Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 559

DOMINIC

"I will get Scarlett first," Sparrow said. He was already looking at her, across the terrace, and something in his face had gone soft in a way that still startled me to see. "We will be right behind you."

I offered Celeste my arm and we left him there.

By the time we reached the changing room I had prepared, the guests had started to move following the emcee's announcement. They drifted in ones and twos down the long lawn toward the water, following the line of lanterns we had staked along the path, and the music followed them, the orchestra packing up their stands and carrying everything down to the sand where a second stage had been built into the dunes.

From there I could see the beach laid out below like something off a postcard. Strings of bulbs hung between the palms in long gold arcs. Tables with white cloths and candles stood in rows along the sand. Stalls had been set at the far end with food and drink, a bar built out of driftwood, a dance floor of polished boards laid over the dunes, and everything of it glowing.

And past all of it, a hundred yards out where the water went black and deep, sat the yacht. Every deck was lit. Rail upon rail of warm light climbing four stories into the dark, and the whole thing throwing a second, upside down version of itself across the water beneath it. Nobody had boarded yet. The launches were still tied at the dock with their engines cold, and the yacht sat out there burning with light and empty, like a present nobody had been allowed to open.

The dressing room was long and low and warm, and along one wall hung a rack of dresses, sixty of them at least, running from bone white to deep ocean blue, all carefully prepared according to Celeste's tastes. She turned a slow circle with her mouth open.

"You can make your choice from here," I said, standing back with my hands in my pockets. "And if you do not like any of them, there is someone on standby who will bring you anything else you want. Anything at all."

"Hold still," I said, as I took the tab between my fingers.

"I cannot help it," she said, and shifted her weight. "Your breath is fanning my neck. It tickles." She moved again, and the dress slipped an inch, and I stepped much closer without deciding to, close enough that my chest almost touched her back, and I put my mouth on her shoulder and kissed it once, and slow. She went still.

I drew the zip up halfway, slow enough to hear every tooth catch, and then my arms came around her waist and I held her from behind, my chin on her shoulder, both of us facing the mirror.

"Have I told you," I whispered, "that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?"