"Valenti," Caspian says.My steps stop.I nod at him. One brief, controlled acknowledgment. Then I spare the most minimal glance toward the woman beside him, who has gone quiet, and she turns around.I do a double-take.It is not her features that stop me, though they do. It is not the champagne soaking through her hair and running in thin rivulets down her jaw, darkening the fabric at her shoulders. It is not the mascara tracking in two precise lines beneath her eyes, which should diminish her and does not. It is the specific quality of what is burning behind those eyes when they land on mine, wide and suddenly arrested mid-motion, the handkerchief she was pressing to her jaw frozen completely still.She stares at me.I watch recognition move across her face in real time. She was severely drunk the night we met six weeks ago. I would not have blamed her for needing considerably longer. She does not need longer. Her eyes move rapidly across my face, and then her lips part, and I watch
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