Page 49 of What He Doesn't Know

“Hi.”

The voice was sweet and smooth, just like the song, but I jumped at the sound of it. I hadn’t noticed the woman who’d slid up next to me just as the song of my nightmare began to play.

Long, slender fingers wrapped around my bicep, and she smiled up at me with sultry eyes. She was strikingly beautiful — long blonde hair that curled down and over her shoulders, crystal blue eyes glowing in the soft light from the chandeliers above, and lips that could have put Angelina Jolie to shame. There was an indent right in the middle of the bottom one, and I watched a smile curl on those sexy lips as the hand around my bicep tightened.

“You’re Reese Walker, right?” she asked, and I just nodded, eyes still fixed on her lips while my brain was fixed on the music.

It felt like a dream, the way the music zapped me back to another memory even though I was standing in a ballroom so far removed.

A flash of my father’s face hit me subtly, quickly, and then it faded away.

“I’m Jennifer Stinson, family friend of the Reid’s,” she said. I tried to focus on her. “Gloria was justravingabout you, and I knew I needed to come over and introduce myself.”

I thought I heard Mallory’s laugh, and I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one there. She wasn’t there.

She’s not here.

“Nice to meet you, Jennifer,” I said, forcing the words out through my cotton mouth, trying to clear my mind of the memories set to attack me. I was an ant, and the song was the magnifying glass, setting the sun’s aim directly on me to burn me alive from the inside out.

“Dance with me?” Jennifer asked, but she was already tugging on my arm before I could answer.

I followed her a moment, the song still assaulting my senses, but before we could reach the floor, I came to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head and pinching the bridge of my nose. “I just… I have a bit of a headache.”

Jennifer’s eyes bounced between mine, the sultry smile on her lips never wavering. “Maybe dancing will help.”

I wanted air.

I needed out.

But just as I opened my mouth to tell Jennifer that, Charlie walked by behind her.

Cameron held her hand in his.

She glanced briefly at me before her eyes flicked to Jennifer, and her cheeks shaded just a tinge of pink. Neither look lasted longer than a split second, but I’d felt each of them like the slow, burning singe of a branding iron.

Cameron pulled her to the far-left side of the dance floor, wrapping her in his arms as they began to sway to the music. She looked up at him like that dance was everything she’d ever waited for, and he looked down at her with what I saw as a patronizing smile. Maybe it was sincere, but it didn’t look that way from where I stood.

Maybe I was tainted by the rumors I’d heard, or by my love for Charlie that still burned bright behind my eyelids — the same ones blinding me with memories of my family at the current moment. Either way, one thing was sure.

I hated him.

“You know,” I finally said to Jennifer, covering her hand around my bicep with my own. “Maybe you’re right. Let’s give it a try.”

A wide smile split her face. “Excellent.”

I wanted to blame the song for making me crazy enough to pull Jennifer into my arms right next to Charlie and Cameron. I smiled at both of them, earning me a timid return smile and a swallow from Charlie, and only a nod of acknowledgement from Cameron.

Jennifer fit nicely in my arms, her chest pressed against me as we moved in time with the music. I tried to keep space between us, especially because it was easier to dance with her that way, but she was hell bent on sealing us like a seam from hip to chest.

She wasn’t subtle about what she wanted, and on any other night, with any other song, she likely would have gotten it.

But I was dancing next to Charlie. To a song that reminded me of my family.

And with that realization, a flash of my mother crying on the day I graduated from Juilliard slapped me like a tree branch.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight, fumbling the steps of our dance a bit before I bounced back.