Chapter 2

Christen forced her mouth into something resembling a smile. The muscles in her cheeks felt like they belonged to someone else. "Good evening, Mr. Barrett. I apologize. I've had too much to drink and I clearly mistook you for someone else." "Someone else." Kile's mouth curved. The smile didn't touch his eyes. "You walked up to a man in a corner booth and offered him a revenge affair. How many men in corner booths are you planning to make that offer to tonight?" "That's not. I didn't." "You didn't plan to make it to more than one, or you didn't plan to make it at all." He released her chin. His thumb dragged along the edge of her jaw as he withdrew his hand. A casual, deliberate motion. The touch sent a shock up the side of her neck, and she hated that he saw it register on her face. He leaned back into the leather. Picked up his whiskey. Drank. Watched her over the rim of the glass. "I should go." Christen grabbed her clutch. The leather was slick under her fingers. She started to slide toward the edge of the booth. "Your husband seems busy tonight." She froze. Half out of the seat. Her hand gripping the edge of the table. Kile swirled the whiskey in his glass. The ice clicked. "Brendon Jimenez. I saw him slip upstairs about thirty minutes ago with a woman in a burgundy dress. Didn't look like business." The words landed one by one. Each one precise. He knew. He knew everything. He had been watching the whole time. Christen turned back. She sat down. Her body made the decision while her brain was still screaming at her to walk away. The anger was back, hotter than the gin, hotter than the shame. If this man was going to humiliate her, she wasn't going to run from it. She met his eyes and leaned forward. Her blouse shifted slightly. She didn't adjust it. "You seem very interested in the Jimenez family's business." She tilted her head. "Are you afraid of them, Mr. Barrett? Or just afraid of being seen with someone's wife." The silence that followed was absolute. The jazz piano kept playing somewhere in the distance. Glasses clinked at the bar. But inside the booth, the air had stopped moving. Kile Barrett laughed. It was not a warm sound. It was short and low and completely without humor. He moved before she could react. His upper body came forward, fast and silent, and suddenly his face was inches from hers. She could see the texture of his skin. "Afraid? You're the one who's afraid now," Kile said, his voice dropped until it was barely a murmur, the words brushing against her ear like a physical touch. "Your marriage is a performance. Everyone in this room knows it. Everyone in this city knows it." Christen's back went cold. He was right. Of course he was right. She had spent three years telling herself the distance in her marriage was normal. The separate bedrooms. The cold shoulders at dinner parties. She had made herself believe it. And this stranger, this man she had known for five minutes, had peeled it all back with a single sentence. She held onto the last thing she had. Her spine. She pulled herself upright and looked him in the face. "You don't know anything about me." Kile Barrett smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. He reached into his jacket and produced a slim black business card, its edges gilded in matte gold. He placed it on the table between them and slid it two inches in her direction. "In fact, I know you quite well. I admire your nerve coming up to me tonight. To encourage you, I'll give you a proposition too," he said. "When the divorce gets expensive, you'll need a good salary to pay for all those fees. I happen to know you were a top law school grad. I'd like to offer you a job in my company's legal department." He stood and left. The men in black suits closed ranks behind him. Christen sat frozen in the booth, the card glinting under the bar lights, her wedding ring suddenly heavy enough to pull her hand through the floor. She didn't remember leaving the bar. She found herself in the lobby, the black card pressed into the lining of her clutch like a splinter she couldn't dig out. Her face in the mirrored elevator panel was too pale, the blush she had applied six hours earlier standing out in two hectic circles on her cheekbones. The elevator doors opened onto the parking garage. She was ten steps from the exit when she heard them. Kaelynn's laugh. Normal now, the breathless edge sanded off, back to the bright social chirp Christen had heard a thousand times. Brendon's voice, low and easy, saying something about the valet. They rounded the corner together. Kaelynn's arm was linked through Brendon's. Her burgundy dress was perfectly smooth. Not a wrinkle. "There you are." Kaelynn detached herself and rushed forward. "We've been looking everywhere. Did you get lost?" Christen looked at the hollow of Kaelynn's throat. There was a mark there, pink and new. Barely visible under a layer of concealer. "Too much champagne," Christen said. Her voice came out steady. That surprised her. "I was in the restroom." Brendon moved toward her. His hand reached for the small of her back. The same hand. Christen stepped sideways. Not a flinch. A repositioning. The kind of small adjustment a woman makes when she's adjusting her purse strap or checking her phone. Brendon's hand hung in the air. His eyes narrowed. "I'm getting a car," Christen said. "I have a headache."