Chapter 7

The Game Has Begun

The end of the workday came as a quiet relief.

One by one, the office lights began to go dark. Augusto walked past Eloise without saying a single word.

His suit was impeccable. His steps were firm.

But his eyes…

For a moment, Eloise held his gaze.

There was something hidden within it.

It wasn’t merely exhaustion.

It wasn’t anger or impatience.

It was pain.

A restrained, suffocating pain, almost too subtle to notice.

And for one brief second, she felt it too.

Unable to understand why, Eloise remained still, that strange sensation lodged deep inside her chest.

Tension followed him like a shadow.

Inside the elevator, only the metallic hum of the machinery broke the silence. Augusto descended to the private garage, where his driver was already waiting beside the sleek black luxury car.

Without a word, he climbed into the vehicle. With his face turned toward the window, he was driven back to his apartment.

As soon as he entered the penthouse, he removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and walked directly toward the bar in the center of the living room—a sophisticated, imposing piece, much like everything else around him.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey without ice, slowly swirling the amber liquid.

Then he approached the panoramic window that covered an entire wall of the living room.

Night had fallen over North City, and the lights of the metropolis pulsed like urban stars.

But his green eyes were somewhere far away.

Holding the glass tightly, Augusto became lost in his thoughts. The invitation still throbbed in his mind like an open wound.

Another dinner among high society.

Another one of his father’s schemes to reconnect him with Thamires’s family.

Thamires…

A flash.

She was smiling in a red dress, dancing with him at the company gala, her eyes shining as though she were in love.

Another flash.

She was naked, lying on her stomach.

His best friend was kissing her back while she smiled peacefully… as though they were a happy couple.

And another.

His father, José Monteiro, speaking with cold indifference.

“You’ll get over this kind of thing, Augusto. Business cannot stop because of a personal disappointment.”

The resentment was a poison that had never stopped flowing through his veins.

He hadn’t been betrayed by only one woman.

He had been betrayed by his family, his friends, and his own blood.

Augusto swallowed the whiskey in one gulp.

The heat of the alcohol was nothing compared to the icy rage consuming him from within.

When his phone rang on the counter, he didn’t pay attention to it at first. But when he saw the unknown number, he raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

He answered in his usual firm, impersonal voice.

“Hello?”

A pause.

“Hi, Augusto…”

The voice on the other end of the line made his heart stumble.

Thamires.

He didn’t need to hear another word.

He knew that voice as intimately as he knew every scar on his own body.

“What a surprise,” he replied coldly.

“The real surprise is that you’re running away from me,” she said sarcastically. “Are you going to avoid the dinner too?”

Augusto took a deep breath, tightening his grip around the glass.

“I have no reason to avoid anything. I’ll be there.”

“Alone?”

He hesitated for one second.

Only one.

Then he lied.

“No. I’m bringing my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” She laughed, but there was bitterness in the sound. “Now this should be interesting. I can’t wait to meet the saint who managed to soften that heart of stone.”

The call ended, and Augusto remained motionless.

Girlfriend.

The word echoed through his mind like an unexpected explosion.

Only one image appeared in his thoughts.

Eloise.

The bold brunette with lively eyes and a razor-sharp tongue.

The woman who had appeared like a bolt of lightning in the darkness of his routine.

“Damn it,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

There was no turning back now.

He needed her.

He needed Eloise to agree to accompany him to that dinner.

It would only be a temporary role…

Or perhaps it wouldn’t.

But how could he convince her to join this game?

A dirty game filled with deceitful people, where no one was innocent and everyone had something to hide.

He knew she could get hurt.

But he also knew that, at that moment, he had no other choice.

And deep down, even if he refused to admit it…

He wanted to see what would happen when that strong, unexpected woman entered a world built on masks and betrayal.

The game was about to begin.