“Because I like it.”
“That answer has never once been innocent.”
He steps out a moment later, fastening the cuff of his shirt, already dressed for war in charcoal slacks and a white button-down. His hair is still damp from the shower, jaw freshly shaved, watch gleaming at his wrist. He looks like money, control, and trouble.
“I’m taking my wife to lunch,” he says. “Must every gesture be interrogated?”
“Yes.”
“Exhausting.”
“You were informed before you married me.”
His mouth twitches. That is the closest Rowan comes to public laughter before noon.
I cap the mascara and turn to face him fully. “Where are we going?”
“Out.”
“That is not a location.”
“It’s enough information.”
“It isn’t enough information for people who were raised with survival instincts.”
He crosses the bedroom in slow, unhurried steps and takes the tube of lipstick from my hand before I can protest. Then he sets it aside and fixes the strap of my slip where it has twisted beneath the dress. His fingers brush my shoulder. Every unnecessary touch from Rowan feels deeply intentional.
“You ask too many questions,” he murmurs.
“You answer too few.”
“That is why this works.”
I should be annoyed. Instead, I’m watching his hands adjust the necklace clasp at the back of my neck because apparently, I am weak.
We’ve been married three years now, long enough that I know the categories of Rowan’s silence. There is irritated silence, courtroom silence, punishing silence, smug silence, and dangerous silence.
Today is secretive silence.
Which means he’s planning something.
That usually ends in one of three ways: expensive jewelry, emotionally destabilizing tenderness, or sex. Occasionally, all three.
“I have a deposition at two,” I remind him.
“You rescheduled it.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
My eyes narrow. “Did you move my deposition?”
“I improved your schedule.”
“You cannot improve my schedule without my permission.”
“I just did.”
