18. The Dinner
EIGHTEEN
The Dinner
The car is black, sleek, and silent.
I sit beside Sebastian in the back seat, the partition raised between us and the driver. My dress pools around my ankles like ink. My hands are folded in my lap, perfectly still, the way we practiced.
"Remember." Sebastian's voice is low. "Minimal engagement. Bored, not afraid. When Carlo approaches?—"
"Position myself so you're between us. Keep responses brief. Communicate that the arrangement is adequate." I don't look at him. "I've memorized the script."
"It's not a script. It's survival."
"Same thing."
The car slows. Through the tinted windows, a building unfolds. Old money architecture, columns and carved stone. Valets in crisp uniforms open doors for guests who step out of luxury vehicles.
My parents' house. I haven't thought about that in years. The place Bennett and I grew up before everything went wrong. Before they died and left me with a fourteen-year-old to raise, and no idea how to do it.
"Chloe."
Sebastian's hand is on my elbow. The car has stopped. The door is open. I don't remember any of it happening.
"I'm fine."
"You're somewhere else."
"I'm here." I turn to look at him for the first time since we got in the car. His face is unreadable. The mask he wears in public, smooth and impenetrable. "Let's get this over with."
We step out of the car together.
The night air is cold, sharp with the promise of winter. Sebastian's hand settles on the small of my back. Not possessive, not tender. Proprietary. The touch of a man guiding something he owns.
We walk toward the entrance.
The lobby is marble, crystal, and more wealth than I've ever seen concentrated in one place.
Men in bespoke suits. Women dripping with jewelry that could feed families for years.
Everyone moving with the easy confidence of people who have never worried about money, never wondered where their next meal would come from, never worked double shifts to cover someone else's rent.
I hate them immediately.
"Mr. York." A man approaches. Silver hair, cold eyes. Victor Ashworth, from the photographs. "Delighted you could join us."
"Victor." Sebastian's voice is smooth. Professional. "Allow me to introduce my companion. Chloe."
Ashworth's gaze slides over me. Assessing. I keep my expression blank.
"Charming." The word contains no warmth. "I've heard you acquired something interesting this year. The rumors don't do her justice."
"Chloe is adequate to my needs."
The dismissal in Sebastian's voice is perfectly calibrated. I'm furniture. Background. Not worth discussing.
"I'm sure she is." Ashworth's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Do enjoy the evening."
He moves on. Sebastian guides me deeper into the room.
"That was good." His voice is barely audible. "Keep it up."
We navigate through clusters of conversation. Sebastian pauses occasionally to greet someone, exchange words I don't listen to, accept congratulations or condolences on business matters I don't understand. I stand beside him and practice being invisible.
It works.
People glance at me and look away. I'm the expected accessory. Present, silent, unremarkable. A contracted companion honoring her obligations. Nothing to see.
The room opens into a larger space. A ballroom, maybe, or something that functions as one. Tables arranged around a dance floor. A string quartet playing something classical in the corner. More wealth. More predators in evening wear.
"There." Sebastian's hand tightens on my back. "By the windows."
I follow his gaze and find Carlo Moreno.
He's more striking in person than in photographs. Dark hair swept back from a face that's almost too handsome. The kind of handsome that makes you look twice, makes you wonder what's wrong with the picture. He's speaking to a woman in red, his hand on her arm, his smile easy and warm.
The woman looks drugged. Or broken. Or both.
"His companion," Sebastian says quietly. "Acquired six months ago. She was a singer before. Now she doesn't speak."
The words hit like ice water. I think about what Sebastian told me.
That Carlo breaks people in ways that don't heal.
That if Bennett had followed through, I'd be in a basement in Tijuana.
That the woman in red was probably someone with a life, with dreams, with a voice, before Carlo took it all away.
"He's looking at us."
The prickle hits before the sight does. That animal awareness of being watched. A slight turn, and there he is. Carlo Moreno, still smiling at the woman in red, but his eyes are on me.
He raises his glass in a small salute.
"Don't react," Sebastian murmurs. "Let him come to us."
We move through the room. Sebastian selects a table near the edge. Good sightlines, multiple exit paths. Strategic. He pulls out my chair, and I sit. He takes the seat beside me, his body angled to watch the room.
"Wine?"
"Water."
He signals a server. Orders for both of us. The water arrives in a crystal glass.
"You're doing well," Sebastian says.
"I'm surviving."
"That's all any of us do."
I don't respond. The orchestra shifts to something slower, and couples drift onto the dance floor. Beautiful people in beautiful clothes, performing intimacy for an audience of their peers.
"May I have this dance?"
The voice comes from behind me. Smooth. Warm. A voice designed to put people at ease.
I don't turn around.
"My companion doesn't dance." Sebastian's voice is flat. "Perhaps another time."
"A pity." Carlo Moreno moves into my field of vision, circling our table like a shark scenting blood. He's taller than I expected. His smile is exactly as dangerous as his photograph suggested. "Sebastian always did hoard the pretty ones."
"Carlo." Sebastian's tone doesn't change. "I see you brought Valentina. She's looking well."
"She has her moments." Carlo's gaze slides to me, lingers. "You must be Chloe. I knew your brother."
I look at him for the first time. His eyes are dark, unreadable, patient. The eyes of a man who has all the time in the world.
"So I've heard."
"He spoke of you often. How devoted you were. How much you sacrificed for him." Carlo's smile widens. "It must be difficult, being on the other side of that equation now. Being the one who's... sacrificed."
"The arrangement meets my expectations."
"Does it." He pulls out the chair across from me, sits without invitation. Sebastian tenses beside me but doesn't intervene. "I confess I'm curious what those expectations were. A year in Sebastian's penthouse, subject to his... unique brand of hospitality. That's quite a commitment."
"The alternative was less appealing."
"Was it." Carlo leans back in his chair, entirely at ease. "I've always wondered how he does it. The York magic. Is it charm? Blackmail? Or does he just find women who are already looking for a cage?"
"I'm not in a cage."
"Aren't you?" Carlo's eyes drift to my neck, bare against the high collar of my dress. "There are rumors, you know. Old stories about Sebastian and his... preferences. They say he doesn't just want a companion. They say he wants a pet. Something he can leash."
He's fishing. It's obvious. He doesn't know about the Protocol, and he doesn't know about the collar in the drawer. He's throwing out bait to see if I flinch.
"People say a lot of things," I say evenly. "Usually because they're jealous."
Sebastian's hand tightens on his glass, but his face remains impassive.
"Jealous." Carlo laughs softly. "Perhaps. He certainly achieves results. Total devotion. Absolute silence. Take the last one, for instance. Margot."
My heart stutters. The mercy crack. The torn photograph.
"That's not relevant to our arrangement."
"Isn't it?" Carlo leans forward, dropping his voice.
"She was remarkable, you know. Before he got his claws into her.
Fire, spirit, intelligence. And by the end?
She was a ghost. She gave him everything.
Her autonomy, her secrets, her sanity. Rumor has it she even begged him to brand her, just so she'd never forget who she belonged to. "
"Carlo." Sebastian's voice is ice. "This isn't the time."
"It's never the time, is it." Carlo ignores him, keeps his attention on me.
"She destroyed him, eventually. Did he tell you that part?
But not before he hollowed her out. He doesn't need to hit you to break you.
He just needs to isolate you. Wrap you up in his world until you forget how to breathe the air outside of it. "
"I know how to breathe," I say coldly.
"For now. But give it six months." Carlo's eyes are sympathetic, which is infinitely worse than if they were cruel.
"You'll start thinking his voice is the only one that matters.
You'll start thinking his walls are there to protect you, not keep you in.
And when he's finally bored with you? You won't even know who you are anymore. "
"I know exactly who I am."
"Do you?" He stands. Adjusts his cuffs. "You're a transaction to him, my dear. A line item. But you're paying with your soul, and he's paying with... what? Debt relief?"
"That's enough." Sebastian's hand closes over mine on the table. "My companion isn't interested in your projections."
"Is she your companion," Carlo asks, his gaze flicking to where Sebastian's hand covers mine. "Or just the latest experiment?"
He looks back at me, smiling that terrible, knowing smile.
"If you ever decide you want to wake up... I'm still the alternative. And I treat my investments with a little more warmth."
He walks away without another word.
Sebastian's hand is still on mine. I don't pull away, but the air around us feels colder than it did a moment ago.
"That was..." Sebastian starts, then stops. "That was well handled."
"He was fishing," I say quietly. "He doesn't know."
"No. He doesn't." Sebastian's jaw is tight. "But he knows where to press."
"We should circulate. Make an appearance. Then we can leave."