I Choose Him, Your Worst Enemy novel Chapter 169

Wynette stepped back into the banquet hall and scanned the room.

She was looking for Adriel.

He wasn't anywhere she could see, and neither were Jamie or any of the others.

"Wynette."

Alice appeared at her elbow.

Wynette felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. "I was just looking for all of you."

Thank goodness Alice had found her first.

Alice caught her wrist lightly. "Jamie set up a private lounge. Adriel came out to wait for you in the hall because he didn't want you wandering around on your own. Did you not run into him?"

Adriel had slipped out of the banquet hall early, quietly worried about Wynette's grape allergy and the very real chance that someone might hand her a drink without checking first.

Back in the lounge, Gavin had been cheerfully speculating that Adriel's absence meant he was somewhere confessing his feelings to Wynette, and had been teetering on the edge of going out to catch them in the act before Alice had shut that down with a firm hand.

She'd figured that if Adriel was actually in the middle of something important, Gavin would absolutely ruin it.

After a while, Alice had used the excuse of needing some air to step out, and the first person she'd spotted was Wynette, standing alone in the banquet hall without Adriel anywhere near her.

She'd crossed the room immediately.

"I didn't see him," Wynette said honestly. "I really didn't."

Alice frowned, puzzled. "He said he was going out to wait for you. Do you think he went back in? We should probably check."

Except she'd come straight down that one corridor from the lounge, and Adriel hadn't passed her once.

Wynette hooked a finger gently around Alice's. "Want to get some air?"

She wasn't particularly fond of crowded social settings, and since Alice had already stepped out, she figured the invitation was worth accepting.

Alice genuinely wasn't fond of them either.

Her health as a child had made quiet a necessity, and even when she'd attended events with her parents, she'd always been handled with exaggerated delicacy, insulated from the noise.

What she couldn't stand was the way people looked at her, that particular blend of pity and careful sadness, as though her very presence required a soft voice and a gentle expression.

She'd disliked public settings for as long as she could remember, and the stares even longer.

Wynette's suggestion landed like an answered prayer. "Let's go. I've been wanting to feel the sea breeze anyway."

Just as they reached the door, a staff member appeared with two light cardigans draped over one arm.

The style was unmistakably Alice's preference, which meant Jamie had arranged it in advance.

Alice helped Wynette into one and pulled the other around her own shoulders, then steered them both toward the deck.

Compared to the bright, clamorous warmth of the banquet hall, the night outside felt like stepping into a different world entirely.

The deck lights were on, but they were low and amber-toned, casting more shadow than illumination.

And there was Adriel, not far off, his back turned to them.

Facing him was a tall, striking woman in a deep red silk gown that moved with her in the sea breeze, her long, loose waves caught and lifted by the wind.

Wynette reached back and caught Alice's arm before she could move.

Alice had just opened her mouth to ask what was wrong when she followed Wynette's line of sight and her eyes went very wide.

Well.

She'd assumed Adriel had gone back inside.

And instead he was out here with a woman who looked like that.

She glanced sideways at Wynette, whose face was completely, almost unnervingly calm, and found herself at a genuine loss for words.

How is Wynette this composed right now?

Alice started forward, ready to intervene, and Wynette pulled her back.

Wynette shook her head.

Adriel was already moving before she touched him, stepping cleanly to one side without breaking stride.

Snow stumbled into empty air and barely caught herself.

Adriel didn't spare her a single glance.

He'd already spotted Wynette and Alice standing further down the deck, and the cold, closed-off look on his face shifted the moment he did.

He crossed to Wynette in a few quick strides, looked at the light cardigan she was wearing, and shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders before she could protest. "What are you doing out here?" he said, and then, before she could answer, "Nothing happened with her. A staff member told me you were out here waiting, so I came out. That's all."

He rushed through the explanation with an urgency he clearly couldn't help, as though the window to prevent a misunderstanding was actively closing.

Alice pressed her lips together very hard.

The man who had just dismissed someone's heartfelt confession with the emotional investment of a person checking off a grocery list was now standing in front of Wynette looking genuinely, almost painfully anxious.

The contrast was staggering.

Is he always going to be this ridiculously devoted? Because it's getting difficult not to be envious.

Wynette, for her part, had gone still at the transformation, and it took her a long moment to come back to herself. "Okay," she said.

One word. Simple, quiet, unbothered. And she had not the slightest on how to answer otherwise.

Adriel's brow knit slightly as he looked at her with an expression that bordered on wounded.

Someone had just confessed feelings for him in front of her, and his entire anxious explanation got a single "okay" in return.

He'd expected a little more than that.

The realization settled in his chest with the particular, unreasonable ache of a man who'd convinced himself he needed something and wasn't getting it.

Across the deck, Snow watched Adriel fuss over Wynette's jacket with an urgency he'd never once directed at her, explaining himself with a care she'd never once received, and felt the humiliation of it burn all the way through her.

The difference in how he treated them was so stark it was almost unkind.

She was absolutely furious.