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I took a beat and checked myself. He was going to be her fiancé and, if she was fine with it, he had every right to admire her. I was just being overprotective, afraid of seeing her get hurt.
Inside, I glanced over the packed front room and spotted Osian at the bar with a handful of his friends. They were all Ivy League grads with bored expressions, faces already red from drinking. Beside them, Rhys Cardiff leaned on the bar talking to a blonde woman who was definitely not his wife.
I wasn’t surprised. I knew his type.
Candice appeared on my other side and seized Clara’s elbow and dragged her into the crowd. I saw them huddle by the bar, sending glances over to where Yale stood with Caden by his side.
They were both dressed identically to me, not on purpose. The women had done a good job coming up with creative ways to stay on theme, but every single man had gone with the basic fitted black tux.
Yale was smirking and practically eye-fucking Candice, who kept shooting him dirty looks over her shoulder. Caden lounged over the bar beside him, ice cold and checked out as usual. He never had to put in effort to get laid, he just zeroed in on his prey and pulled one of his low effort party tricks out. Nine times out of ten, it worked.
But I was here for Clara, not to get laid.
Until she moved out that wasn’t an option.
Drawing up beside Rhys Cardiff, I jerked my head at the blonde woman and she disappeared. Rhys scowled.
“Where’s your wife?” I asked lightly.
“Too tired to come,” he said.
I tapped the counter and the bartender leaned across. “I’ll have the ten-year bourbon.”
He passed me a glass and refilled Rhys’s martini and disappeared. I turned so I could keep the room in my field of vision.
“I’m not impressed with how your son is handling Clara’s birthday,” I said in a low voice.
“How’s that?”
“He hasn’t sent her anything. And, last I checked, he hasn’t texted or called her. Do we have a problem?”
Rhys frowned. “He bought a gift, I know that.”
“Well, at this point, it better be fucking diamonds.”
We both watched as Osian broke away from his friends and made his way slowly across the room to where Clara stood. He put his hand on her lower back and she jumped, turning. Her cheeks went a little pink as he leaned in and whispered something into her neck.
“They seem like they’re getting along,” Rhys said.
Osian bent in closer and his lips brushed her cheekbone. This time Clara blushed up to her hairline and accepted his hand, letting him lead her to the far side of the room. They paused in the corner, half hidden by the crowd, and I saw Osian reach into his pocket.
I noticed he was wearing almost the same watch as me, which I found vaguely annoying. I knew I should have gone with a custom instead of my Rolex.
Something ugly simmered deep in my chest.
“I’m…got to go,” Rhys said, his eyes fixing on another woman at the other side of the bar.
“Good to see you,” I said crisply. “Tell your wife I said hello.”
He nodded curtly and disappeared. Before I could move I felt a hand on my lower back and I turned to find my therapist, Gretchen Hughes. She was a slender, blonde woman of about fifty-five with a feline face and silvery gray eyes.
“Gretchen,” I said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I’m actually here as someone’s date, but thank you for the invite.”
Her voice was soft and cultured. For other people, this situation might have been strange, but Gretchen wasn’t just my therapist, she was my friend as well as part of my social circle.
We both knew many of the same powerful men. I made business deals with them in boardrooms by day and she made them beg in bedrooms by night. It was a comfortable arrangement where we traded clients back and forth.
