Page 32 of Honey Cut
“It matters more to me that the members of Lyonesse see me as one of their own,” I tell him, and I mean it. “That I belong to you fully, even on a rooftop in Manhattan with reporters in attendance. That I chose this.”
He jerks his hand away from the ribbon, like he has to force himself to stop touching my throat.
“And so you did,” he says as he offers me his hand. The still-bright evening light of summer is pouring through the glass doors to the rooftop, catching on his hair and eyelashes and the rough gold now dusting his jaw. It catches the cling of his jacket to his shoulders and arms, the fine lines around his eyes. With me in a dress like this and him looking like he does, there is no mistaking the differences in our ages or in power.
It should be diminishing, but as we clasp hands and walk through the doors to music and applause, it feels…good. Like his age and his power are mine to borrow and steal and use.
Or maybe I’m just a masochist and I secretly like feeling small next to him.
The reaction to my dress is as expected, but I’m ready for it and field all the pointed comments and arched eyebrows with murmured demurrals about how much I adore the designer. There is cake, followed by champagne, and then Mark and I share our first dance, so much like our actual first dance years ago, when I’d been certain he hated me.
My eyes wander as we move, Mark’s hand firm and guiding at the small of my back, his steps graceful.
“Who are you looking for?” asks Mark in a murmur.
“Just taking in the crowd.”
Which is a lie. I’m looking for Tristan. I need to be more careful.
“If you’re noticing the absence of our bodyguard,” Mark says, and his voice is low but casual, uninflected, “he asked if he could go ahead to our hotel to evaluate the security there.”
Tristan asked to leave? I know it’s selfish to want him here, but there’s still a corrosive hollow in my stomach knowing that he’s gone.
“Logical,” I say, and my voice is as casual as Mark’s.
“A shame,” Mark says. “He is missing you in this dress.”
The hollow in my stomach creeps up to my chest, but I force my nervous system not to register his words as a threat. Even if he knew about Tristan and me, it was before the wedding. It didn’t count. So I need to stop worrying about it.
Tristan guessed from the lack of yacht footage on Mark’s computer that either Sedge had deleted the recordings or Mark had. In one instance, it meant that Mark didn’t know. In the other, it meant that he did know and had decided not to prosecute the case.
I lean toward the first option; I think Mark is too fond of psychological mindfuckery to have resisted using Tristan and me against one another. But he’s not the only one with leverage here.
The green-eyed sword of Tristan cuts both ways.
“A shame he’s missing more of you in this tuxedo, then,” I say softly, and Mark’s eyebrow lifts.
“Yes,” he says, and nothing else, and then the dance ends.
There is more dancing after that, of course, me with my father and Mark with Melody, as their parents are long dead. We mingle as a couple and then separately, and then finally I come across the Serbian banker, who is all too eager to dance with me and who can’t take his eyes off my breasts the entire time.
I don’t complain. It makes it very easy to bug him.
The night grows dark, and the guests grow drunk. My dress is less shocking in the city glow, and people are free with their chatter. Melody is looking at her wife like she’d like to bite into her like an apple, and Mark is at the far corner of the terrace, leaning against the wall and talking to a thin man with dark-olive skin, wire-rimmed glasses, and a shock of black hair. They are smiling, their postures easy, gesturing like old friends telling stories, but there is something about the way Mark is listening to him that strikes me as notable.
But I can’t watch them as much as I’d like because I’m in demand for small talk and dances and more toasts.
Until at last, Mark arrives to kiss my cheek and declare that it’s time for us to go. We are subjected to hugs and goodbyes and ribald grins, but Mark keeps us moving, until finally Mr. and Mrs. Trevena have left their wedding behind them and are on their way to their hotel.
twelve
ISOLDE
Through the windowsof our suite at the St. Regis, I see the velvet crater of Central Park.
The rooms are spacious, ridiculous—even to me, a daughter of Laurence Bank—but Mark pays attention to none of it. His eyes immediately find the wedding present I arranged to have waiting for him, and his whole demeanor changes.
“Is this for us?” he asks, sounding delighted.
