Chapter 7: The Dinner

Aurelia's POV

The dress was midnight blue, backless, chosen because Vivienne had specifically told me to wear something that "wouldn't embarrass the family in front of the board." I zipped it myself. Cassian hadn't come home in time to help, and some petty, wounded part of me hadn't texted him to remind him.

The private dining room at Blackthorne Global had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, the city lit up gold and white below us like something out of a postcard nobody in this family actually stopped to look at.

Board members clustered near the bar, waiters moved through with trays of champagne no one was drinking fast enough.

Cassian found me the second I walked in, his hand landing at the small of my back like a claim staked in front of witnesses.

"You look beautiful," he said, close to my ear.

"You're late," I said back, not unkindly. Just true.

"I know, I'm sorry. The Henderson account...."

"It's fine, Cassian."

It wasn't, but saying so at a table full of board members felt like handing them a weapon.

That's when the room shifted.

I felt it before I saw it.....the way conversations dipped half a register, the way three separate women near the bar turned at once like they'd been magnetized. I didn't have to look to know who'd walked in.

I looked anyway.

Kael wore black tonight instead of the charcoal suit from the lobby, and somehow that made it worse......sharper, more deliberate, like he'd dressed for a war he hadn't told anyone he was fighting. He said something to a board member, easy, unbothered, and then his eyes found mine across the room like they'd been aimed there the whole time.

Cassian's hand tightened, just slightly, against my back.

"Behave," he murmured, and I couldn't tell if he meant it as a joke.

*****

Dinner was seated, which was worse. Cassian at the head of the table, Vivienne to his right, me to his left.....and Kael directly across from me, close enough that our knees could have brushed under the table if either of us had been careless enough to move an inch.

We were not careless. We were, in fact, unbearably careful, which somehow made it worse.

"Kael tells me the Singapore office finally signed off," Cassian said, cutting into his steak. "Took them long enough."

"They wanted concessions we couldn't give," Kael said. "I told them no twice before they believed I meant it."

"That's one way to run a negotiation."

"It's the only way that works." Kael's eyes flicked to me for half a second before returning to his brother, so brief I might have imagined it if my whole body hadn't tensed.. "You learn that fast, working overseas. People respect the word 'no' a lot more than they respect a maybe."

"Is that so." Vivienne's voice cut in, smooth as poured cream. "How fortunate for you. Some of us find *maybe* has its uses."

"Only if you intend to change your answer eventually, Mrs. Blackthorne." Kael's tone didn't shift at all. "Otherwise it's just a slower way of saying no."

Something tightened around Vivienne’s mouth. She didn’t like being spoken to that way, she didn’t like it from anyone, especially from a man she had never been able to control.

Under the table, my knee moved without my permission, an inch closer to where he sat.

I stopped myself before contact. Barely.

"Aurelia's been wonderful with the gala planning," Cassian said, oblivious, reaching for his wine. "You two should coordinate. Kael's division is sponsoring half the guest list."

The table went very still, in the specific way a room goes still when four people are pretending something isn't happening in front of a fifth who has no idea.

"I'd be glad to," Kael said, perfectly professional and perfectly composed.

I made myself say, "That would be helpful," in a voice that came out steadier than I felt.

Under the table, his knee brushed mine. Deliberate this time....just once then gone, like it had never happened at all.

I nearly dropped my fork.

*****

After dinner, the room broke into smaller clusters....

board members drifting toward Cassian with questions about quarterly numbers, Vivienne holding court near the windows with two women I didn't recognize.

I stepped out onto the small private terrace off the dining room, needing air, needing distance from a table where my own knee had betrayed me in front of God and everyone.

I wasn't alone for long.

"You looked like you needed rescuing in there," Kael said, closing the terrace door behind him.

"I looked fine."

"You looked like a woman who'd rather be anywhere else." He walked over and stood beside me at the railing, close enough that I could smell the clean, subtle scent of his cologne, close enough that I was suddenly very aware of the small space between us.

"I'd know. I spent four years perfecting the same expression in board meetings I didn't want to be in."

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"It's supposed to be honest." He looked out at the skyline instead of at me, which somehow made it easier to breathe. "I shouldn't have done that. Under the table."

"No," I agreed. "You shouldn't have."

"I'm not going to apologize for it."

I turned to look at him, and he was already looking at me, the city lights behind him seemed to fade away, and for a moment, nothing else mattered.

"You should," I said, "before someone in that room notices what you just admitted to me."

"Someone already did."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"Vivienne," he said quietly, nodding toward the glass door behind us. "She's been watching this terrace for the last ninety seconds."

I didn't turn around, I didn't need to. I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck like a hand pressed flat against my spine, patient, cold, already calculating exactly what she thought she'd just seen.