That was all it took for the first friend to notice Jackson, the second to notice the woman on his arm, and the third to realize that the woman on Jackson’s arm was not the blonde standing beside Damen.
Conversations faltered.
Damen looked up.
The expression that crossed his face would remain with Carissa long after every other detail of the night blurred. It moved in clean stages—recognition, confusion, calculation, fear. Fear not just because she had arrived, but because of how she had arrived. Because she was radiant. Because Jackson was beside her. Because nothing about her looked wounded or pleading or private.
Because for the first time in years, she looked like the central fact in the room.
“Carissa,” Damen said.
His voice cracked on the second syllable.
She smiled as if greeting him at a charity event. “Hi, Damen.”
Nikki’s smile vanished.
Jackson’s hand remained at Carissa’s back, not possessive, not theatrical, simply steady. It was the kind of touch that said not alone.
A man in a burgundy blazer with thinning hair stepped forward, looking between Carissa and Nikki as if trying to solve an algebra problem with suddenly unfamiliar numbers.