Chapter Five: Cracked Façade

The Crimson Bar had never been louder.

Or more silent.

The chatter returned after the race, the music swelled again, but in the far corner of the VIP lounge, Callum Braxton hadn’t moved.

He was still staring at the spot where Isla had stood.

“Are you even listening?” Seinna huffed beside him, arms crossed. “Eliana’s going to be here any minute. Try not to look like you saw a ghost.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

That hadn’t been a ghost.

That had been a reckoning.

Isla—his Isla—had just shattered the last image he had of her.

The obedient girl who folded herself neatly into his life was gone. Replaced by someone who didn’t ask permission to shine. Someone who wore danger like perfume.

And she hadn’t even looked at him when she won.

That bothered him more than it should have.

Downstairs, Isla was already slipping back into her crimson fringe dress, the one that fit her like a second skin. Lydia leaned against the changing room wall, grinning.

“You really left your mark out there.”

Isla applied a bold red lipstick with a practiced hand. “I didn’t go there for Callum.”

Lydia raised a brow. “But you saw him?”

“I saw a lot of people.” Her tone was neutral.

But her reflection betrayed her—just for a heartbeat. A flicker of something in her eyes. Satisfaction. Power. Maybe even closure.

Or maybe not.

Back inside the lounge, Eliana arrived. Timeless, graceful, practiced. She greeted Callum with a soft kiss on the cheek and immediately took his arm.

“Everyone’s been asking about us,” she whispered, smiling like it didn’t hurt to say. “They want to see we’re back together.”

He nodded.

But when he turned toward the crowd, his eyes scanned over Eliana’s shoulder—and caught red.

Her.

Isla entered the lounge with the same elegance she used to walk through the Braxton estate, except now there was nothing soft about her.

She owned the room.

Her heels clicked like punctuation marks.

Heads turned.

Carlos Black—the city’s most shameless trust fund heir—was the first to approach.

“I heard you used to be a Braxton,” he said, offering his arm with a smirk. “Let me show you what you’ve been missing.”

Callum froze.

Isla didn’t even blink. She just slid her arm into Carlos’s and let herself be led into a dance.

From across the room, Callum’s fingers curled into fists.

The dance was polite. Formal. But Isla moved like smoke—ungraspable, fluid, immune.

“Tell me, Miss Merrick,” Carlos murmured, eyes raking her neckline. “Do all ex-wives come out this... dangerous?”

Isla smiled slightly. “Only the ones who were underestimated.”

He leaned in. “I’d like to know what that feels like.”

Isla’s voice turned frost-sharp. “And I’d like you to remove your hand before I break it.”

He pulled back, startled.

Then he laughed.

She didn’t.

Across the room, Callum had moved. Eliana touched his arm, but he shook her off—too quickly, too sharp.

He was walking toward Isla now, through the crowd like a storm building in silence.

When he reached her, Isla was sipping from a glass of wine.

Carlos melted into the crowd, sensing the shift in atmosphere.

“You enjoy humiliating me now?” Callum asked quietly, eyes locked on hers.

She turned, slow and deliberate. “No. That would require caring about your opinion.”

A beat passed.

He stepped closer. “Why didn’t you tell me who you really were?”

She looked up at him, cool and unreadable. “Would it have mattered?”

“Yes,” he said before he could stop himself.

That caught her off guard. Just slightly.

But she recovered first.

“Maybe. But I spent four years being invisible to you, Callum. You only see me now because you’re losing control.”

He flinched.

And then—

“Eliana’s looking,” she whispered, leaning in like a secret was about to spill.

“What?” he breathed.

Her lips brushed the shell of his ear. “Smile, Mr. Braxton. I’m about to remind you what it feels like to lose something you didn’t know you loved.”

Then she stepped back, lips curved in a ghost of a smirk, and walked away—

—right into the arms of Dorian Kane, who had just entered the room, suit pristine, smile enigmatic.

He placed a hand gently at her back and leaned in to whisper something that made Isla laugh—a sound like freedom and danger wrapped in velvet.

Callum stared.

Dorian met his gaze over Isla’s shoulder.

And smiled.

Callum's voice caught in his throat. His jaw tightened. 

And for the first time in his entire life-

He realised he might have lost the only women who ever terrified him.... because she knew how to leave.