Her fingers paused around the glass. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. The color still on her cheeks told a different story, and the sight of Whitmore noticing it made my jaw lock. He looked at her as if he had the right to ask questions, as if concern gave him access to parts of her that had nothing to do with him. Poor bastard had no idea that my fingers had been buried deep inside her just minutes ago, no idea that the flush he was studying was all thanks to me.
Giselle, however, was watching with a different kind of attention. Her gaze moved from Edwina to me. The moment our eyes met, something knowing passed through her expression before she looked back at Edwina. Interesting. If Giselle had started putting the pieces together, tonight might become far more entertaining than I had expected.
The music shifted into a slower rhythm, drawing people from their tables toward the dance floor. Chairs moved back, conversations softened, and the first couples stepped beneath the chandeliers while laughter followed them into the center of the room. I watched Edwina lift her glass again, still trying to hide the evidence of what had happened between us.
I remained where I was, leaning back slightly in my chair with a glass of champagne resting loosely between my fingers while my attention stayed exactly where it had been all evening.
On Edwina.
Edwina had pulled herself back together after returning to the table, though the color on her cheeks still gave her away. Giselle was talking about the department again, but her attention kept drifting toward us, sharp enough to tell me she had started suspecting something neither of us had said aloud.
Then the music changed. The first notes of “Earned It” by The Weeknd moved through the hall, slow and dark enough to pull couples toward the dance floor, and Whitmore noticed beforeanyone else. He turned toward Edwina with that easy little smile I was starting to fucking hate and pushed his chair back.
“Well,” he said, “looks like they’re finally playing something worth dancing to.”
Edwina laughed under her breath. “I’m not sure I—”
He stood before she could finish and held out his hand. “Come on.”
It was harmless to everyone else. A man asking a woman to dance at a wedding reception. Nothing worth noticing. Nothing worth ruining the night over. Except it was her hand he was reaching for, her body he wanted near his, her attention he thought he had earned, and every second of it made something possessive and ugly move through me.
Edwina hesitated. Her gaze moved toward the dance floor, then to Giselle, as if looking for a way out.
Giselle only smiled. “You should go. You’ve been sitting all evening.”
Whitmore kept his hand out, patient and polite, playing the perfect fucking gentleman while standing close enough to what had never stopped being mine.
Edwina exhaled and placed her hand in his. “Alright.”
And just like that, the last of my restraint started to rot.
Whitmore guided her from the table, leading her toward the center of the dance floor where the other couples had begun to gather. The red of her dress moved around her as she walked beside him, her hair catching the light, her hand still resting in his as if there were nothing wrong with another man touching what I had spent years trying and failing to forget.
I watched every step.
When they reached the dance floor, Whitmore’s hand settled against the small of her back with the kind of ease that made my blood turn mean. He guided her into the rhythm of the music, and Edwina let him. She moved with him, spoke to him, gavehim pieces of her attention as though I had not had her breath breaking against my mouth only minutes ago.
Then she smiled.
A real smile. The kind that reached her eyes.
My fingers tightened around the champagne glass until the stem threatened to snap. A few moments ago, she had come apart under my fingers, trembling with the same need she kept pretending did not exist, and now she was on the dance floor with someone else, letting that polite little bastard hold her like he had earned the right.
I fucking hated it.
His hand on her waist made something vicious crawl through me. Her laughter made it worse. The ease between them, the way he leaned close to say something near her ear, the way she did not step back from him, all of it fed the same ugly thought until it became impossible to ignore.
The music carried them across the floor with the other couples, and every second I watched felt like another test of restraint I had no interest in passing. I let them finish one song.
One.
That was all the patience I had left.
I set the champagne glass down and crossed the room before I could talk myself out of it. As I reached the dance floor, the song changed, and “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims filled the room. Fitting, considering she had been testing mine all night.
They noticed me when I stopped beside them. Whitmore looked surprised. Edwina went tense the moment our eyes met.