“We still keep up appearances tonight,” she added, quieter. “For the room. Not for him. There’s a difference, and I need you to understand it.”
“I understand.”
She kissed Cadence’s forehead, squeezed Skye’s hand once, and straightened up, gala-ready again in the space of a breath, thirty years of practice showing in how fast she could put the mask back on.
“Now come on,” she said. “Let’s go before your father finds us first.”
We didn’t have to look far.
Ruben was already crossing the room toward us, moving through the crowd, as if the floor owed him the space. His eyes found me first, then Skye, then dropped to Cadence.
I felt it happening before I saw it. Skye’s hand tightened on Cadence’s shoulder at the exact second mine did, and between one step and the next, we’d both eased her back, just slightly, just enough, until our girl was standing behind both of us instead of between.
Neither of us said a word about it. We didn’t have to.
Ruben stopped a few feet short of us, close enough to shake a hand, far enough to make it clear he wasn’t going to be the one to close the distance first. He had a drink in one hand and that same unreadable calm he wore like a second suit.
“Ducane.” His eyes moved over me, then landed on Skye. I caught the disdain showing before he buried it again. “And what do we have here?”
“Exactly what it looks like.” I kept my arm around Skye’s waist. “My wife. My family.”
“Wife.” He let the word hang there. “So, you ran to some island like a little boy and got married?”
“Nah.” I kissed Skye’s hand. “I married the love of my life seven years ago like a man.” I met his eyes. “I hope that ain’t gonna be a problem for you.”
Ruben’s eyes finally dropped to Cadence, half-hidden behind us, one small hand fisted in the back of my jacket.
“So this is Cadence.”
I felt Skye shift beside me.
His face didn’t change, and I waited for it. The flinch. The mask slipping, even a little. Some small human thing to prove this was landing on him the way it should land on a man finding out he had a grandchild for the first time.
It never came.
“Yes, my daughter. But your lack of reaction tells me you knew that.”
He looked down at her and then back to me and shrugged.
“I can’t even believe you right now.”
“Dena, stop acting all high and mighty. You were complicit.”
“Complicit in what, Ruben? Don’t you dare drag me into your shit. I would’ve been there for my grandbaby,” she hissed.
He waved her off, and I stepped forward.
“Cane, man up. You got the girl. You got the family; it seems to have all worked out. This is what you wanted all along, right? What’s the issue?”
“What’s the issue? What the fu?—”
I felt my rage about boiling over when I heard her.
“Daddy,” Sugar said, pulling on my jacket. That stopped me mid-sentence. I bent down to face her.
“What is it, princess?”
“My feet hurt again,” she giggled. I scooped her up.
