The Valentines

VII

Theo couldn't breathe.

Esmé had walked into the room, knocking the wind out of her husband and her student. A floor-length black dress was fitted tightly to her figure. It had long sleeves and a low v-neckline, which showed off enough cleavage to be decent, but a slip might happen at some point.

Around the waist was a silver belt that pulled the woman's waist in more than it already was, accentuating the hourglass figure that she worked hard to maintain. There was a thigh-high slit in the dress, which showed the woman's tanned leg as she walked forward. On her feet were strappy black high heels.

"Once you have both quite finished," Esmé's tone showed her amusement and both Theo and William picked their jaws up from the floor. Theo made the mistake of snapping her eyes to Esmé's.

The woman's make up was done in such a way that her already stunning green eyes were sparkling. They stood out more against the smoked-out eyeshadow, the colour becoming so much more intense, but also incredibly intimidating. Esmé's features were enhanced more and her full lips were a deep red.

Those lips twitched into a smirk.

"Theodora we will be late if you continue," Esmé hinted and Theo snapped back into place, standing up and smoothing out the dress that Esmé had bought her a while back.

Theo herself felt very expensive. Not only did she have the dress on, which now fitted her figure perfectly, but she also had a pair of shorter heels that Esmé had brought. Her hair was curled and pulled up out of the way to show the halter neck of the dress she wore, whereas Esmé's hair was half up and half down, pieces out to frame her face.

Esmé held out a silver clutch bag to Theo, who took it gratefully, putting her phone inside it.

"You'll let me know when you're leaving?" William asked and Esmé rolled her eyes.

"Yes, William," she answered. Clearly, this was a conversation that had happened a few times. The man stood and moved, wrapping his arms around his wife's waist and pressing a very gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth.

"If something happens with Ada you will tell us," Esmé's sentence was an order, not a question and William nodded, stepping back and pulling out his phone.

"I've set up a group chat with you two, if anything happens, I'll message."

"That is completely unnecessary," Esmé tutted.

"You wanting to move to a new house is unnecessary," William muttered. The death glare from his wife shut him up immediately.

"You want to move?" Theo questioned, not seeing the glare until it was aimed at her. The younger woman felt her blood freeze and her heart start to lock up.

"We need to leave," Esmé announced as she turned away, ending that conversation.

*

Now that Theo had gotten over the initial shock of the event, she found she was enjoying herself, despite not having a single clue about what was going on. The woman had refrained from asking Esmé exactly what the event was for, not wanting to be much of a bother.

There was a lot of people there, dressed equally as elegantly. Waiters walked around with a silver tray balanced on one hand, flutes with a bubbly liquid in it sitting carefully on top. Theo wondered what the liquid was for a moment, before realising it was most likely some sort of alcoholic beverage.

Theo tried to stay relatively close to Esmé, frightened of getting separated from the woman in the mass of people. So far, she was doing fine.