Chapter 8: Fact Said Out Loud

I took the broken glass out of his hand myself.

It came away in two pieces, and the blood ran down his wrist into his cuff.

"You're bleeding on the club's carpet," I said.

"I'll pay for the carpet."

"Give me your hand."

I wrapped it in the silk scarf I had worn over my shoulders.

Savannah watched us the whole time with her head tilted and her smile still in place.

Warner had come up behind her, and Bernadette beside him, and half the ballroom had drifted toward the doors to see what had happened.

"Declan," Warner said. "You're making a scene at my party."

"He cut his hand," I said. "That's all the scene there is."

"You ought to take him somewhere quiet, Cor." Warner put an edge on it, so it sounded like a favor. "Before you embarrass yourself."

I looked at him.

Then I looked at the sixty faces behind him.

I did not lower my voice.

"Take me home, Declan," I said. "Take me upstairs. I want your mouth on me before this dress is on the floor."

Nobody in the ballroom breathed.

A glass clinked somewhere.

Warner's face went white and then red.

Declan, beside me with his bleeding hand wrapped in my scarf, stood quite still.

"Yes," he said.

He said it so low that it was almost a growl.

I took his good arm, and we walked out together through the middle of the room.

In the car I did not say anything.

He sat with his bandaged hand in his lap and his eyes on the windshield, and I watched his jaw.

The driver took the long way along the lake.

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