CHAPTER TEN
979 Words
Nora's POV
Preston Wolfe was exactly the kind of man who knew he was attractive and had stopped bothering to hide it.
He introduced himself during the first course with a smile that was practiced without being fake and eyes that paid attention in a way most people at this table didn't bother with. He was seated directly across from me, and he spoke to me as if I were the most interesting person in the room, which was flattering but also made me immediately cautious.
"Nora Blackwood," he said, testing the name like he was deciding what he thought of it.
"Nora Lane," I said.
Something registered in his face — approval, maybe. "You kept your name."
"Contractually I'm Blackwood. Personally, I'm Lane. There's a difference."
Beside me, I felt Ethan go very still.
Preston smiled. "I like that distinction."
"Most people find it confusing."
"Most people don't think carefully enough about the difference between what's on paper and who someone actually is."
He was good. I would give him that. The conversation moved easily and he asked questions that were genuinely intelligent and listened to the answers without waiting for his turn to talk. Across the table Camille was watching with a particular stillness that told me this bothered her more than Preston's attention itself — it was the fact that I wasn't shrinking under it.
Ethan spoke beside me, not to me. He was in conversation with the foundation director on his left and he was perfectly composed and present and I could feel him listening to every word Preston said to me.
That awareness of him — constant, low-level, like a frequency running under everything — was becoming impossible to pretend wasn't there.
"You're not what I expected," Preston said during the second course.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone quieter. The arrangement you're in — people usually either perform happiness or perform misery. You're doing neither."
"I'm having dinner," I said. "That's all."
He laughed. A real one. "Ethan is a lucky man."
"Ethan is in a complicated situation," I said. "There's a difference there too."
I felt Ethan's hand find the back of my chair. Not touching me — just resting there, his fingers near my shoulder, the warmth of his arm along the edge of my space. A quiet, unmistakable presence.
Preston clocked it. His expression shifted by one degree.
"Fair enough," he said.
******************
During the break between courses, Ethan leaned close and said quietly, "You don't have to engage with him."
"I know. I wanted to."
A pause. "Why?"
"Because he was talking to me like a person and I was curious how long that would last before he showed me what he actually wanted."
Ethan turned his head slightly. His face was very close to mine — close enough that I could see the exact line where composure met something less composed. "And?"
"Jury's still out. But he mentioned the arrangement twice in the first ten minutes, which means he already researched it. People who research you before they meet you have an agenda."
Something moved in Ethan's eyes. Warmth wasn't quite the right word. It was more focused than warm. Sharper.
"You caught that," he said.
"I catch most things. I just don't usually say them." I looked at him. "You said that exact sentence back to me once."
"I remember."
We were very close. The noise of two hundred people dissolved into something ambient and distant and for a moment the only thing in my immediate world was him — the line of his jaw, the way his eyes stayed on my face, the hand still resting on the back of my chair like he'd forgotten to move it.
I wanted him not to move it.
That thought arrived with inconvenient clarity and I looked back toward the room.
"Camille is about to come over," I said.
"I know."
"Are you going to handle it or should I?"
He looked at me. "You'd handle it?"
"I'm your wife at this dinner. Functionally, yes." I kept my voice steady. "Unless you'd rather I disappear into the background."
"No." The word came out fast. Definitive. Like the idea genuinely bothered him. "Stay exactly where you are."
Camille arrived with a glass of champagne and a smile that was designed to look natural.
"Ethan." She touched his arm briefly, proprietary and light. Then she looked at me with the particular warmth of someone performing warmth for an audience. "Nora. You look lovely."
"Thank you," I said. "So do you."
She waited for more. I didn't give it.
The silence lasted exactly long enough to be meaningful.
"I wanted to check in," she said to Ethan. "About the Voss proposal. My father is expecting an answer by Monday."
"He'll have one," Ethan said.
"Should I tell him the arrangement is still —"
"He'll have an answer by Monday," Ethan repeated. No inflection. Final.
Camille smiled at me again and this time the edges of it were less smooth. "Enjoy your evening."
She left.
Ethan exhaled slowly beside me.
"She does that well," I said.
"She's been doing it for years."
"Does it work on you?"
He considered the question with more honesty than I expected. "It used to," he said. "It doesn't anymore."
I looked at him. "When did that change?"
He met my eyes and held them and something in his expression was completely unguarded for one long, suspended moment.
"Recently," he said.
My heart did something I immediately overruled.
We stayed close for the rest of the evening. Not performing anything. Not for Camille or Preston or Margaret who watched from across the room with her glass and her cold elegant calculations. Just — close. Because it had stopped feeling like a strategy and started feeling like a preference.
That was the most dangerous thing that had happened yet.
- Writer
