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He held out her coat, and the lining slipped over her bare skin as she put her arms through the sleeves. She buttoned up the coat he’d bought her over the dress he’d bought her, and all the reasons she’d put the brakes on a physical relationship came screaming back. Was tonight different? She was still dependent on Karl for health insurance, but at least she had a job and a place to live—even if both those things were provided by his mother. She’d like to believe Susan’s assurances that that little bit of security wasn’t dependent on Karl.
“Will you be warm enough?” His hand was cool when he handed over the fancy clutch he’d bought her to match her dress. She wanted him to run that hand over her belly and down until his arctic tranquility melted under her heat.
She hoped her smile covered up the nonsense in her brain. “Of course.”
Susan called out, “Have fun, kids,” as they walked out the front door.
* * *
THEIR PROGRESS THROUGH the Civic Opera House lobby was slowed as Karl greeted people he knew. While he shook hands, Vivian took the opportunity to gawk at her surroundings. After living in Las Vegas, she wasn’t a country bumpkin any longer and could recognize the difference between a historic building restored to grandeur and a modern building designed to look old. The towering white columns and red carpet looked like Hollywood glamour meets a downtown bank as reimagined for the opera. Or what she supposed opera was—over-the-top, loud and in a language she wouldn’t understand. The only thing she knew about the opera they were watching tonight was that it was one of Karl’s favorites.
She’d passed this building many times on her daily walks through the city while she’d still been living with Karl. The front of the structure looked like a towering office building, and she’d had to cross the river to see why it was called Insull’s Throne.
In the midst of the women in elegant dresses and silver-haired men in tuxes milling around in the white stone lobby, she was glad Karl had bought her a dress. The black pants, white shirt and Asian-print brocade vest she’d worn dealing would have looked out of place and it was the nicest thing she owned—she’d sold her dresses before moving.
When they’d settled into their seats, Vivian opened her program to learn about the spectacle she was about to watch and blinked when she read the description. Then she read the description again. “You brought me to an opera about a woman whose baby is murdered?”
She flipped the program over to look at the cover, Jenufa. She flipped back to the synopsis.
Karl looked at the program open in her hands. “The peasant girl is the title character, but the story is more about the decisions of the Kostelnicka, the stepmother who murders the baby.”
“I still can’t believe you brought a pregnant woman to an opera about infanticide.”
“Makes how my mom greeted you at that first family dinner seem insignificant in comparison.”
She jerked up from the program to look at him. His eyes were twinkling and the corners of his mouth kicked up in a smile. She laughed. “It’s even worse that you would joke about it.”
The tightness in his jawline as he had walked through the lobby was gone and his smile was real—and blinding. “Don’t tell anyone. It will ruin my reputation.”
The lights dimmed and the curtain rose on a bare set. Even after having read the description, she was expecting castles and giant sailing ships—props to wow her, not a bare stage with a table and a couple boulders. The orchestra started and she peeked at Karl.
If she hadn’t spent so much time watching him, she wouldn’t have noticed the small evidence of his immersion in the music. His face wasn’t void of emotion; his feelings were simmering just below the surface. The corners of his eyes dipped and his brows lowered as his shoulders relaxed. His body leaned forward as an extension of his attention reaching all the way to the stage. Seeing those small movements were her reward for paying attention to him.
When he blinked rapidly, she turned her eyes back to the stage in time to see Jenufa grasping her face. One of the characters, Laca, had just slashed her cheek to make her less attractive to Steva, the father of Jenufa’s child and Laca’s half brother. The music swept through Vivian and she didn’t turn to look at her husband again until the curtain dropped and the lights came back on.
