My Husband Hired Him to Seduce Me

I kissed the stranger because, for one reckless minute, he looked at me like I was not a wife being erased.

His hand stopped at my waist before it became a promise.

Mine did not.

The flash came from behind the marble column.

Then my husband stepped out holding eight glossy photos, each one stamped with the date, the time, and the name of the hotel bar where he had sent me.

Victor smiled like he had won a trial before it started.

He placed a property waiver on the table and tapped the line where my signature should go.

The stranger stood ten feet away, pale, silent, with a tiny black earpiece still in his ear.

That was when I understood the kiss had not been temptation.

It had been evidence.

Victor said, "Sign, Sloane."

I looked at the man I had just kissed and asked, "How much did he pay you?"

***

I folded the draft separation agreement into the hidden compartment of my clutch and pressed the stiff pages flat against the silk lining. My thumb brushed the raised lettering on Nora Keats's business card just as my husband caught my elbow.

"Mara, this is my wife." Victor Kline tightened his grip until his fingers found bone. "She restores things."

Mara Ellison tilted her champagne flute. Her gaze traveled over my plain black dress, my bare throat, and the hands that still carried a faint trace of varnish beneath the nails.

"How quaint," she said. "Still useful for soft lighting, I suppose."

"Exactly." Victor released me as if I had completed my purpose. "Come, Mara. The main hall has the pieces that actually matter."

"Don't wait up, Sloane," Mara added.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Victor guided her toward the center of the Morgan House charity preview, one hand at the small of her back. I stayed beside the coat check and looked at the silver-framed landscape I had spent three months restoring. The discreet tag beneath it read forty-two thousand dollars. My name appeared nowhere.

Five years earlier, I had signed a blue notary folder and pledged my Lake Geneva cottage to cover Victor's nine-hundred-thousand-dollar margin call. He had promised we were building an empire together. Tonight, I was not here to smile at his clients or play the loyal wife. I needed to confirm the final joint inventory before Nora served him with divorce papers.

I photographed the tag, the catalog number, and the condition report clipped behind the frame. When I lowered my phone, Victor was watching me from across the room. Mara said something near his ear. His expression did not change, but his attention shifted toward the terrace doors.

A waiter hurried past with a tray stacked high with empty glasses. Another came from the opposite direction. Their shoulders clipped. A glass of Pinot Noir slid toward the edge.

A man stepped between me and the falling glass.

Wine struck the sleeve of his charcoal suit and spread in a dark stain from wrist to elbow. My dress remained untouched.

"Apologies," he said.

His voice was low and controlled. He was tall, broad through the shoulders, with dark hair that looked as if he had run a hand through it once and decided not to try again.

"You didn't spill it," I said.

"I still seem to be wearing it."

He took a gray handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to me. I looked down. One red drop had landed on my bare wrist.

"May I?" he asked.

The question stopped me. Victor had not asked permission before touching me in years.

I held out my arm. The stranger dabbed the wine away without closing his fingers around my wrist. His attention stayed on the stain, not my body.

"Damian Cross," he said.

"Sloane Hart."

His eyes lifted. Recognition flashed there, quick enough to seem accidental. "The restorer."

"Apparently that is all I am tonight."

"Then the room is badly curated."

The line should have sounded rehearsed. Instead, it landed in the hollow place Victor had spent eighteen months creating. I took the handkerchief from him and inspected the wine-darkened corner.

"You know art?"

"Enough to recognize when the signature matters more than the man selling it."

He nodded toward my landscape. The catalog credited Hart and Kline Gallery. The restoration note had been reduced to a single line in the back.

"You read the condition report," I said.

"I read everything before I walk into a room."

Across the gallery, Victor raised two fingers. A private signal to one of the event photographers. The man shifted closer to the terrace.

Damian followed my gaze. "Your husband seems interested in where you stand."

"My husband is interested in controlling the frame."

The string quartet changed songs. Victor appeared at my side before I could ask Damian another question.

"Sloane, the donors expect you to dance," Victor said.

"With you?"

His mouth thinned. "I have to speak with the auction chair. Mr. Cross can keep you occupied."

Damian's expression hardened for half a second. Then he offered his hand.

I should have refused. I knew that. But Victor had already turned away with Mara, and every pair of eyes around us had seen him pass me to another man like an unwanted obligation.

I placed my hand in Damian's.

He kept a careful distance on the dance floor. His palm rested lightly against my back. No pressure. No claim.

"You can say no," he murmured.

"To the dance?"

"To any part of this evening."

The words sank deeper than they should have. I looked up at him. His jaw was tense, as if he had said something forbidden.

At forty seconds, his hand shifted closer to my waist.

The movement was precise. Too precise.

I noticed the photographer near the column. His lens tracked us through the turn. Victor stood behind him, speaking to Mara without looking in my direction.

"Take me off this floor," I said.

Damian guided me through the terrace doors. Cold air cut through the heat trapped under my skin. The city glittered below, hard and distant.

"Was that rescue part of the service?" I asked.

"No."

"What service are you providing?"

He looked toward the ballroom. A tiny black device sat behind his right ear, almost hidden beneath his hair.

Before I could identify it, Victor's voice carried through the open terrace door.

"Closer."

Damian went still.

The answer was right there, but loneliness moved faster than reason. I caught Damian's collar and kissed him.

For one stunned second, he did not respond. Then his hand touched my waist, warm and restrained, and the camera shutter began firing behind us.

Eight flashes.

Eight glossy photographs before the kiss was even over.

I shoved Damian back. "You knew."

Victor stepped onto the terrace with Mara and the photographer behind him. He did not look betrayed. He looked satisfied.

"Thank you, Sloane," he said. "You just made the property division very simple."

Two security guards closed in beside the door. Victor took my elbow and steered me toward the VIP lounge. Damian followed, his face stripped of color.

Inside, a forty-page property waiver waited on the glass table. My name was already printed beneath the signature line. So were the Lake Geneva cottage, my gallery shares, and the joint investment account.

"Sign," Victor said. "Or the board receives the photographs at six."

Damian reached for the device behind his ear.

I moved first.

I tore the warm black earpiece free and crushed it in my fist.