Chapter 57
Fifty-Seven
Chandeliers drip crystals, champagne towers shimmer like glass constellations, and somewhere up above, gold-leaf ceilings catch the light like dusk on water.
The grand archway gives way to another world, one sealed off from reality and lacquered in old money.
My heels click-clack against marble so polished it throws back ghost-versions of me. The sound barely lasts before being devoured by the hush of old money.
I’m in Givenchy. But here, I somehow feel disgustingly underdressed.
Reese whistles under his breath, taking it all in. “Well fuck me running. Ain’t this something.”
Yeah. It is. But I don’t care about the diamonds, or how the guests glow under the weight of inherited wealth. I’m scanning the sea of pressed tuxedos and airbrushed faces, searching every gold-drenched corner for one person. Just one.
And I don’t see him.
When Carson said Reese would be my escort tonight, it came with a tight-lipped, “Got some stuff to handle.” He didn’t say what, and I didn’t ask; everything is too up in the air with us.
A server glides by with a tray of champagne coupes. Reese plucks one off with a thanks and we move deeper into the current of the ballroom.
“To think Carson swore up and down he wasn’t gonna come.” He tilts his glass, glancing sideways. “Care to tell me what changed his mind?”
“I don’t know, Reese.”
And I don’t.
After I said yes, that was it. The drive back was all headlights and silence. It wasn’t until I was halfway inside my door that he stopped me.
“You’re sure you want to come, right?”
And, well, now I’m here.
The way he asked it, though, it was like a line being drawn in sand, sealing something final.
I know why he wouldn’t want to come. This world of wealth and expectation isn’t his. What I don’t know is why he showed up anyway. Or why he needed me here to do it.
Velvet-draped gossip drifts from the cluster just left of us.
“This’ll definitely make front page if the merger rumors are true.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“Look around—”
But all noise dissolves. Because, suddenly, there he is.
Sharp. Black suit, cut within an inch of perfection. Devastating, and not just handsome—dangerous. His hair’s styled neat, but the edges still rebel, refusing to be tamed.
The bruised beauty I saw yesterday still clings to him, only now it’s bound tighter. And his eyes. God. Haunted, restless, skimming the room. Searching. Searching.
Until they find me.
Catch. Hold.
Then slip downward, tracing the line of my body, slow.
Something sparks, catching between us like a live wire.
He starts walking.
Ten steps.
Five.
Three—
“Carson.”
The sound is enough to split the air.
The man it comes from looks carved from old stone, spine straight as a blade, with hair gone silver. Command radiates from him, the kind that explains why he’s the first to stop Carson where others tried and failed.
Carson recovers fast. He closes those last three steps until his arm brushes mine. His eyes lock on the man, but his stance tilts toward me, protective.
Disapproving eyes sweep him. “Did you not get the blue suit I had sent over?” Even his voice is smooth steel, polished by years of being obeyed.
“I did.”
The pause that follows is loaded. “So why aren’t you in it?”
“Liked black with this tie better.”
Black suit. Olive tie.
The older man follows the trail. Carson’s frame, down to me. My gown is black as ink, but the neckline is banded in olive fabric that drapes across my collarbones. The exact same shade. Coincidence, maybe. But with Carson, nothing ever feels like one.
The disapproval increases tenfold, and the person at my other side takes his turn under it.
“Reese.” It comes clipped but you wouldn’t know it from the grin Reese flashes back.
“Sir. Looking dapper as always.”
“I must’ve forgotten you were on the guest list. With a plus one, no less.”
“Wasn’t. Last-minute courtesy of my boy Carson.”
“This is your lady, I presume?” He never once looks at me.
Carson goes taut at my side. I feel it, the coil of muscle, the way his body leans like he’s about to answer—but Reese gets there first, smirking.
“Not quite.”
Thats when the man finally turns to me. It isn’t a look, not really. It’s more of an assessment, like he’s trying to slot me into a box I’m never meant to belong in. I try to meet him stare for stare, but unease creeps up all the same.
Thats when I realise people are watching. Not just watching, listening.
Eyes flick over, curiosity strung up in diamonds and pearls. Even the quartet falters, a note slipping off-key before recovering. The room remains all champagne and chatter, but beneath it, there’s a hum and all I can think is why?
The next five seconds stretch into forever. His eyes stay locked on me, but I can tell his mind is moving somewhere else, weighing, deciding. Then, at last, he lets up.
“Come.” To Carson. The word lands like a gavel. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Carson doesn’t budge. He stays planted, long enough to make a point, and when the silence stretches, I almost think he won’t move at all.
But then his jaw ticks, and, reluctant or not, he yields.
There’s something swimming in his eyes when they slide to mine. Regret. Apology. Something else I can’t name. Buried under it all is a vow that never touches his mouth. I’ll come back. Then he’s gone, swallowed by the ballroom’s glitter and noise.
“That’s his grandad,” Reese offers as I follow his retreat.
“I figured.”
They might not look anything alike but the dynamic says it all. Carson’s words from that time on the balcony echo back, rain-slick and raw. That man was the storm behind them.
The next half hour, Reese tries his best to keep me distracted. He makes jokes about hors d’oeuvres with names no one can pronounce, points out a couple clashing in couture like it’s a crime, even pulls me toward a wall of oil paintings I’d usually be all over. But tonight, I’m not really here.
Because I’m tethered. To him. To Carson, shadowed by his grandfather, wearing that mask that can’t hide how badly he wants out.
I can’t tell you how many times our eyes catch across the room. Maybe five, maybe fifty. Enough for my breath to stutter each time.
But we don’t move. Not once. And that same cold fear from last night creeps back in. The fear that whatever this is between us… might not survive the space.
It feels like we can’t cross the distance.
And I’m terrified his I’ll be back promise won’t hold.
I’m so tangled in the what-ifs that I don’t notice the lights dim until a hush ripples through the crowd.
Soon I see why.
Her.
The double doors sweep open and she’s a vision of midnight silk. Blue so rich it gleams like liquid under the chandeliers. Her hair is sculpted into a knot that gleams with the diamonds at her ears, and she doesn’t just walk. She glides, pulling the whole ballroom with her.
At first, all I can think is that she’s familiar. The line of her jaw, the sleek arrangement of blonde hair. Then I see where she’s headed, straight for Carson, and something inside me stumbles.
It’s only when his grandfather shifts aside and she slides in, fingers grazing Carson’s arm like they belong there, that it clicks.
Pine Oak.
She was there. With him.
The ballroom comes alive again, murmurs like static crawling across silk.
“So it’s true.”
“They make a good pair.”
“I told you.”
I barely hear any of it. Because Carson isn’t looking at her.
His gaze cuts past chandeliers and champagne shimmer, past every polished surface in the room—straight to me. The force of it knocks what little oxygen I have left straight out of me.
“Reese,” I choke. “What is this?”
He’s tense beside me. “I don’t know, Brielle.”
Carson’s still looking. Not at her. Not at his grandfather. Me.
Then his lips move, and though I can’t hear what he says over the orchestra, I feel it. The reaction ripples. A gasp here, a startled whisper there.
Then, he steps back.
It’s like the air itself breaks. The crowd shifts, parting for him step after step. Heads turn, whispers spark, but all I see is him. Closing the space. Cutting through everything. Until suddenly, he’s here.
Right in front of me.
“Carson—” My voice cracks on his name, but it doesn’t matter. His hand comes up, steady and shaking all at once, like he’s terrified I’ll vanish if he lets go. Grey latches onto mine, searing and oh-so-desperate.
“Do you trust me?”
What? My brain splinters with all the questions I want to hurl at him. Why now, why here, what the hell is happening. But his face, his face is so pleading that I can only give him one thing.
“Yes.”
That’s all it takes. The world tips.
One moment his eyes are devouring mine, the next he’s on me, dragging me straight into the eye of the storm. It’s like a spark to gasoline, fierce and unrelenting. My breath snags, fingers curling in his jacket while his hand clenches tight, grounding me as everything else spins out of control.
The orchestra swells, higher and higher, trembling in time with my pulse, and all the while the air between us crackles, sealing me in this moment until I’m dizzy with it, until the only thing left that feels real is him.
When he finally pulls away, the world rushes back in. Murmurs. Flashes. The prickle of too many eyes. When his head dips, pressing to mine, I hear it—quiet, hoarse, meant only for me.
“Missed you too.”
It guts me. Three words, and it guts me. Before I can even recover, Reese’s voice cuts through the din, urgent. “Go.”
Carson seizes my hand and suddenly we’re weaving through the ballroom. Gowns brush against me, gasps snap at our heels. My heart hammers, not from fear but from the way he holds on, unshakable.
At the threshold, just before the doors close I glance back. His grandfather stands carved in marble calm, but his eyes… they scorch across the distance and brand me right where I stand.