Chapter 20 — Cornered

POV: BEATRIX

I felt Nikolai's hand tense against my back a second before I heard the voice behind us.

The party had thinned out; laughter and clinking glasses bounced around the lounge, echoing off the high ceiling. Conversations carried farther than they were supposed to.

"Mr. Ashcombe, so sorry to interrupt." One of the sponsors, an older man I vaguely recognized from the box earlier, appeared at Nikolai's elbow with the urgency of someone who thinks his own business is the only business happening tonight.

"Do you have a moment? It's about the naming rights renewal. Won't take long."

This was Nikolai’s comfort zone. Business. Rules. The type of interruption he usually welcomed. But I saw his jaw tighten, his eyes flickering over to Julian and Evelyn across the room. They were still just standing there, waiting.

For a second, I thought he might refuse and tell the man it could wait, but a night like this ran on exactly this kind of obligation, and we both knew it.

"I'll be right back," he said softly, just for me.

"I'm fine."

That was a lie, but it was the only answer that made sense. He was already turning, the sponsor’s hand guiding him away.

The crowd swallowed him almost instantly, all expensive suits and easy smiles. Suddenly, the space around me felt silent, even with the noise of the party.

I told myself I would be fine standing alone for five minutes. I had stood alone in rooms far worse than this one my whole life.

I busied myself with a glass of champagne I had no intention of finishing, scanning the room for a friendly face, someone safe to stand beside until Nikolai came back.

Ivy had already been taken home by the nanny an hour earlier, worn out from the game. There was no one else here who actually knew me.

Evelyn had drifted toward a group of women near the bar, laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world. She never once glanced over. She let Julian wander off to his ex like it was nothing. Maybe she already knew exactly what he was about to do and decided it wasn’t her problem to fix.

I didn’t even see Julian move. One second, I stood alone; the next, he was beside me, close enough that anyone watching would think we were just catching up.

That was always his gift—showing up when I was least ready, knowing exactly where to look for weakness.

"Beatrix." He said my name like it still belonged to him. "You look well."

"Julian."

He smiled, easy and warm, with the exact smile he used for cameras, clients, and every room that mattered.

A woman nearby glanced over and smiled back at him without thinking, the way people always did. He had that effect. He always had.

I used to find that charm intoxicating, back when I still believed it was meant only for me. Standing there now, watching a total stranger fall for it in real time, it just looked cheap.

"I'm surprised to see you here," I said, keeping my voice level.

“Evelyn’s father is a sponsor. We got the invite.” He said it without any weight, like running into me was an accident of scheduling. “Small world.”

"Very small.”

“You look good,” he said again, as if repetition would make it true, or matter. “Marriage suits you. Or maybe it’s the money.”

"It's neither," I said. "It's called being treated decently for once. You wouldn't know what that looks like."

Something flickered across his face, there and gone, before the smile smoothed back over it.

He took a step closer, and the charm evaporated so fast it almost startled me. Suddenly, I was looking at the Julian I’d known in private—the one who could turn cold in one blink.

"You look happy," he said. "That's cute. I give it six months."

"Excuse me?"

“Oh, come on, Bea. You’re not naïve. You know what this is.” He cut a look across the room to Nikolai, still stuck in polite conversation, then looked back at me.

“A man like that doesn’t marry a woman like you for love. He needed a story—a tragic ex, a makeover, good press.

You played your part perfectly at the cook-off. That flour stunt? Genuinely convincing. My assistant showed it to me twice. You were always good at making people believe things.”

My stomach turned, but I kept my face still. I had a lot of practice at that.

“The second you stop being useful—the moment the cameras move on—he’ll let you go,” Julian said. “That’s what men like him do. You’ll end up the way you started. Alone. A little desperate. Grateful for any attention. Not an insult, just reality.

I spent four years getting to know exactly who you are.”

"You don't know anything about him," I said.

"I know men like him better than you think. I sit across from them at every dinner Evelyn drags me to. Same watch, same suit, same way of looking at a woman like she's an asset on a spreadsheet."

He shrugged, barely bothered.

“I’m a man like him in almost every way that matters. The only difference? I never bothered to lie about it. At least I was honest about using you.” There was almost pride in his voice, like honesty turned his cruelty into something better.

It didn’t. I was done. Too tired for another argument.

"I need to go find my husband," I said, the word husband landing harder than I meant it to, and I watched it register somewhere behind his eyes.

I tried to step past him, done listening, done standing there and letting him say any more of it out loud in a room full of people who might overhear.

I got exactly one step before his hand closed around my wrist.

Hard. Too hard, a grip meant to stop me rather than simply touch me, his fingers digging in just below the bone in a way that would have left a mark if he’d kept holding on much longer. My wrist had started to ache.

For a second, I just stared down at his fingers on my arm like they belonged to someone else. Some old habit deep inside told me not to make a scene. Not to cause trouble. That was the instinct that had kept me silent for four years.

“I’m not finished,” he said, voice low now, all the charm gone. “If you walk away in front of all these people, it makes me look bad. I've had enough of that this month, thanks to you and your new husband's little publicity stunt."

"Let go of me," I said.

"Careful," he said, low and almost pleasant, like he was offering friendly advice instead of holding my arm against my will in the middle of a crowded room. "People are watching. Don't make this ugly."

"You're the one making it ugly."

"I'm just talking to my ex-fiancée. There's nothing ugly about that unless you make it something else."

"Not yet."

My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat, in the wrist he was still holding. For a sick moment, I was back in another room, another year, in the same stuck place, held still by someone who decided my comfort mattered less than making his point.

Four years of learning exactly how far his patience could stretch before it snapped, four years of weighing whether tonight was worth arguing back or whether to simply wait him out.

Turns out, some habits are hard to shake, even after the man who created them loses any real power over you.

My mouth had gone dry. I opened it anyway, forcing my voice to stay steady even though nothing else about me felt steady at all.

"Julian. Let go of my wrist. Now."

His grip only tightened.

I looked around for anyone else, a security guard, a familiar face, anything, and found nothing except strangers too absorbed in their own conversations to notice one woman being held a little too tightly by a man smiling a little too widely.

That was when I saw it, over Julian's shoulder, across the entire room.

Nikolai had turned and was looking right at us.