20. CHAPTER 18
Léonie
“What do you mean he left?”
Laurent didn’t even flinch. He lounged against one of the high tables, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest in a committed effort to resemble the family disappointment he was determined to be.
His suit jacket had been abandoned somewhere, irritation etched plainly across his features.
A glass of whiskey rested in his hand while his gaze lazily tracked one of Lady de Gautier’s nieces across the room, as though I, his sister, and my wedding were merely background noise.
Shocking.
“Hey, drop that!” he snapped at one of our younger cousins who had reached for a crystal ashtray on the table.
He didn't look at me, or Céleste, or Isolde.
Instead, he slipped an unlit cigarette to the corner of his lips and looked up from the corner of his eye, retrieving his lighter with a flick—waiting, almost hoping, for me to make a comment about him smoking inside.
I said nothing. I just stared at him while conversations and music carried on around us, until he finally relented.
“I saw him walk out with Blaise and that huge cousin of his,” Laurent said in a frivolous tone. “The massive one who looks like Orion with a criminal record.”
Isolde reached out and snatched the cigarette right from his lips. “Smoking is bad for you, Lau.”
“Give that back, Is,” Laurent hissed, his lazy demeanor momentarily breaking into a stunned pout.
They began to bicker, their voices fading into the surrounding hum of the reception.
My stomach dipped.
Huge cousin. A lighter-skinned version of Orion, same dark shade of hair, but worn longer in a low, messy bun. Broader shoulders. Ink peeking above the collar of a shirt and more across his hands.
I’d seen them earlier. They’d been standing together under the covered walkway, Orion’s head bent slightly as his cousin leaned in to talk to him. They looked like two variations of the same problem. One refined, the other rougher, darker, and infinitely more dangerous.
“I’ll go find Blaise,” Céleste said, her voice cutting through my spiraling thoughts. I nodded numbly, watching her slip into the crowd.
I searched the room again, heat pricking under my skin.
The opulence of the ballroom suddenly felt suffocating.
People were milling about, waiters weaving through with silver trays, the string quartet playing an intimate tune in the corner.
My mother was laughing with some dignitary’s wife, her face a mask of social triumph.
Orion's friends remained where they’d been all evening.
All tall, collected, radiating the kind of cold self-possession that made them look permanently unapproachable.
Orion was nowhere to be found. Unbelievable.
Our eyes had met earlier, right before he disappeared. He and his cousin—whose name I still didn’t know—had walked out like they had somewhere urgent to be, then they vanished before I could even look toward the entrance.
Now it was time for the first dance. The MC was hovering near the microphone, the guests were beginning to form a circle, and my husband was missing.
Had they really left?
Fury flared up my body in the most humiliating way.
We weren’t in love; this wasn’t a fairy tale.
But basic courtesy didn’t feel like too much to ask.
At least pretend to be present until the end of the reception.
Until the public performance was done. That was what he wanted this morning, wasn’t it?
To get through the facade and run a perfect show.
I glanced toward his friends again, considering for half a second if to approach them and ask. I dismissed the idea immediately.
They all looked well-tailored and serious. None of them slumped or leaned. They held themselves with the kind of confidence that made the space feel like it belonged to them alone. Collectively, they were imposing—as if their default setting was do not approach unless summoned.
A shiver rippled up my spine.
If I walked over there, they wouldn’t just tell me where he was. They’d give me the same blank, assessing look they gave anyone who dared interrupt their space. The catering staff had suffered that unforgiving gaze the most tonight.
I looked at the silver lighter Laurent had dropped on the table during his bickering with Isolde. My fingers twitched. I needed to take something. Not because I wanted it, but because the air in this room was so thin I needed a souvenir to prove I was still here.
Isolde made a sound out loud, interrupting my thought. “Brr,” she rubbed her bare arms theatrically. “The one sitting there—” she nodded discreetly toward the one with the darkest hair among them “—reminds me of Céleste’s cousin Cassian.”
Her chin pointed toward the group of predators—Orion's friends—and we both laughed at that.
Cassian was exactly that. Tall, broody, with a stare that could curdle anything. Always somewhere between bored and ruthless.
“That’s why my Lucien is so precious,” Isolde purred, holding back a smile. “Easy on the eyes, and easy on the nerves.”
I rolled my eyes. Her crush on Cassian’s younger brother had been going on for years, since Céleste dragged us to one of their charity events, and Lucien had smiled at her like she wasn’t ornamental.
I couldn’t even blame her.
Unlike most men in the aristocratic circle, Lucien actually looked at people when they spoke. He could hold a conversation without making you feel insignificant. He was mostly easy-going.
Can’t say the same for the complicated one I married.
I searched the doorway again, willing Orion to reappear. Nothing. Just more guests, more murmured congratulations, more people from the Kade side looking at me like I was an investment they hadn't decided the value of yet.
The guests from our side were much worse. Their looks offered sympathy that felt more like judgment. They weren't worried for me; they were watching for drama, ready to collect whatever gossip a distraught bride might give them.
I tried not to let my displeasure show.
Céleste walked over to me with a grim, apologetic look on her face as she shook her head. “I can't find them... or Blaise.”
The planner glided between us, headset in place, clipboard hugged to her chest, and a brittle smile on her face.
“Mrs…ah, Léonie,” she corrected herself quickly, “Perhaps we begin with the father–daughter dance,” she suggested in a careful tone.
“Then transition to the couple’s dance after. Give Mr. Kade a moment to regroup.”
Regroup.
Code for whenever your husband decides to grace us with his presence.
I wasn’t sure what to feel, as I thought up subtle ways in my mind to make him pay for this embarrassment.
“Fine,” I said, schooling my face to stay neutral, despite the uneasiness I was feeling. “Let’s do that.”
I smoothed my skirt, my fingers itching to take something that didn't belong to me and tuck it away from my own wedding just to feel some sense of justice.
Damn you, Orion Kade.
I turned toward the dance floor, every inch the perfect bride. The crowd moved, forming a loose ring around the floor. The lights were dimmed to make the room feel intentionally intimate. The music changed to a waltz, of course. I'm certain my father requested it.
Three-four time. The rhythm our father made sure etiquette teachers drilled into us when we were fourteen, and still believed family duty was just a phrase adults used whenever they wanted obedience.
Despite all of it, I liked the ease of the waltz. It slipped beneath your skin and carried you along even when you weren’t thinking. It was exactly the kind of distraction I needed to pretend the day was going well.
My father stepped forward, his expression tenderer than it had been all day.
It was rare to get this side of my father.
It's the version of him that betrayed the fact that he had a human heart beating in his chest. He currently didn’t resemble the man who had traded his only daughter as leverage for a truce, to secure his business and his legacy.
It took me back to when I was younger. Back when I would wish he’d stay like this more often. That was before I understood that any warmth from him always came with conditions.
Debo was the one who inherited that warmth, even though my father would have preferred he’d gotten his cold, remorseless traits instead.
He held out his hand, and I took it, smiling back at him.
“May I?” he asked.
“You may,” I said, placing my hand in his.
His fingers held mine warmly, the way they’d been the first time we danced together at a family ball years ago. I was fourteen then. My dress had been too tight across my chest, my shoes a fraction too high. I’d been convinced I would trip and humiliate us both.
Back then things were simpler. I didn’t have to think about loyalty and obligations, and what my body was worth if you attached it to the right last name. I hadn’t understood any of it then.
We moved with the music, my skirt sweeping like royalty around us as we turned.
“One, two, three,” he murmured under his breath, like he used to, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“One, two, three.”
I let my muscles remember the sequence on their own.
He twirled me once, the room blurring in a carousel of faces and chandeliers and champagne. I spun, and collided with a wall that was not a wall.
A hand caught my waist, firmly; another closed around my hand, redirecting my momentum without breaking my stride. I gasped, instinctively reaching out to steady myself, my palm flattening against a chest that was solid heat and hard muscle.
Orion.
He had stepped into the space where my father’s hands had been, like it belonged to him. Which, legally, it did.
My father had already stepped back, merging into the ring of onlookers. The planner was practically vibrating with relief at the corner of the dance floor.
“There you are,” he said in a low tone only I could hear.