The night of the gala/ball wasn’t just another event. It was the kind of thing that made the city buzz for weeks.
Everyone who mattered was here, and dressed to prove it. The chandeliers sparkled like they’d been told to put on their best show, and the marble floors were polished so much you could almost see yourself in them.
And then the doors finally opened.
Dominic walked in with Celeste on his arm, and the room changed. Conversations stumbled, laughter cut short, and glasses paused mid-air. People tried to look casual, but they were all staring.
Celeste was impossible to ignore.
Her gown was red, and backless. The kind of red that made you blink and then look again because maybe the first ti wasn’t enough.
It clung to her like it had been poured on, and when she moved, it looked like fire licking across her skin. Her lipstick matched her dress and heels, her eyes were smoky, and her lashes were dark enough to make her gaze feel like gravity itself.
Dominic looked like her perfect opposite. He was putting on a black suit that was sharp, and precise. His presence announced how dangerous he could be.
His hand never left her bare back. Not once. And every ti soone’s eyes lingered too long, Dominic dipped his head, kissed the curve of her neck, and made sure everyone knew exactly where she belonged.
Celeste stare was magnetic, addictive, and devastating. Her glossy lips were charming. Dominic’s black fabric sculpted his shoulders and his chest with precision, his tie knotted perfectly, and his shoes gleaming like mirrors.
He didn’t smoke tonight, though several n in the hall did.
Celeste responded to Dominic’s kisses with a practiced grace. Every ti eyes clung to her, she gave them a smile not warm, not open, but tight, and razor-sharp, as though she were humoring them by acknowledging their existence at all.
It left them unsettled, as if they had been handed a sweet dipped in poison.
The won, the wives, fiancées, and partners of the other n present stared at her in awe. So masked it with envy, others with intrigue, but none could deny her impact.
Their gowns suddenly felt duller, and their jewels less striking. That was how beautiful Celeste was.
Dominic leaned closer, his breath grazing her ear. His eyes scanned every man they ca across. Then, with his lips close enough to her ear, he whispered, "The man in the grey tie by the left wall is Alexander Chen. He owns a pharmaceutical empire, and he watches won the way a butcher watches cattle."
Celeste’s lashes lowered as she shifted her gaze toward Chen. Her smile didn’t change. Her arm tightened against Dominic’s.
"And him," Dominic continued, his voice low and deliberate, "lean fra, narrow jaw, with a glass of whiskey he hasn’t touched yet, is a business man from Shanghai. He always asks questions he already knows the answers to. He carries a knife in his coat pocket."
Celeste tilted her head ever so slightly, her eyes sweeping across the room, finding the man Dominic described. She smiled again, tight, elegant, and unreadable.
The violins swelled.
The chatter grew, and waiters moved through with silver trays of champagnes filled with wealth and politics.
Dominic and Celeste reached the center of it all. The circle ford naturally with n adjusting their stances to acknowledge Dominic, and won drifting back to clear a path.
The Chairman hadn’t arrived yet, but this wasn’t his kingdom tonight. For these suspended monts, it was Dominic’s.
"Dominic," Chen greeted smoothly, breaking from the side to approach. His smile was thin, and too well-rehearsed. His gaze fled to Celeste. "And this must be the woman who tad the untamable." He chuckled. "May I?" He extended his hand toward Celeste, his body angled with an air of entitlent. "One dance."
Celeste t his gaze, her lips curving. Jer smile was sweet, and polite. Yet it was the kind of sweetness that cut if you dared to taste it. "That’s kind of you, Mr. Chen," she said softly, her voice smooth, wrapping itself around the air. "But I’ll have to decline."
She slipped her hand tighter around Dominic’s arm, leaning into him with effortless grace. Her eyes flickered briefly toward Chen with a smile so kind it mocked him. "I think I’ll stay exactly where I am tonight."
Dominic’s smirk sharpened. His thumb brushed across her bare back in a slow stroke, with approval radiating silently from him.
Chen’s polite mask cracked for just a breath before reforming. "Of course," he said smoothly, lowering his hand. However, the sting in his eyes betrayed the wound.
Before silence could claim the air, another voice entered. The lean man from Shanghai, the one Dominic had pointed out, stepped closer. His glass of whiskey was still untouched, and his lips twisted with sardonic humor.
"Ah," he drawled, his eyes swept over Celeste up and down. They lingered longer than respect allows. "So this is Dominic’s... decoration. No wonder he parades her like a prize stallion."
The air went cold. A few n around to hear chuckled nervously, unsure of whether to encourage him or hold their breath. The won stiffened, so curious to see how Celeste would take it.
Celeste’s lips curved tighter, her lashes lowering as she tilted her head. When she finally spoke, her voice was sugar-dipped.
"Funny," she said lightly. "I was just thinking how every ti I see a man desperate to define a woman as ’decoration,’ it’s usually because he knows he could never afford the art."
The lean man froze, caught mid-sip of a drink he hadn’t touched. His jaw ticked. Around them, n shifted uncomfortably. A few won’s lips parted in subtle gasps.
Dominic smirked, slow and lethal. His hand pressed firr at her back, as his lips lowered to brush another kiss against her neck, deliberately slow this ti, as though claiming her in front of them all.
"You heard her," Dominic said finally, his tone dripping with amusent. "And she doesn’t repeat herself."
The lean man’s face flushed a mottled red. He muttered sothing under his breath and stepped back into the shadows, his presence shrinking.
Eyes followed her now with even more caution, and more awe.
Celeste didn’t flinch at the attention. She simply leaned closer into Dominic’s arm, her face turned up to his with that sa faint smile, as if nothing had happened.
Dominic whispered more nas into her ear as they walked through the crowd, his lips grazing the side of her neck as he did.
Each na was delivered like a warning, and each kiss was a seal of possession. Celeste responded only with her tight smiles.
The Chairman finally entered the hall, and all eyes broke toward him, relief mingled with awe. The crowd shifted, bowing to his presence, but the weight of Celeste and Dominic’s arrival lingered heavier than his.
The Chairman raised his glass, smiling faintly as his eyes passed over them, knowingly, and calculatingly. "Gentlen," he said, his voice carrying through the hall with the gravity of a man used to silence when he spoke. "And ladies. The arrangent is sealed. Have a good night."
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