Chapter 5

Scarlett's POV

"Get out."

Two words was all he gave me.

I walked out of that VIP lounge with my chin up and my spine straight, because I would die before I let Dominic Vance see me crumble. 

The heavy door clicked shut behind me, and the moment it did, my legs almost gave out. I pressed my back against the cold corridor wall and stayed there, just breathing. 

The bass from the music downstairs vibrated through the floor and up through my heels, and I used it like a drumbeat to keep myself together.

He had dismissed me like I was a nonentity, which, fine, was technically what I was, but that was not the point. The point was that in my previous life, he had not been able to keep his hands off me by the third minute. He had been warm, intense and hungry.

This Dominic of today was none of those things.

This Dominic was a wall.

I pressed my fist to my sternum and forced myself to think straight. He had seen through every move I made. The dropped glass, the stumble, the "Daddy." 

He had clocked all of it without blinking, which meant either he was sharper than I recalled, or he had changed somehow. And this change is something I did not have the information to understand yet.

I pushed off the wall and walked.

The staircase opened up to the main floor and the noise hit me all at once. The sound of music, laughter, glass on themselves and the thick sweet smell of perfume covered with cigarette smoke. 

I saw Luca before he saw me. He was standing near the bar with a drink in his hand, and his eyes found me the second my foot hit the bottom step. He straightened.

"Well?" he said, with a low voice and with eyes moving over my face the way a typist scans a document for errors.

"Give me time." I said. 

I stated the expression like I'm narrowing facts in an essay. Luca was good at reading people though. I had spent two years watching him do it to everyone around him, so I gave him nothing to read.

He watched me for four full seconds.

Then he nodded, he looked satisfied, then he brought his glass to his lips. "Don't take too long, Scarlet. You know father isn't a patient man."

"Neither am I," I said sweetly, and turned away before he could answer.

I moved through the crowd toward the far end of the bar, needing distance and a moment to breathe without Luca's eyes scanning me. I lifted a glass of water from a passing tray, pressed the cold surface against the inside of my wrist, and stared at the bottles lined up behind the counter.

Suddenly, I felt it. 

A specific gaze, which  a normal human feels on the back of their neck like a finger trailing along one's skin.

I turned.

Zara.

She was standing near the stage with one hand resting on her hip, a champagne flute loose between her fingers, watching me. The red lights hit her face and she looked like a new artistic paint. She smiled when my eyes found hers like we were sharing a joke I had not been told.

My stomach turned to snow.

I did not smile back, I only  held her gaze for exactly three seconds, then looked away, because looking away first was the smart move, reacting was the stupid one but my pulse had kicked up and my fingers tightened around the glass.

Did she know?

Could she know?

I went home early. I told Luca I had a headache, which he accepted without interest because my headaches had never been his problem before and tonight was no different. The drive back to the mansion was dark and silent as usual.