Meadow’s POV:

I chose the third dress.

Not the silk that I wore when Alaric fingered me. Not the velvet dress I wore when I rode his thigh to my orgasm. But the champagne-gold sequin dress that we didn’t do anything in.

It was a deliberate act of defiance I was pulling. But I had no other choice.

The night he had to leave for work—which I was almost fully certain that it wasn’t—he didn’t get back until way later.

I knew that because I stayed awake for hours until I just ...