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“Wait until Dorothy hears about this,” Agnes grumbles as she elbows her way to the eye of the storm. At four feet, nine inches, Agnes should not take up as much room as she does. The woman is made of iron and acid, and her mere presence seems to make everyone give us a wide berth. She manages to look down her nose at Jared for a long moment, until he drops his eyes and takes a step back.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Agnes. It was an accident. Someone bumped me and I bumped into Rudy.”
Agnes says nothing. She stares him down for another long moment, then snorts. Just like that, Jared is dismissed. Agnes turns to Rudy and me, arches a brow at the lines of red carved into his cheek, his neck, his hands. She grips Rudy’s chin and turns his head, making a low, harsh noise at the sight of his blood. Then she turns to me and takes my hand, turning it this way and that to assess the damage.
Without Rudy’s presence beside me, I feel suddenly bare. I’m sticky with champagne, my arm is bloody, I know my face and hair are a mess, and it’s possible I’ve ruined Trina’s dress. Even worse, the eyes of all the guests are on me, and I can almost hear their whispers.
I close my eyes against the humiliation of it all.
Rudy must notice, because he disengages my hand from Agnes’s and leads me to the edge of the room and down a hallway. Within moments, he’s pushing open the door to a unisex bathroom. Unsurprisingly, it’s gorgeous. The vanity is long and looks like real stone, white interspersed with pink and grey veins. The taps are a trendy matte black, the soaps look expensive, and there are soft-looking towels rolled and stacked in a basket beside the sink.
Rudy turns the lock on the door and points to the vanity. “Sit.”
When I don’t move, he just grabs my waist and lifts me onto the counter himself. Then he leans over and produces a first aid kit from underneath the vanity, placing it on the other side of the sink.
“We should check you first,” I say, even though Rudy is already opening the first-aid kit and sorting through its contents until he finds a pair of tweezers in a sterilized packet. He opens it up without even deigning to answer. Then he begins a thorough, methodical examination of my injuries. First, he checks the half-dozen cuts on my forearm and hand for shards of glass. He plucks two tiny pieces out of the largest cut and places them on the counter, his face set in absolute concentration.
This is new to me—having someone look after me. I’ve been on my own a long time, but even the last few boyfriends I had wouldn’t have reacted like this. For all I call myself a strong, independent woman, I find myself enjoying this moment with Rudy.
The last time I was vulnerable with a man was when I told my ex-boyfriend about the baby. We’d been dating for only ten months, but it felt like so much longer. We’d talked about him coming here, meeting my family. We’d talked about the future. I’d been living in Milan for twice that length of time and had fallen into a whirlwind romance with a man who was in Italy on a work assignment. Phil was a fabric supplier for all the major fashion houses, so he was always flitting between Paris and Milan and London and New York and any other fashion mecca, seeing me every few weeks and promising me the world.
I thought I was in love with him, which was not my brightest moment. It was only after I told him about the baby that he admitted he had a wife and three kids back home in Paris. I didn’t even know he had a home other than his apartment in Milan. That’s how blind I was. We’d dated for ten months, and I had no idea I was the other woman.
When I told him I was keeping the baby, he walked out and hasn’t spoken to me since.
I suppose it would have been devastating, if not for the news I got a week later. The news that I haven’t even been able to face, even though the reality of it looms like a black cloud. Since then, I haven’t been able to catch my breath.
Until now.
Rudy runs clean water over my forearm and hand, patting it dry with a white towel that’s soon streaked with pink. He places bandages over every cut, smoothing them down over my skin with more care than I’d have for myself. Then, when it’s over, he lifts my palm up and places a kiss in the center of it.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I answer. “Is there another pair of sterilized tweezers in there?” I jerk my head to the first-aid kit. “Seems to me it’s your turn.”
Rudy holds my gaze for a moment, then rustles through the kit for another pair of tweezers. Still sitting on the counter, my knees having spread open at some point to let him inspect my body, I nod to his jacket. Without a word, Rudy removes it and stretches to hang it on a hook behind the door. He keeps his hips firmly planted between my thighs.
Blood has soaked into the collar and cuffs of his shirt. Gently, I undo his bowtie and unbutton the top three buttons of his shirt. I try to stop myself from inhaling sharply as a triangle of bronzed male skin is exposed at his throat. My hands, thankfully, manage to stay steady as I start my own methodical examination of his injuries.
Rudy took the brunt of the damage. Besides the champagne drying in his hair and making his skin sticky, both his hands, his neck, and his cheek have been cut. He leans his palms against the counter as I start with his face, using a clean towel to wipe the dried blood away once I’ve checked for shards of glass.
Thankfully, the cuts on his face and neck are shallow nicks, and there are no pieces of glass. Once they’re cleaned and bandaged, I ignore the movement of his chest with every hitched breath and I try not to think about the scent of his cologne embedded in my nose.
This feels intimate. I’m not sure the way I’m tending to his injuries is exactly medical, either. My fingers might have drifted over his cheek a little more softly than I intended. I might have stared at the shape of his lips for a moment too long.
When I take his left hand, Rudy winces. I give him a sharp look, then pinch my lips at the sight of the bloody piece of glass in the largest cut.
All thoughts of intimacy and lips leave my mind as I use the second pair of sterilized tweezers to rid his wounds of glass, then clean and bandage his hands. He stands between my spread knees, stoic, still. Neither of us says anything.
It’s better that way. I’m not sure I’d be able to speak, anyway.
The last of the bandages feels rough under my fingertips as I smooth it over the back of his palm. His cuffs have been rolled up to reveal strong forearms, his shirt open at the neck in a way that feels more undressed than if he weren’t wearing a shirt at all.
When I finally find the courage to lift my eyes to meet Rudy’s, I know I’ve already lost the battle against my own self-control. His bandaged hand cups my jaw as he tilts his head up to mine, his other hand resting so high on my thigh his thumb might be brushing against the edge of my panties through the black velvet of my dress.
Without saying a word, Rudy kisses me. There’s no hesitation in the way his lips claim mine, in how his hand tightens over my neck and jaw, in the way he crowds me against the mirror. I find myself clinging to his shoulders and pulling him closer, deepening the kiss until I lose myself in his touch.
This is better than the first time.
