I stiffen, stepping away from him. “Jesus, Ryland. I can’t. This is way too much. I could buy a hundred other dresses for this price.”
He follows my movement, closing the space between us again as his fingers lift my chin slightly. Desire still sparks in his eyes, but there’s something else there too now.
Possessiveness.
Pride.
“A hundred other dresses wouldn’t fit you like this one,” he murmurs softly. “This is the one.”
I swallow, fighting down the surge of emotions that rises in my chest. I’ve never had someone spend this much money on me before. Not by a long shot. But more than that, I’ve never had someone take care of me before—not until Marcus, Ryland, and Theo came into my life.
It’s a foreign feeling, and one that goes against everything I’ve taught myself to believe. But I’m slowly learning to trust it. To accept it.
After all, I fought tooth and nail with Ryland to get him to let me help the men in their dangerous game. I want to take care of them too.
And maybe that’s not a bad thing.
I step forward, tilting my face up a little more and going onto my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. His grip on my chin tightens slightly, holding me in place as the kiss turns hungry and hard for a second. Then he releases me and steps back, scanning my body one more time as he tucks his bottom lip between his teeth.
“You’ll be the most gorgeous woman there.”
After he hunts down the flustered saleswoman and pays for the dress, we head back to Theo’s house to get ready.
As I shower, dry my hair, and dress, I wonder idly how much time Ryland spent over here before all of this, or how much time the two of them spent at Marcus’s house. I know they all have keys to each other’s places, trusted to come and go as they please. Did they ever think about just getting one place? A large house they could share?
I know we’re all still reeling from the trauma of Marcus’s disappearance, clinging to each other more tightly because of it, but the idea of Ryland not living here right now seems nonsensical.
We need to be together. To stick close by each other.
At seven, Theo comes upstairs to collect me. His reaction to the dress I picked out is similar to Ryland’s, and I flush all over again as he devours me with his gaze.
He doesn’t look half-bad himself. He’s wearing a tuxedo tonight, a sign that Luca D’Addario’s party is a more formal affair than the wake we attended last weekend. It makes him look polished and sharp, the crisp lines of his tux a beautiful contrast to the easy half-smile on his face. His eyes are still darker than usual, signs of strain still evident on his face, but I’m starting to notice it less and less—as if it’s simply become our new normal, a running constant that all three of us have to find a way to live with.
“Goddamn, Rose.” He shakes his head, looking at me with something almost like awe. “You’re fucking stunning.”
I’ve never had a low self-image when it comes to my appearance. Not because I think I’m some head-turning beauty, but because I like the way I look. I get self-conscious about my arm sometimes, but that’s part of why I got my tattoo—so I could find the beauty in my broken parts again.
Guys used to hit on me at Duke’s fairly often, and I always brushed them off. I never needed a man to tell me I was beautiful, and I tended not to believe overblown declarations of how “gorgeous” or “unique” I looked.
But the way Theo’s gazing at me right now?
It flips my heart inside out.
It makes me feel like I truly am stunning, in a way that goes far beyond physical appearance. Like he’s looking at the whole of me, my inside and outside, and can’t fucking believe how lucky he is.
My stomach dips, and I step forward, resting my hand on his chest as I kiss him softly. He hums against my lips—a warm, satisfied sound that travels through me like a shot of good tequila.
When we break apart, his blue-green eyes have lightened a little. He grins, making a small dimple appear in one cheek. “You ready for this?”
“To go to a party with a bunch of people who want to kill you?” I shrug. “Sure, why not?”
He actually laughs at that. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh in days, and although the sound is a little strange, it’s good to know he still can.
We meet Ryland downstairs, and the three of us pile into the car. I expect Theo to head toward Halston’s downtown, where the fanciest clubs and restaurants I know of are, but instead he drives west, taking us outside the city limits.
When we drive up to a mansion that dwarfs anything I’ve ever seen in my life, I crane my neck to peer out the window. “Holy motherfucker. Is this where Luca lives?”
“It’s one of his places, yeah. I don’t know if he lives here or somewhere else, but he’s hosted parties here before,” Theo says.