Page 30 of A Vicious Love

I should have gone quiet then. Instead, I kept smiling, because if I stopped smiling, I would have to feel the sting of every small thing.

We entered the ballroom.

People looked.

They always looked when Jamison Crow entered a room, but tonight they looked longer. The hotel fire had turned him into an even darker kind of fascination. The Crow name had been on everyone’s mouth for weeks, tucked behind champagne glasses and polite concern. Business problems, everyone kept saying while men vanished from positions they had held for years. Society loved danger when it arrived in a tuxedo.

Jamison ignored them all.

His brothers were already near the Crow table. Marcel stood with Emmie at his side, both of them turning when we approached. Harrison leaned against the back of a chair, speaking to a woman but his attention flicked to us.

Harrison’s gaze dropped to my ankle. “How’s the traitor limb?”

I laughed. “Better.”

“Good. I was prepared to carry you dramatically if needed.”

Jamison’s hand went rigid around mine.

A waiter appeared with champagne. Jamison didn’t take one.

“Whiskey.” He said, and released my hand.

“There should be a bottle at the inner bar. I arranged it.” I said to the waiter who was still frozen.

Jamison looked at me. He was annoyed by me arranging something for him because now it existed.

The waiter nodded. “Of course, Miss Bellemere.”

Jamison’s eyes stayed on me.

I tried to make my voice light. “I remembered you hated the champagne here last year.”

“I hated the event.”

“Oh.” My smile twitched. “Well. The whiskey is better than the champagne too.”

The waiter left.

Guests drifted toward the first round of music, couples stepping beneath the dome while a live orchestra played from a raised platform half-hidden by flowers.

The first dance at the Starlight Ball was ceremonial.

I loved it. I had watched it as a little girl with my chin on the stair rail. I had dreamed of dancing under the glass dome, little lanterns stars above me, flowers around me.

A silly dream.

Jamison’s whiskey arrived. He took it and drank half. I stood beside him, hands clasped in front of my dress.

“You don’t have to dance,” I said softly.

He glanced down at me. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“I know.” I nodded quickly. “I just meant, don’t worry. I won’t ask.”

I had learned that lesson within the first year of our engagement.

Something in his face shifted, but not enough for me to understand it.