Chap­ter 24

I can’t go to a Broad­way show in jeans and a T‑shirt—that’s for sure. I checked online, and offi­cial­ly there’s no dress code, but it just feels wrong. Any­way, Andrew said he was going to change, so I need to wear some­thing nice.

The prob­lem is, I don’t own any­thing nice. Well, tech­ni­cal­ly I do. I have that bag of cloth­ing Nina gave me. I hung up the out­fits so they wouldn’t get dam­aged but I have yet to wear any of them. For the most part, they’re all fan­cy dress­es, and it’s not like I’ve had many occa­sions to dress up while clean­ing the Win­ches­ter house. I don’t real­ly want to put on a ball­go­wn to do my vac­u­um­ing.

But tonight is an occa­sion to dress up for. Maybe the only such occa­sion I’ll have for a long time.

The biggest prob­lem is that all of the dress­es are so blind­ing­ly white. Obvi­ous­ly, it’s Nina’s favorite col­or. White is not my favorite col­or. I don’t even think I have a favorite col­or (any­thing but orange). But I nev­er liked wear­ing white because it gets dirty so eas­i­ly. I’ll have to be espe­cial­ly care­ful tonight. And I won’t be wear­ing all white, because I don’t have any white shoes. All I’ve got are some black pumps, so that’s what I’m wear­ing.

I look through the dress­es, try­ing to fig­ure out which one would be most appro­pri­ate for tonight. They’re all beau­ti­ful, and also extreme­ly sexy. I select a form-fit­ting cock­tail dress that falls just above my knees with a lace hal­ter neck­line. I had assumed since Nina is quite a bit heav­ier than I am, it would be loose on me. But she must have pur­chased it many years ago—it fits me so per­fect­ly, I couldn’t have found some­thing bet­ter if I’d bought it specif­i­cal­ly for myself.

I take it easy with the make­up. Just a few dabs of lip­stick, a tiny bit of eye­lin­er, and that’s it. What­ev­er else hap­pens tonight, I’m going to behave myself. The last thing I want is any trou­ble.

And I have no doubt that if Nina sus­pects a whiff of any­thing between me and her hus­band, she’ll make it her mis­sion to destroy me.

Andrew is already in the liv­ing room when I descend the stairs. He’s wear­ing a gray suit jack­et and a match­ing tie, and he’s tak­en the time to show­er and shave off that stub­ble on his chin. He looks… God, he looks incred­i­ble. Dev­as­tat­ing­ly hand­some. So hand­some, I want to grab him by the lapels. But the most amaz­ing thing is the way his eyes fly open when he catch­es sight of me, and he inhales audi­bly.

And then for a few moments, the two of us are just star­ing at each oth­er.

“Jesus, Mil­lie.” His hand is shak­ing a bit as he adjusts his tie. “You look…”

He doesn’t com­plete his thought, which is prob­a­bly a good thing. Because he’s not look­ing at me in a way you’re sup­posed to be look­ing at a woman who is not your wife.

I open my mouth, won­der­ing if I should ask him if this is a bad idea. If maybe we should call off the whole thing. But I can’t quite make myself say that.

Andrew man­ages to rip his eyes away from me and looks down at his watch. “We bet­ter get going. Park­ing can be a pain around Broad­way.”

“Yes, of course. Let’s go.”

There’s no turn­ing back now.

I feel almost like a celebri­ty when I’m slid­ing into the cool leather seat of Andrew’s BMW. This car is noth­ing like my Nis­san. Andrew climbs into the dri­ver seat and that’s when I notice my skirt is rid­ing up my thighs. When I put on the dress, it came near­ly down to my knees, but sit­ting down, it’s some­how mid-thigh. I tug at it but the sec­ond I let go, it rides back up. For­tu­nate­ly, Andrew’s eyes are on the road as we exit the gate sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty. He is a good, faith­ful hus­band. Just because he looked like he was near­ly going to pass out when he saw me in this dress, that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be able to con­trol him­self.

“I’m so excit­ed about this,” I com­ment as he makes his way to the Long Island Express­way. “I can’t believe I’m going to see Show­down.”

He nods. “I’ve heard it’s incred­i­ble.”