CHAPTER 3: THE GALA

The Ashford Estate was breathtaking in its understated elegance. Crystal chandeliers cast soft golden light over cream marble floors, and floor-to-ceiling windows revealed manicured gardens illuminated by strategically placed lanterns. Classical music drifted through the air, provided by a live string quartet tucked discreetly in an alcove. Everything whispered of wealth so old and established it didn’t need to shout.

Seraphine accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and tried to ignore the eyes that followed her entrance. She’d been recognized immediately, of course even in a room full of celebrities and billionaires, an Academy Award winner drew attention. But the glances she received were different from the usual red carpet stares. More curious than hungry. More respectful than invasive.

“See?” Maya murmured beside her. “Different crowd. These people have actual manners.”

“They’re still staring,” Seraphine said, taking a sip of champagne to hide her discomfort.

“Because you’re beautiful and talented, not because they want to dissect your personal life for tabloid fodder.” Maya squeezed her arm. “Mingle. Smile. Show them you’re thriving. I’ll be right over there if you need me.”

Before Seraphine could protest, Maya had drifted toward a cluster of industry executives, leaving her alone in a sea of designer gowns and tailored tuxedos. She recognized faces from magazine covers and Forbes lists—tech moguls, entertainment executives, political figures, old Hollywood royalty. The kind of people who shaped industries and influenced culture from behind closed doors.

“Seraphine Ashton.” A warm voice broke through her thoughts, and she turned to find Marcus Chen approaching with an easy smile. She recognized him immediately the tech billionaire behind Chen Technologies, known for his AI innovations and his reputation as one of the few genuinely decent people in the tech world. “I’m a huge fan of your work. Your performance in Echoes of Tomorrow was phenomenal.”

“Thank you,” Seraphine said, surprised and pleased. That film had been a small indie project she’d done between blockbusters, close to her heart but largely ignored by mainstream audiences. “I didn’t expect many people to have seen it.”

“Are you kidding? That monologue in the rain scene?” Marcus shook his head admiringly. “My wife cried for twenty minutes. She made me watch it three times.” He gestured toward a pretty woman with kind eyes chatting nearby. “That’s Lizzie. She’d love to meet you if you have a moment.”

The genuine warmth in his voice eased some of Seraphine’s tension. “I’d like that.”

Marcus introduced her to his wife Elizabeth, who proved to be exactly as kind as her husband suggested. Within minutes, Seraphine found herself actually enjoying the conversation, discussing films and books and the challenges of balancing public life with private happiness. It was refreshing to talk to people who seemed to care about substance over scandal.

“You’re handling everything with such grace,” Lizzie said quietly, her meaning clear without naming Derek directly. “That takes real strength.”

“Or really good acting,” Seraphine replied with a self-deprecating smile.

“There’s a difference between performing and surviving,” Marcus interjected. “What you’re doing is surviving. And that’s worth celebrating.”

Seraphine felt unexpected emotion tighten her throat. These strangers were offering more genuine support than most of her Hollywood acquaintances had managed. “Thank you. Both of you. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”

“Actually,” Lizzie said, her eyes twinkling, “we do. Marcus went through his own public mess a few years back. Corporate espionage, media circus, the works. I watched him rebuild from that. You will too.”

They chatted for another few minutes before Marcus excused himself, mentioning something about checking in with friends. Lizzie stayed with Seraphine, pointing out various guests and sharing amusing anecdotes that made the evening feel less daunting. Seraphine was actually laughing at a story about a disastrous charity auction when she felt it.

A prickling awareness at the back of her neck. The sensation of being watched.

She turned, scanning the crowded ballroom, and found nothing obvious. Just clusters of wealthy guests networking and socializing, waiters gliding between them with champagne and hors d’oeuvres, the string quartet playing something classical and soothing. Yet the feeling persisted, raising goosebumps along her arms despite the warmth of the room.

“You okay?” Lizzie asked, noticing her distraction.

“Fine,” Seraphine lied. “Just thought I recognized someone.”

But that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t recognition she felt. It was something more primal. Predatory. Like standing in a forest and suddenly realizing you weren’t alone, that something dangerous watched from the shadows.

She shook off the feeling. Paranoia from weeks of media scrutiny, probably. Or residual anxiety about being in public after the Derek disaster. Nothing more.

“I should go find Maya,” Seraphine said, offering Lizzie an apologetic smile. “But thank you for being so kind. It meant a lot.”

“Let’s exchange numbers,” Lizzie suggested, pulling out her phone. “I’d love to have coffee sometime. No Hollywood talk, no business. Just two women being normal humans.”

The idea sounded wonderful, and Seraphine quickly saved Lizzie’s contact information before making her way across the ballroom. She spotted Maya deep in conversation with a production executive, so she detoured toward the terrace doors instead. Fresh air suddenly seemed necessary, a break from the weight of social performance.

The terrace was less crowded than the ballroom, only a handful of guests scattered among the stone balustrades and potted topiaries. City lights glittered in the valley below, and the night air carried the scent of jasmine from the gardens. Seraphine moved to a quiet corner, setting her champagne glass on the railing and closing her eyes briefly.

She’d survived. Two hours of the gala, dozens of conversations, countless curious stares, and she’d survived without breaking down or running away. Maya would be proud.

“You looked like you needed an escape.”

The voice came from behind her, deep and smooth like aged whiskey, with an edge of something dark and compelling. Seraphine’s eyes snapped open, and she turned to find a man standing a few feet away, half-hidden in shadows cast by the terrace lighting.

Her breath caught.

He was tall easily over six feet with broad shoulders filling out an impeccably tailored black tuxedo that probably cost more than most people’s cars. Dark hair, styled back but with a slight wave that suggested it might curl if allowed freedom, framed a face that could have been carved from marble by a master sculptor. Strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and eyes that even in the dim light appeared almost black. Obsidian, she thought absurdly. His eyes were like polished obsidian, reflecting nothing while seeing everything.

He was beautiful in the way a predator was beautiful. Dangerous and compelling and absolutely mesmerizing.

And he was looking at her with an expression that gave away absolutely nothing perfectly controlled, perfectly neutral, perfectly unreadable.

“I did,” Seraphine admitted, finding her voice despite the way her heart had started racing. “Crowds can be exhausting, even polite ones.”

“Especially polite ones,” he said, his voice carrying absolute certainty without a trace of emotion. “At least with hostile crowds, you know where you stand. Polite society hides its judgments behind champagne and small talk.”

His voice was cultured, educated, with the kind of authority that suggested he was accustomed to being obeyed. But there was something else beneath it a careful control, as if every word was measured and deliberate, revealing nothing he didn’t choose to reveal.

“You sound like someone who avoids polite society,” Seraphine observed, studying him more carefully. The expensive watch on his wrist, easily six figures. The way he held himself, radiating power and control. The deliberate positioning that kept his face partially in shadow. Everything about him screamed wealth and influence, yet she couldn’t place him.

“When possible.” His expression remained unchanged not cold, not warm, simply neutral. A perfect mask. “I prefer solitude to performance.”

“Then why attend tonight?”

“Obligations.” The single word was delivered without inflection, without complaint or resentment. Simply a statement of fact. “Everyone has them, regardless of preference.”

“You don’t seem like someone who does things he doesn’t want to do.”

“Then you’re perceptive.” Still no emotion colored his voice, no acknowledgment that she’d scored a point. “Most people make the mistake of believing power means freedom. It doesn’t. It means different chains.”

Seraphine found herself leaning forward slightly, drawn in despite or perhaps because of—his complete lack of readable emotion. It was like talking to a beautiful statue, except statues didn’t speak with such careful precision.

“That sounds lonely,” she said quietly.

“Loneliness is irrelevant.” His tone didn’t change, didn’t soften. “You adapt to your circumstances or you fail. I don’t fail.”

The absolute certainty in those words should have sounded arrogant. Instead, it sounded like simple truth, delivered without pride or boasting. A fact, like gravity or mathematics.

“Do you ever wish you could be less… controlled?” Seraphine asked, genuinely curious now. “Let yourself feel things without calculating the consequences?”

He tilted his head slightly, the only indication he found her question interesting. “Feelings without control lead to mistakes. Mistakes cost everything. Therefore, control is not optional.”

“That’s a bleak way to live.”

“It’s an effective one.” He moved closer, just a single step, but Seraphine felt the shift in energy like a physical thing. “The world is not kind to weakness. Better to be strong and isolated than vulnerable and destroyed.”

“Is that what you are? Strong and isolated?”

For the first time, something flickered in his dark eyes so brief she might have imagined it. “I am what I need to be.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer you’ll get.” His lips curved fractionally not quite a smile, more an acknowledgment of her persistence. “You’re bold. Most people don’t push when I deflect.”

“Most people probably find you intimidating.”

“And you don’t?”

Seraphine considered lying, then decided against it. Something about this man demanded honesty, even if he gave none in return. “You’re definitely intimidating. But I’ve spent years around powerful people who use fear as currency. You’re different.”

“How so?”

“You don’t need to remind people of your power. They feel it automatically. That’s rare.”

His expression didn’t change, but she sensed she’d surprised him somehow. “You see clearly. That’s dangerous in your world.”

“In yours too, I imagine.”

“More than you know.” He turned to look at the city lights, his profile sharp and unreadable against the night sky. “The man who hurt you. He couldn’t handle being truly seen, could he?”

The observation was delivered in the same neutral tone as everything else, but Seraphine felt it like a knife to the chest. How did he know? Was it that obvious? Or was this man simply that perceptive?

“No,” she whispered, the admission escaping before she could stop it. “He wanted a reflection of his own ego. Not a real person.”

“Then he was inadequate.” The words were flat, clinical, without sympathy or anger. Simply assessment. “Men like that reveal their weakness through their need for control over others. They mistake dominance for strength.”

“And what’s the difference?”

He looked back at her, and for just a moment, his carefully controlled mask slipped enough to let her see the predator beneath. “Strength doesn’t need to prove itself. Dominance is what weak men use when they have nothing else.”

“You sound like you have experience with weak men.”

“I destroy them regularly. It’s tedious.” No emotion. No satisfaction or regret. Just fact. “They make noise, create problems, hurt people unnecessarily. The world improves when they’re removed from positions they don’t deserve.”

Something in the way he said it—so calm, so matter-of-fact—sent a shiver down Seraphine’s spine. This was a man who could ruin lives without losing sleep. Who calculated destruction like others calculated profit margins. And yet, standing here with her, he felt less threatening than protective. Like a weapon aimed away from her.

“That’s a dangerous philosophy,” she said carefully.

“It’s a practical one.” His gaze returned to her face, studying her with an intensity that should have felt invasive but somehow didn’t. “You’re stronger than you believe yourself to be. The fact that you’re standing here, performing grace under pressure, proves it.”

“You don’t know me well enough to make that assessment.”

“I know what I see. A woman who survived something meant to break her, who refuses to hide despite every instinct screaming to disappear. That’s strength.”

The compliment was delivered in the same emotionless tone as everything else, but somehow that made it more impactful. This wasn’t flattery or charm. It was observation, clinical and honest.

“Thank you,” Seraphine said softly, not sure what else to say to this strange, controlled, utterly fascinating man.

“Don’t thank me. I’m simply stating facts.” He checked his watch with the efficiency of someone constantly aware of time. “You should return to your manager before she decides I’m a threat.”

“Are you?”

His eyes met hers, and for one crystalline moment, she saw something vast and dark and absolutely certain in their depths. Then it was gone, hidden behind perfect control once more.

“Not to you,” he said simply. “Never to you.”

Before she could ask what he meant, before she could demand his name or his reasons for seeking her out, he stepped back into the shadows with the fluid grace of someone accustomed to moving unseen.

“Wait ” Seraphine started, but he was already gone, disappeared into the ballroom like smoke.

She stood alone on the terrace, heart racing, skin tingling with awareness, wondering if she’d just imagined the entire encounter. But no the champagne glass she’d set down was real. The lingering scent of expensive cologne was real. The way her pulse still hammered in her throat was very, very real.

“There you are.” Maya’s voice cut through her confusion, and Seraphine turned to find her manager approaching with concern etched on her face. “The Foundation director wants to meet you before the speeches begin. Who were you talking to?”

“I…” Seraphine looked back at the shadows where he’d disappeared. “I don’t know. He never told me his name.”

Maya’s expression shifted to alarm. “What did he say to you? Did he make you uncomfortable?”

“No. The opposite, actually.” Seraphine touched her throat where her pulse still raced. “He was just… different. Real.”

“Real how? Sera, you’re shaking.”

Was she? Seraphine looked down at her hands and realized Maya was right. Some combination of adrenaline and awareness had left her trembling like a leaf.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just… let’s go meet the director. I need to focus on something normal.”

Maya studied her with sharp eyes that missed nothing, but she nodded and guided Seraphine back inside. As they walked through the ballroom, Seraphine couldn’t help scanning the crowd for a tall figure in black, for those dark, unreadable eyes that had seen straight through her defenses.

She didn’t find him.

By the time Maya suggested they leave, Seraphine had almost convinced herself the encounter meant nothing. A strange conversation with an unusual man. Nothing more.

Yet as their car pulled away from the estate, she found herself looking back, wondering who he was and why she couldn’t shake the feeling that something fundamental had shifted. That she’d been seen truly seen by someone who mattered, even if she didn’t understand why or how.

In the ballroom, Marcus Chen found his friend exactly where he’d left him an hour ago, standing near the windows with a glass of untouched scotch in his hand. Damien’s posture was perfect, his expression neutral, his entire demeanor suggesting mild boredom with the evening’s proceedings.

But Marcus had known him for sixteen years. And while Damien Hale’s control was legendary, Marcus had learned to read the microscopic tells no one else could see. The barely perceptible tension in his shoulders. The way his thumb rubbed once across his jaw. The fractional narrowing of his eyes that indicated intense calculation.

Something had happened. Something significant.

“Ready to leave?” Marcus asked carefully. “I know you hate these things.”

“Soon.” Damien’s voice was perfectly modulated, revealing nothing. “I need to make a few arrangements first.”

“Arrangements for what?”

Damien didn’t answer immediately. He simply stared out the window at the night, his reflection ghostly in the glass, his expression unchanging. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the same flat certainty it always did—the tone that preceded empires rising or enemies falling.

“I need complete background information on Seraphine Ashton. Everything. Her career, her relationships, her vulnerabilities, her threats. I want it compiled by tomorrow evening.”

Marcus felt his stomach drop. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to marry her.”

The words were delivered with the same lack of emotion Damien used to discuss quarterly earnings. No excitement, no uncertainty, no hint that he’d just said something completely insane.

“You…” Marcus struggled to find words. “Damien, you don’t even date. You’ve barely looked at a woman in years. And now you’re talking about marriage after what, one conversation?”

“Sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds.” Still no emotion. Just precision. “And yes.”

“That’s not how this works. You can’t just decide”

“I can and I have.” Damien finally looked at Marcus, and his dark eyes were as unreadable as ever. Perfectly controlled. Perfectly contained. “She’s mine. The rest is simply logistics.”

Marcus opened his mouth to argue, to point out all the ways this was problematic and obsessive and potentially harmful. But something in Damien’s absolute stillness stopped him. This wasn’t impulse or infatuation. This was Damien Hale making a strategic decision with the same cold calculation he brought to billion dollar deals.

Which somehow made it more terrifying.

“Does she know she’s ‘yours’?” Marcus asked carefully.

“Not yet.” The faintest hint of something satisfaction, perhaps colored Damien’s voice. “She will. When she’s ready. When she’s healed enough to accept what I’m offering.”

“And what are you offering?”

“Everything.” Damien’s expression didn’t change, but his voice dropped half an octave. “Protection. Security. Devotion. The resources to pursue her career without interference or manipulation. And the destruction of anyone who’s hurt her or tries to hurt her in the future.”

“That’s…” Marcus struggled for the right word. “Intense.”

“It’s necessary.” Damien set down his untouched scotch with precise care. “She’s been damaged by someone inadequate. Someone who tried to diminish her. I’ll need his name and a full dossier on his activities.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s going to learn what happens when someone hurts what’s mine.”

The words were delivered in Damien’s usual emotionless tone, but Marcus heard the promise of absolute destruction beneath them. Damien Hale, declaring war. Marking territory. Deciding with perfect certainty that this woman this actress he’d spoken to for less than twenty minutes belonged to him.

Marcus should argue. Should point out the insanity. Should remind Damien that people weren’t possessions.

But he’d known Damien too long to waste his breath. When Damien Hale made a decision with this level of certainty, the entire world could stand against him and he wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t hurt her,” Marcus said finally. “Whatever this is, whatever you think you’re doing she’s already been hurt enough. If you’re wrong about this, if you’re not what she needs, you need to let her go.”

Damien’s expression remained perfectly neutral, but when he spoke, his voice carried absolute conviction. “I’m not wrong. I’m never wrong about things that matter. And nothing has ever mattered more than this.”

He walked away then, leaving Marcus standing alone by the windows, wondering what the hell had just happened and sending up a silent prayer for Seraphine Ashton.

Because Damien Hale had just claimed her as his. And when Damien claimed something, he never let it go.

Never.