Chapter 4: Is he wearing a Mask?

"Celine’s POV"

The meeting was a blur of legalese and cold calculation.

I sat at the long mahogany table in the Thornhart library, spine rigid, while my father sold what remained of me. Trade concessions. Debt forgiveness. A shipping alliance sealed with my name on a contract I had no power to refuse. Billions of dollars shifted hands across the table as though I were merely another asset on the ledger.

Lucien sat cross-legged on the floor a few feet away, humming a soft nursery rhyme under his breath, his steel-gray eyes distant and childlike.

He rocked gently, oblivious or so the room believed while my future was auctioned off in polite, corporate language.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I… I need a moment,” I whispered, my throat tight.

No one stopped me. I rose on unsteady legs and

fled down the dimly lit hallway toward the restroom, the echo of my heels the only sound chasing me.

Cold water splashed against my face. I gripped the marble sink, staring at my reflection, hollow green eyes, pale cheeks, the ghost of the woman I used to be.

You can do this, I told myself. He’s just a tool. Use the Thornhart name.Survive.

I straightened my emerald gown, drew a shaky breath, and stepped back into the corridor.

I never saw the shadow until it moved.

My heel caught on the edge of the heavy Persian rug. The floor tilted. A gasp tore from my throat as gravity claimed me.

The impact never came.

Strong, calloused hands caught my waist in one fluid motion, jerking me upright and slamming me against a chest carved from living granite. This was no clumsy, childish grab. This was the grip of a man who knew precisely how much pressure it took to break bones or to hold someone exactly where he wanted them.

My palms flew to his chest, fingers curling into the crisp fabric of his shirt. I looked up.

Lucien Thornhart’s face was inches from mine.

The vacant sparkle in his steel-gray eyes had vanished. In its place burned a predatory, soul-stripping intensity. His pupils were blown wide, dark and ravenous.

“New mummy…” he whispered.

But the voice was wrong. It wasn’t the high, lilting chirp I had heard before. It was a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated through my ribs and settled low in my belly, rough with years of silence and something far more dangerous.

His hand didn’t pat or play. It slid down the small of my back, searing hot, pulling me flush against him until I felt every hard line of muscle, the steady thunder of his heart, the raw power he kept leashed beneath the performance. Heat radiated from his skin, burning through the thin silk of my gown. My thighs pressed against his, solid and unyielding.

His gaze dropped to my lips.

For one electric, terrifying second, the air between us crackled with the threat of a kiss that would ruin us both. My pulse hammered wildly. My breath caught. Something wild and unwanted flared low in my stomach fear laced with a dark, forbidden heat I had no name for.

Then footsteps sounded at the far end of the hall.

The mask slammed back into place so fast it left me dizzy.

“Oopsie!” he chirped, voice leaping two octaves into that hollow, childish lilt. He released me abruptly and stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet. “Mummy fell! Lucien is a hero! I caught the pretty lady!”

He skipped away down the corridor, laughing that high, empty laugh, the performance flawless once more.

I remained pinned against the cold stone wall, chest heaving, lips still tingling with the ghost of a kiss that never happened. My waist burned where his fingers had branded me. My heart raced at a dangerous, traitorous speed.

I stared at his retreating back the clumsy, exaggerated steps, the way he swung his arms like a little boy. It was too perfect. Too deliberate.

A masterpiece of deception.

Father thought he had sold me to a fool. Clara believed she had mocked a tragedy. The entire elite world whispered about the broken Thornhart heir who needed a nanny instead of a wife.

But as I pressed trembling fingers to the place his hand had seared, I knew the truth with chilling clarity.

I hadn’t been sold to a boy.

I had been thrown into a cage with a wolf who had spent years learning exactly how to hide his teeth.

And for the first time since the gala, I truly wondered who Lucien Thornhart really was beneath the mask.

And whether I would survive long enough to find out.