Since her mouth had been agape pretty much the whole time he’d been talking, the question was largely rhetorical.
“I pay attention,” he told her. “Because I care.”
The phrase had come out of his mouth before he could catch it. But the truth settled into his chest, fitting into the nooks and crannies far better than he would have expected. He did care. There was nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t the same thing as love, and besides, he already had his out predefined. There was no forever kind of happiness on his horizon with Tilda, nor did he want that.
Or rather, he didn’t deserve it.
Which wasn’t the same thing at all. He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth.
“Since you’re so smart, what am I supposed to do about that?” she asked him, hands on her hips.
He shrugged. “Easy. You let me take you shopping. The only caveat is that you have to wear whatever I pick out.”
“You’d do that?” Now she just sounded suspicious, like he made a habit of offering to take women shopping for nefarious reasons.
“Make no mistake. I’m picking out what you wear under it, too. None of this is for you. It’s all for me.”
When her shoulders relaxed, that’s when he risked reaching out to pull her into his arms. She melted against him and it was every bit the sweet victory he’d hoped for.
“Okay,” she murmured into his jacket. “You win. But only because I can’t wait to see what you have in mind.”
That made two of them. He’d never shopped for a woman before, unless you counted birthday presents for his mom, and that was so not applicable here that it wasn’t funny. But he could not deny that he’d longed to dress her in outfits of his choosing.
“That’s a secret I can’t share yet. Soon.”
He kissed her temple as the last of the tension between them dissolved. Funny how often he found himself doing something that had its basis in comfort or affection. Before Tilda, he would have said a kiss led to sex a hundred percent of the time; otherwise, why bother?
But he liked providing Tilda with comfort and affection. And if it helped her, great.
But as he wrapped up work for the day, his mind was squarely on the question of whether it was helping her—or him.
There was no good answer for that.
He led his wife out to the limo that would whisk them to the exclusive shopping center he’d learned about from Hendrix’s wife, Roz, and pushed all his questions to the background. Tilda needed a dress.
* * *
Actually, the dress needed Tilda.
On the hanger, lifeless. On the woman? A work of art.
Warren could not take his eyes off his wife as she emerged from the dressing room in the teal midlength dress with sleeves to her elbows. It was both elegant and stylish, showing nothing but a bit of leg, which left the eye of the beholder to notice only Tilda’s radiance.
“I like it,” she said softly, and he nodded because he didn’t trust his voice to work. “I’m going to wear it out.”
Warren handed the beaming clerk his credit card without looking because he didn’t want to miss a moment of Tilda in that dress. “Don’t put your hair up.”
“I wasn’t going to. Thank you.” She settled a hand on his arm and her warmth bled all the way through his suit jacket. “For the dress. And coming with me.”
“The pleasure is all mine.” Understatement.
Warren took Tilda to the priciest restaurant in Raleigh. Not because he cared about being seen, though there was plenty of that going on. More than one diner had shot a sidelong glance at their table, and there was a discreet photographer making rounds who probably worked for a society column. Since it was all good for Tilda’s green card, he didn’t mind.
What he did mind was how difficult it was to sit across from his wife in a public place knowing what she had on under the teal dress. Yeah, he’d followed through on that, selecting a matching silk bra and thong. There was nothing daring about the lingerie, either. All in all, the whole ensemble was relatively respectable.
What was driving him nuts was how Tilda had blossomed the moment she’d stepped into the room wearing it. She owned her beauty, her confidence. Wore both fiercely, as if daring anyone to try and take them from her. He’d never been more proud of another person in his life and the lump in his throat could not be washed away with any amount of wine.
In the end, he might as well have taken Tilda to McDonald’s for all the attention he’d paid to the food. He honestly couldn’t have said what he’d ordered or what color the wine had been that they’d drunk, though he was relatively certain he’d noted the bottle had cost him five hundred dollars when he glanced at the bill.