add to her puzzle. She shouldn’t be working on an Alik puzzle.
No, she should be. Because she was trying to figure out how to help him have a real, positive relationship with Leena, and in order to do that she would have to understand him.
“Still, in the future, I would like to be consulted.”
“Of course, my princess, whatever you desire,” he said on a slow drawl, his tone mocking.
“She’s my daughter. I’ve rarely left her alone.” And she shouldn’t be leaving her now. She should tell Alik no. Tell him she didn’t want to go to the opera.
But she did. And it had been a long time since she’d been out. Since she’d done something she wanted to. Something for herself.
“She will be fine. She’ll be sleeping for most of the time we’re gone, as she is now.”
“I know,” she said. “I mean, I do know but…kids make you worry.”
Alik frowned. “Yes, they do. That is a universal feeling, then?”
“Yes. Everyone worries about their kids.”
A slow half smile curved his mouth. “And so do I.”
Even as they were preparing to leave for the opera, Alik wondered why he’d issued the invitation to her. He could have asked another woman. Could have gone to a club the night before and met someone to take out.
Better still, he could have given it a miss entirely. Opera wasn’t his thing. But he had asked Jada. And he found that he actually wanted to take her.
Maybe because he was sure it was something she would never do for herself. And she looked tired, something he was certain was partly his fault.
And no matter what she’d said to him, she hadn’t moved on. She was still grieving her husband; even he could see it, and he scarcely understood that emotion or any other.
That was how he found himself waiting at the base of the stairs in his town house, his heart beating a little faster than normal, waiting for her to join him. Waiting for his first sight of her in the dress he’d selected for her to wear.
That was another unusual thing. He’d never concerned himself with putting clothes on a woman before. In the past, he’d only been worried about taking them off. He was hardly a connoisseur of fashion, female or otherwise. But he’d seen the dress in a boutique window that afternoon on his way through the city and he’d known he had to have it for her.
As if on cue, he heard the sound of high heels on marble floor, and he looked up. And then it became hard to breathe. Hard to swallow.
The rich, crimson fabric made Jada’s golden skin glow, the strapless, scooped neckline of the dress revealing a teasing glimpse of her full, perfect breasts. Her waist was small, the gown fitted there before gently flowing away from her hips in waves of chiffon. And when she took her first step down the stair, the fabric parted and revealed its secret, and a hint of Jada’s shapely legs.
“The slit is too high,” she said, walking down toward him, her hair, glossy black and wavy, shimmering beneath the lights as she moved.
“It is not high enough,” he said, unable to take his eyes off her.
She stopped on the last step, the top her head still barely reaching his eyebrows. “I never wear clothes like this. It’s very revealing.”
“I know. And it’s perfect.”
“That’s a very male perspective.”
“I’m very male.”
She blinked. “Granted.”
“So then it should come as no surprise to you.”
“I would love to have refused to wear it on principle, but I don’t have other opera dresses lying around, and regardless of the fact that I feel like it puts far too much of me on show…I do like it.” A reluctant smile tugged on the corners of her full mouth.
“I knew you would. Or rather, I knew I would, and that was all I cared about.”
“So you dressed me for your own pleasure? A bit selfish, but then, that’s to type I suppose.”
“Feel free to enjoy me for your own selfish pleasure, Jada, if it helps.”
He didn’t think he imagined the slight coloring of her cheeks, the tinge of pink in her skin. She paused for a moment, her head cocked to the side, black hair sliding over her shoulder like an ink spill. “You look very nice. I’ve never seen you with a tie.”
He raised his hand to the knot of midnight-blue silk. “It is an opera,” he said, lowering it again.
“Yes, but you showed up at