Page 124 of Objection Overruled
Because I’m about to walk into that ballroom with my hand on her back, right where her dress dips low. I’m going to introduce her as mine—not pretending, not performing, just stating fact. I’m going to watch other men notice her and know that she’s coming back to my room tonight.
The knowledge sits hot and possessive in my chest, dangerous in its certainty. Because this was supposed to be a business arrangement with clear boundaries.
Instead, she’s standing in my room, wearing a dress that’s going to haunt me.
“We’re going to be late,” she says, but she’s leaning into me now, her weight warm against my back.
“Let them wait.”
“Rowan.” My name on her lips, half-warning, half-want.
I turn then, finally, breaking the mirror’s spell. She has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact, and the movement exposes the line of her throat, the place where her pulse is racing. If I touch her now, we won’t be leaving this room—but I let myself look anyway.
“You should put your shoes on,” I say, voice carefully controlled.
She steps back, and the loss of her warmth is immediate. But she keeps her eyes on mine as she bends to slip on her heels deliberately slow. Testing me.
She’s always been dangerous. But she’s lethal when she knows she’s won.
And from the smile playing at the corner of her mouth she knows exactly what she’s done to me.
We’re not over.
We never were.
We just got very good at pretending.
But after today, after that hour that undid three years of careful distance, I don’t think either of us is interested in pretending anymore.
She smooths her dress, and transforms into the polished version of herself. But I can still see the marks I left. The slight redness on her neck. The swollen quality of her mouth.
“Ready?” she asks, and there’s a challenge in it.
I offer her my arm, and when she takes it, when her fingers curl around my bicep.
“Ready,” I lie.
We walk to the door, her hand on my arm, my hand hovering at the small of her back where her dress leaves her bare. The silk whispers against her skin as she moves, and I’m already calculating how quickly we can leave this dinner.
Our fingers thread together the moment we step into the hallway, with no thought required. Her palm fits against mine the way it always did—perfectly wrong and perfectly right.
Outside, the evening air hits my skin, cooler now that the sun is bleeding orange across the horizon. The manicured path stretches toward the main hall, our shadows long and intertwined on the walkway. Every few steps, I catch her glancing from under her lashes.
Neither of us smiles.
But our hands stay locked.
Mine wrapped around hers. Hers gripping back.
The dining hall announces itself before we reach it—warm light spilling from tall windows, the orchestrated sound of laughter that’s really just networking in evening wear. The clink of glasses. The murmur of ambition dressed up as small talk.
Tessa’s shoulder brushes mine as we pause at the threshold, and I feel her subtle shift closer. “This feels more like a court gala than a retreat.”
Her voice is steady, but I can feel the slight tremor in her fingers. She’s nervous. Not of the room, but of walking into it together. Of what we look like now, after what we just did. If everyone can see it on us—the flush still on her skin, the way I can’t stop touching her. Our bodies are still having a conversation our mouths can’t.
“That’s because it is,” I murmur back, letting my thumb stroke once across her knuckles. A tiny comfort. A promise that I’m here. “Just with worse lighting and more seafood.”
We don’t make it two steps before they materialize.
