Chapter 8 - The Vision in Cream Tweed
She entered the warm luxury of the room, looking down at the cluster of four little boys surrounding her knees, completely absorbed in her duties as their mother.
Dominic’s breath hitched in his chest. His eyes hungrily, desperately, traced every single millimeter of her form, as if trying to memorize six years of lost time in a single, shattered heartbeat.
Clara was breathtaking.
At thirty-three, she was no longer the fragile, wide-eyed art conservator he had pushed away in the rain; she was a woman of devastating, radiant elegance. Her rich chestnut-brown hair was swept up into an intricate, loose chignon at the crown of her head, with soft, curled tendrils escaping to frame her delicate, aristocratic cheekbones and the slender curve of her throat. She wore no heavy makeup, only a touch of rose on her lips that emphasized their natural, full shape—the lips Dominic had kissed thousands of times, the lips that had sworn to love him forever.
Her attire was timeless old-money perfection, perfectly coordinating with her sons. She wore a tailored cream tweed sheath dress that fell just below her knees, cut with clean, structured lines that accentuated her slender, feminine waist. Draped over her shoulders was a matching ivory tweed blazer with subtle gold threading, and slung across her body was a small quilted leather bag suspended from a gleaming gold-chain strap. On her wrist was a simple gold bangle—a piece Dominic remembered buying for her in Florence during the only summer of their lives that had been free of blood.
She was radiant. She was alive. She was thriving.
And she was standing ten feet away from him, surrounded by four boys who carried his face.
Clara was smiling down at Lucas, reaching out with an ivory-manicured hand to gently straighten his navy striped silk tie. "I don't care who got water on whose tie," she said softly, her thumb brushing a fleck of lint from the boy's lapel with practiced tenderness. "We are guests of the museum board tonight, and your grandfather is waiting at the table. If we want to order the mint tea, we need to show everyone how grown-up we—"
"Mom," Julian interrupted, pulling gently on the hem of her tweed jacket. He pointed a small finger back toward the shadows of the marble vanity. "There's a man over there."
Clara’s smile remained for half a second, indulgent and relaxed. "Julian, sweetie, don't point. It's rude to—"
She began to lift her head.
May you like
Her dark, expressive brown eyes—the exact shade of the boys' eyes, the shade of a calm autumn river—traveled across the polished beige marble floor. They passed the gilded brass basins. They passed the reflection in the high bronze mirrors.
And then, they struck Dominic.
