They looked like two mature, devastating women meeting over polished glass, each one aware of the other's beauty, intelligence, weight in Phei's life, and possible danger. Melissa's dress held her lush figure with warm, mature elegance, the dress embracing the fullness of her chest and the soft power of her hips in a way that made her beauty impossible to mistake for anything fragile.
Dravenna, in ivory silk and exposed waist, looked leaner, sharper, more temple than hearth, more ancient seduction than maternal warmth.
When they spoke, sparks did not fly loudly.
They moved quietly under words and behind smiles.
Between women who knew exactly what kind of man stood nearby watching them both. And both of them, in the brief diplomatic ballet of that greeting, let their attention drift once toward him in the same heartbeat, caught the other doing it, and returned to their smiles a fraction sharper than before.
