19. CHAPTER 17 #2
Her scent, however, clung to me all the way to the end of the aisle as I waited.
It kept me company before she arrived, and I had her hands again in mine. Her soft, delicate fingers were so warm and fine-boned, they didn’t match the rigidity of her posture.
I leaned closer to whisper words to hopefully calm her nerves, and the intensity of her scent hit me twice as hard.
She smelled nothing like I expected.
While women in the aristocratic circle smelled of the same expensive scent, she smelled sinful. Like honey mixed with something floral…tuberose maybe, and amber. An intoxicating mix that had no business being this addictive.
A drug anyone would get hooked on. And I would’ve liked to say I was immune.
I wasn’t sure I was.
What mattered now was simple. She was mine.
Mine to claim. Mine to protect from my mother’s manipulations. Mine to use, if it came to that. Anything needed to hold this alliance together and keep the empire steady while my father recovered.
The contract didn’t require affection. It required compliance. That was all I needed from her anyway.
Everything after that was choreography.
We took the requisite photographs. Family, board members, godparents, whatever else the planner insisted on.
Her mother adjusted her veil once more even though the veil was already perfect.
My own mother stood slightly apart, expression cool and composed, the very image of a woman who’d produced an heir and now expected returns.
Every time someone said smile, Léonie’s lips obeyed. Her eyes revealed the opposite.
The reception was on the same grounds as the ceremony—on Fernández property. Closed to the press by my explicit demand, and strict rules: no photos leaked, no guests posting. Phones were collected on arrival. If people wanted to gossip, they’d have to do it the old-fashioned way.
Now the formalities dissolved into clinking glasses, soft music, and the murmur of two hundred voices pretending to enjoy themselves, as they did at every society event. Performative at it’s best.
I navigated the room as always—shaking hands, exchanging brief words, and calibrated smiles. People offered congratulations as I walked past, and I accepted them with the amount of gratitude my patience would allow.
My eyes trailed the room till I found Léonie across the room with her bestfriends—Céleste and Isolde, and a cluster of women who muttered tight lipped congratulations with side hugs.
She held a champagne flute, her fingers graceful wrapped around the stem, her posture as perfect as a heiress’ should be.
Her dress had been altered for the reception. Her veil was gone, her shoulders now bare, hair pinned back differently with something that glistened when she turned her head.
Without thinking, my fingers itched to pulls at it and let her hair loose. I tightened the grip on my glass instead.
I found myself at one of the tall windows with my usual circle—Julian, Elias, Marcus, Adrien, and Zane. A school of piranhas in designer suits.
Zane was halfway through a commentary that had no business at a wedding. I tuned him out. Julian huffed at something Marcus said in response to Zane’s comment, Elias shook his head in disapproval, Adrien did nothing but just watch as he sipped his drink.
My entire focus was on my wife. I watched her body movements. The way she listened more than she spoke, and smiled when she had to. Same expression she’s had since the ceremony ended. I could see why she disliked attending societal events. They were evidently too performative for her.
I noticed her fingers tracing the ring I'd placed there, not with affection, but as if she were measuring exactly what it meant.
Then she zoned out briefly while Céleste spoke. Her eyes travelled over the crowd, unfocused, as though she’d stepped outside of her own body to watch the room perform at a distance.
Her eyes snagged on me, sensing my attention instantly.
She held my gaze for a few seconds before stiffening and subtly correcting her posture, caught off guard by the moment.
Then she looked away quickly, treating eye contact with her husband as something far more dangerous than the marriage itself.
A smile etched itself onto my face, mirroring her own sudden tension.
Eventually, we took our seats on a long table facing the entire room. A Fernández tradition, I was told. The bride and groom in the center, parents flanking either side, friends and siblings branching outward.
I’d tried not to think of my father today, but one glance at my mother beaming through conversations reminded me of the hollow space where he should have been.
Visiting him this morning, before leaving for the ceremony, had been the hardest part of the day. But seeing her walk toward me down the aisle reminded me of the gravity of the stakes. I could only make him proud by getting this right; this marriage was the backbone of the alliance.
I took my seat first. Léonie sat beside me a moment later. Our chairs were placed too close for comfort. Close that I could feel the heat of her through every layer of fabric. Her scent settling between us like a fucking interloper.
I reined in the instinct to move closer, stiffening the grip on my composure until it felt solid. I'd lived my life by logic; I wouldn't let a sinful scent be the thing that dismantled me.
She angled her body subtly toward her friends on her left. I noticed the shift immediately.
None of us said a word to eachother.
Servers moved quickly, filling glasses, setting plates.
Only the sound of cutlery filled the room.
The string quartet in the corner softened their sound into a more intimate tune, and the world renowned soloist the Fernández flew in from La Scala sang in a solemn voice.
Each haunting note turning the ballroom sacred and suffocating.
I turned my attention back to Léonie. She was mid conversation with her friends. Isolde giggled between sentences and Céleste said something too low for anyone else to hear.
Her hands folded loosely in her lap. She nodded when her mother leaned in to murmur something to the group and responded once or twice, politely.
To anyone else, she looked composed, but I could tell she was tense from the way her fingers knitted together a bit too tightly, and from how she swallowed her responses when someone from the end of the table said something she didn’t like.
“If I had a penny for every second you’ve spent cataloging her every move tonight, Kade, I’d finally be richer than you,” Julian spoke low, his voice cutting through the solemn atmosphere of the soprano’s song.
Beside him, Elias let out a soft scoff full of pure mockery. “Richer? You’d be a sovereign state. He isn’t just looking at her; he’s obsessing. It’s problematic at this point.”
“Lower your voices,” I said, my gaze never leaving my wife. I felt the corner of my mouth twitch with a smile I had no business feeling. “This is a wedding, not a bachelor party. Act like you were raised with at least a shred of decorum.”
She sat upright and I straightened my back, hoping no one noticed. But I knew it as too late when I heard Marcus snicker between Julian, Elias and I.
No one in our circle is nosier than Marcus.
“Careful, Orion,” Marcus warned in a low voice meant only for us. “The board might think you're actually enjoying yourself. We both know how the chairman hates soft investments.”
The four of us tried not to laugh outright amid the murmur of conversation and music.
Marcus’ father, Alaric Sterling is the chairman of Ironshore’s board—my father’s board. Well, mine now.
Sterling liked to remind me that while I steered the ship, he owned the dock. His title gave him the right to scrutinize my every move under the guise of protecting shareholder interests.
I had the name, the blood, and the titles, but as long as he sat at the head of that table, I was a king on a leash.
Marcus never saw eye to eye with his father. The fact that he laid emphasis on soft investments was where the joke existed.
Sterling believed only in leverage. Anything capable of compromising it was treated as a liability before it could become a weakness.
"He’s probably already drafting the minutes for the next board meeting in his head,” he continued in a lower voice. “Looking for a reason to put a Kade in his place. Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing you distracted.”
Our eyes moved to the same direction where his father sat, deep in conversation with a financier from the Fernández side. Even as he spoke, his eyes moved restlessly across the reception with the alertness of a predator. He was scrutinizing the room rather than celebrating.
Marcus tapped me hard on the shoulder and returned to his seat.
He was right, but I didn’t give a fuck. I’d secured the alliance and done my duty. I'd given the board what they wanted, and I’d ruin anyone who tried to use my personal life against me. The only person I still answered to was my father, and tonight, I'd finally paid that debt in full.
“You alright?” Julian asked.
A microphone crackled somewhere across the room before I could respond. “May I have everyone’s attention,” the planner said, all gleaming, choreographed happiness. “Mr. Fernández would like to say a few words.”
Naturally.
Demola Fernández stood, unbuttoning his jacket with the practised ease of a man who’d given too many speeches about things that weren’t entirely true. He took his glass, hoisted it a bit higher, and smiled his signature smile that never carried real warmth, no matter how perfectly he shaped it.
“My friends,” he began, his voice resonant and booming. “Today, we are not just witnessing a marriage. We are witnessing the merging of two families whose paths have long run parallel.”
I felt Léonie go a bit more still beside me.