Page 63 of Cruel Kiss

"He almost did," I say. "I talked him out of it."

Crosby laughs and slaps Ronan on the shoulder, then moves off into the crowd to work someone else. Ronan watches him go for a second, and something crosses his face, quick, gone before I can name it.

"You okay?" I ask.

"Fine."

"You made a face."

"Did I?"

"Yeah. The one where you're thinking about something you're not going to tell me about."

His mouth twitches. "You're getting good at that."

"Nah," I tease. "You're just easier to read than you think."

"You wish," Ronan murmurs, but he's smiling when he says it, and then a waiter drifts by with champagne and I take a glass off the tray just to have something to hold that isn't him.

The string quartet transitions into something slow. Couples move toward the middle of the floor. Ronan holds out his hand.

"We should dance," he says. "It's expected."

I let him lead me out under the biggest of those subway-car chandeliers. I put one hand on his shoulder and the other in his and remind myself, very sternly, that this is a performance. We are two actors playing a role for a room full of people who need to believe it, because the belief buys time and keeps my kids safe.

Then he starts to move. My body follows his the way it learned to do weeks ago in a different ballroom. Somewhere, between thefirst turnout and the second, I lose the thread of which thing I'm doing.

Because his hand is solid at my back and his thumb is drawing a slow line along my spine, just above the hem of my panties, and he's looking at me the way he looked at me at the aquarium, the way I asked him to look at me during the dress rehearsal—except nobody asked him to do it now. There's no clerk to convince. There's no fed at the bottom of the steps.

There's just us, turning under the light. I find myself thinking,Wait, is this the performance or is this the real thing?and I honestly cannot tell.

"You've gone quiet," he says.

"I'm concentrating."

"On what?"

"On not stepping on your very expensive shoes."

"Hm, I don't think that's the full story." He spins me out and reels me back so I collapse against his chest, breathless, one hand splayed on the black velvet lapel. "I'd like to listen, if you'd like to share."

"What makes you so sure there's something to share?"

"This." He touches the furrowed space between my brows, gently, with the pad of his thumb.

Well, I guess that's me getting caught red-handed. Or red-eyebrowed, I guess.

"It's supposed to be pretend," I tell him in a confused whisper, so the couple waltzing past us can't hear. "So why does it keep feeling so—" I stop and shake my head. "Never mind."

His arm tightens. A subtle change of pressure that pulls me a half inch closer, chest to chest, and he sways us into a slower turn. "In case you're wondering," he says against my temple, "I stopped pretending somewhere around the vows."

The song ends before I have to figure out what to do with that. Applause, polite and scattered. Ronan steps back and offers his arm again like a gentleman, or a stranger, or a man who did not just say what he said.

I'm reaching to take it when I spot the woman who just won't quit.

Agent Gia Mercer is standing by the bar in a black cocktail dress that is doing an admirable job of pretending it isn't a federally-issued uniform. She has a glass of something clear in her hand that I would bet the deed to my house is water. She's watching us, obviously. I don't think anyone here is quite as high on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

"She's here," I mumble.