“Watch it.” Ducane’s hand found mine as pulled me up and placed a hand on the small of my back. “Mudd, this is my wife. Skye. Skye, this is Mudd.”
I watched it land on him. Wife. His eyebrows went up, and he looked at Ducane with a smirk and then back at me.
“Call me Joseph.”
“Alright, let me tell Alexis you’re over here flirting with my wife. Call you Joseph. Fuck outta here.” Ducane laughed. So did Mudd, “I’ll even be her attorney for when she peels your shit back.”
“That’s cold.” Mudd laughed but took my hand, gentle, almost reverent. “Skye. It’s a real pleasure. Your husband saved my life. You should know that. He walked into a federal courtroom with the whole world betting against me and walked me out a free man. Best in the business. And clearly,” he pointed his glass at me, “he’s got better taste than I gave him credit for.”
“He has his moments,” I said. “There was this one tim…”
“Aight, enough of y’all feeding off each other.”
Mudd threw his head back and laughed, loud enough that the jazz trio almost lost their place.
“Oh, I like her.” He pointed at Ducane. “You keep this one. And bring her to the show next month, both of you. VIP. I owe you about a hundred favors. I’m starting with that.” He squeezed my hand once more. “Take care of him, Skye. He’s one of the good ones. Rare in his line of work. Rare in mine too. Solid nigga.”
“We square bruh. Just stay out the way and trust me on that other thing.”
They talked in code for a few minutes. And then he was gone, swallowed back into the low-lit room, leaving me staring after him.
“You’re a big deal sugar cane,” I said, warm all over.
“I just did my job.” But he couldn’t hide the pride in it, and I didn’t want him to.
“Ducane Simmons. The lawyer who beat the feds for Mudd.” I sat back, taking him in. He’d built a whole life out here without me, a version of him I was only now getting to meet. “I’m pleased to get acquainted with this version of you.”
“You know the only version that matters.” He brought my hand back to his mouth. “But yeah. This is the life I made when I couldn’t have the one I wanted. The firm’s mine now in everything but name. The entertainment side’s about to blow all the way up. Mudd was just the first.”
He turned my hand over, kissed my palm, and looked at me like he was choosing his words carefully.
“So, I gotta ask you something, and I don’t need an answer tonight.” He took a breath. “Could you see it? You, me, Cadence. A life out here. Not instead of Coupeville. Alongside it. Could you ever see yourself living here?”
There it was. The real reason for the room. The dinner with no sign. The whole night, laid at my feet like a question.
And God help me, after the beautiful streets, being added to his home in ways, then watching a platinum artist call my husband a solid nigga, I almost said yes right there. But I’d learned the hard way what it cost to make a decision about this family before I had the full picture.
“Ask me again after the gala,” I said, and squeezed his hand so he’d know it wasn’t a no. “Let’s see how your daddy does with all of us in one room. Then I’ll tell you what I can see.”
He studied me for a second, then nodded. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but the one he respected.
“Can I hold you to that?” he asked, sipping his drink.
“You can hold me to that.”
Neither one of us said what we were both thinking. That the gala could go a hundred ways, and only a few of them ended with me ever wanting to set foot in a room with Ruben Simmons again.
“My girls. Y’all look beautiful.”
Cadence did a spin in the big, poofy dress she’d picked out herself.
Skye stood off to the side, and I lost my train of thought.
The emerald silk hugged her through the bodice and hips before falling to the floor. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, a few loose pieces framing her face while tiny gold pins caught the light. Simple gold hoops. Her wedding ring was the only other jewelry she wore.
Classy. Elegant.
And still the finest woman in the building before we even walked out the door.
