The soup course had been an exercise in auditory torture.
Twenty people ate in a silence so profound that the clinking of silver spoons against porcelain sounded like gunshots.
Aria sat perched on Damien's lap, her neon green dress pooling over his dark trousers like a toxic spill. She hadn't moved. She hadn't asked for a chair. In fact, she had settled in, leaning her back against his chest, her legs draped casually over his thigh—directly into Catherine's personal space.
Catherine, seated to Damien's right, was trying very hard to eat her consommé without looking left. But her eyes kept darting to them, burning with a mix of puritanical horror and a searing, ugly jealousy. She gripped her spoon so hard her knuckles were white.
That man was supposed to be her husband.
"Main course," the head footman announced, his voice tight with the strain of pretending this was a normal dinner.
