Chris should have worn the other shirt.
The one with the higher collar, the less tailored waist, and the less everything. The one Serathine called "safe" and Cressida called "cowardly" six days ago.
He did not wear that one.
Instead, he wore the one he designed for Dax.
The robe was light as breath, a trick of structure and tension. The embroidery climbed his sleeves like vines spun from bronze fire, trailing off just above the knee to reveal tailored black pants that did all kinds of visual damage. The undershirt… well. That wasn't a shirt so much as a war crime in silk.
And the collar… the collar was still locked.
Jeweled platinum, impossibly snug, layered with rows of embedded diamonds that caught the light when he so much as breathed wrong. And Chris had breathed wrong. Many times. Especially when Dax refused to sit down after the first toast and instead settled beside him like a shadow that radiated every shade of possession short of public mating.
