian," Marguerite said, light as a bell, though something steel-edged moved beneath it.

"What? I'm making conversation." He finally looked up, gaze sliding to Dylan with an expression that wasn't quite hostile but wasn't far from it either. "How's the company, brother? Heard the board's still nervous about the Whitfield deal."

"The board is always nervous about something. It's their primary function."

"Mm. Must be nice, having the confidence to not worry about it." Julian's smile was thin, quick, gone almost before it landed. "Some of us actually have to work for what we've got."

"Julian." Marguerite again, sharper this time, and Zoey caught the flicker of real tension pass across the table, not performance, not for her benefit, something old and worn smooth from years of use. "Let's not do this in front of Dylan's wife on only her second visit."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Julian raised his glass in a mock toast and drank.

Dinner proceeded in fits of forced normalcy after that, Marguerite steering conversation toward safer waters, asking Zoey about her family with a warmth that felt, somehow, both genuine and rehearsed at once, the two qualities sitting uneasily together in every question. Zoey answered carefully, vaguely, the way she'd trained herself to answer anyone asking about her mother's illness or her siblings' names, offering just enough truth to seem forthcoming without offering anything that could be used later.

"You're very private," Marguerite observed, not unkindly. "I respect that. Family should be protected."

"It should," Zoey agreed, and meant it more than the polite exchange required.

Under the table, without any real plan behind it, she reached over and laced her fingers through Dylan's. He glanced at her, surprised, and she gave him a small, private smile, the kind two people share over an inside joke, exactly as instructed, and watched something in his shoulders ease, just slightly, like he hadn't realized how tense he'd been until the tension broke.

"See," she murmured, low enough only he could hear. "Disgustingly happy."

"You're better at this than I expected."

"I contain multitudes. We covered this in the coffee shop."

His laugh, quiet and real, drew Marguerite's attention down the table, and Zoey caught the exact moment the woman's expression sharpened, not unpleasantly, but with an intensity that didn't match the mildness of the moment. Marguerite was watching Dylan the way a jeweler watches a stone under a loupe, assessing something Zoey couldn't name, gone again so fast she almost doubted she'd seen it at all.

After dinner, the group drifted onto the terrace, Marguerite orchestrating drinks with the ease of a woman who'd hosted a thousand of these evenings. Zoey found herself alone at the railing for a moment, the city glittering distant and small beyond the estate's dark lawn, when Dylan appeared beside her, tie loosened now, some of the evening's performance finally sliding off him.

"You survived," he said.

"Barely. Your stepbrother hates you."

"Julian doesn't hate me. He resents me, which is different and somehow worse." Dylan's jaw tightened, just slightly, before he smoothed it away. "Since I came back and took over the company, Marguerite's made a habit of holding me up as some kind of standard, how I run things, how fast I turned everything around, how effortless it all looks from where she's sitting. It's not really about me, not personally. I just happen to be the measuring stick she reaches for."

"That sounds exhausting for both of you."

"It is." He looked at her then, something unguarded slipping through before he caught it. "Thank you, by the way. For the hand-holding. And the smile. You didn't have to sell it that hard."

"I was committing to the role."

"Sure," he said, in a tone that suggested he didn't entirely believe her, and for a moment neither of them looked away, the space between them narrowing without either of them quite deciding to close it. She was abruptly, uncomfortably aware of how close he was standing, of the low murmur of the party behind them, of the particular quiet that seemed to settle whenever it was just the two of them and no audience to perform for.

"Zoey," he started, his voice lower than before.

"Dylan, darling, come help me with the coffee tray," Marguerite called from the doorway, and the moment dissolved as quickly as it had formed, both of them stepping back half an inch, as though caught at something neither of them fully understood yet.

"Duty calls," Dylan said, and the smirk came back like a curtain dropping, though it took him a beat longer than usual to find it.

They left near midnight, Zoey exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the late hour and everything to do with the sheer effort of performing for four hours straight. Dylan drove them home himself, quiet, and she was nearly asleep against the window when his phone rang through the car's speakers, and he answered it without thinking, forgetting, apparently, that she was there at all.

"Yeah," he said, voice low, businesslike. "No, I saw the paperwork. Tell the county office we'll contest the zoning change, I'm not letting some legacy property from my father's portfolio get rezoned out from under us without a fight." A pause. "It's an old dispute, older than the company as it currently stands. I don't want it dragging into the middle of a deal this size. Handle it quietly."

He glanced over, catching her half-awake, and ended the call with a clipped, "We'll talk tomorrow," his expression smoothing back into neutral before she'd fully processed what she'd heard.

"Sorry," he said. "Work."

"Sounded serious."

" Old zoning dispute on one of the legacy properties. Nothing that concerns you." He said it lightly, deliberately light, the same practiced ease he used whenever a subject brushed too close to something he didn't want examined. "Go back to sleep. We're almost home."

She let her eyes close, but something about his tone sat oddly with her the rest of the ride, the same careful lightness she was starting to notice whenever a subject touched anything to do with his father's old holdings. She filed it away without knowing why, the same instinct that made her double-check locked doors and count exits in unfamiliar rooms, and told herself, as she drifted off, that it was nothing.