SIXTEEN

Perfection is a rehearsal for loss.

ENGAGEMENT

The glass doors of the Clarendon Hotel opened to a hush that felt rehearsed. Reporters lowered their voices the moment Hazel Castell stepped onto the marble foyer, wrapped in moonlight and the faint shimmer of Dior silk. Cameras didn’t dare flash too loudly around her; they had learned that the heiress didn’t pose, she allowed herself to be seen.

Dimitri offered his arm.

“Ready, cara?”

Hazel looked at him, eyes steady, expression carved from restraint.

“Always.”

Inside, the ballroom was a cathedral of glass and gold. A single chandelier hung like a frozen drop of light. Every table was arranged in symmetrical perfection; even the flowers obeyed geometry. The event wasn’t only their engagement dinner, it was Castell Industries’ announcement to the world that its legacy was safe, that love and empire could coexist.

Hazel could feel the pressure of eyes on her like perfume, expensive, suffocating, necessary.

A string quartet murmured at the far end of the room. Dimitri leaned close, his breath brushing the curve of her neck, all charm for the cameras. “Smile,” he whispered.

She did. Precisely.

The smile didn’t reach her eyes, but in photographs it would appear luminous, something born of love, not calculation.

The evening unfolded with mechanical grace. Speeches, laughter, toasts that glowed like glass held to light. Hazel knew how to glide through it: the perfect tilt of a head, the timed curve of a hand on Dimitri’s sleeve. Every gesture is choreographed to suggest intimacy.

Only Dimitri’s subtle mistakes betrayed him, the extra second his gaze lingered on Valentina when she arrived late, her crimson dress a deliberate wound in motion; the way his glass trembled before he lifted it to toast Hazel.

She noticed everything.

“Darling,” Valentina purred as she approached, her voice a flute wrapped in smoke. “You look divine. Edwin would have been proud.”

Hazel inclined her head, lips poised at civility’s edge.

“Would he?”

For a moment the air between them thickened with unspoken history: the ghost of a father, the whisper of legacy. Hazel’s reflection shimmered on the polished silver platter beside them, a perfect daughter beside a perfect mother. Both lies.

Dimitri stepped in quickly, performing affection.

“To Hazel Castell,” he said, raising his glass. “To the woman who makes silence look like power.”

The room laughed softly, unaware of the cruelty behind the compliment. Hazel touched her flute to his, the delicate ring of crystal almost masking her reply.

“To the man who believes he understands silence.”

Dinner arrived in courses too beautiful to eat. Lobster folded in saffron foam, veal glazed with truffle honey. Hazel barely tasted anything. Her appetite had been replaced by awareness, the way Dimitri’s fingers tightened around his napkin whenever Valentina spoke, the low murmur of gossip from the press table, the rhythm of power breathing in the room.

At the far end, the PR head leaned toward a journalist, whispering something. Hazel caught fragments, “…she’s colder than her mother ever was…”

The words slid over her like silk and burned underneath.

She excused herself before dessert, claiming a call from the board. In truth, she needed air.

The hotel’s terrace overlooked the Thames, a sleek artery of light. She stepped outside, exhaling into the October chill. The city looked serene from this height, but she knew its undercurrent, ambition, betrayal, hunger, all the things she had mastered.

Behind her, the door opened softly. Dimitri joined her, hands in pockets.

“Escaping your own celebration?”

“Only for a moment.”

He studied her profile, the way her hair caught the city’s reflection. “They adore you, you know. The press, the board, everyone inside.”

“They adore the performance,” she said evenly. “Not the woman.”

“Is there a difference?”

Hazel turned then, meeting his gaze. “For me, yes.”

Something flickered in his eyes, guilt, affection, or the shadow of both. He reached out as if to touch her arm but stopped halfway. The hesitation was louder than a confession.

“You make it difficult to be honest,” he said quietly.

“You mistake honesty for courage,” she answered. “And courage isn’t one of your talents, Dimitri.”

His smile faltered, then re-formed, polite, public.

“You wound me.”

“I only return the favor.”

Inside, applause erupted, the beginning of Valentina’s toast. Dimitri glanced toward the sound, relief crossing his face. Hazel noted it like an accountant logging a debt.

She turned back to the river. “Go,” she murmured. “They’ll notice.”

When he left, she remained still, arms resting on the railing, expression unreadable. Somewhere below, a taxi horn blared, brief and human. She almost envied it.

When Hazel re-entered, the lights had dimmed. Valentina stood at the podium, a vision of grace and sin.

“…and to my beloved daughter,” Valentina was saying, “whose strength reminds me that even roses can grow through marble.”

Polite laughter. Hazel’s gaze didn’t waver.

Valentina’s smile held steady, though her hand around the champagne glass trembled slightly, just once. Hazel noticed. The poisoner was nervous about her own toast.

When it was Hazel’s turn, she rose, the room’s attention shifting like a tide.

She began slowly, voice clear and deliberate.

“People often ask if I’m happy,” she said. “They see the titles, the photographs, the dresses, and assume happiness is made of shine. But shine is only light trapped inside glass.”

A pause. The audience leaned in.

“I’ve learned that perfection isn’t peace, it’s a performance. And tonight, I perform gratitude.”

Laughter again, unsure. She smiled as if it had been a joke, then raised her glass.

“To family. To the stories we tell to survive it.”

Crystal rang through the room. Even Valentina’s applause sounded careful.

The dinner dissolved into smaller conversations, photographs, and slow music. Dimitri danced with Hazel under a canopy of light. From afar, they looked flawless, two silhouettes of devotion. Up close, the rhythm was mechanical.

“You shouldn’t provoke her,” he murmured against her ear.

“I didn’t,” Hazel said. “I reminded her I can.”

He exhaled softly, a mix of admiration and fear.

“You’re colder than she is.”

“I learned from the best.”

Their steps matched, perfect. Every rotation brought them closer to the mirrors lining the ballroom walls. In each reflection, Hazel saw herself multiplied: the daughter, the fiancée, the heiress, all composed, none real.

When the song ended, she withdrew her hand first. The photographers captured that exact moment: Dimitri’s lingering grasp, her poised retreat. By morning, it would be on every headline as elegance. Only Hazel would know it was a distance.

It was nearly midnight when they finally escaped the crowd. The hotel corridor smelled of champagne and roses. Dimitri went ahead to thank the staff. Hazel lingered by the elevator, phone in hand, scrolling through congratulatory messages she didn’t care to read.

Then a new notification appeared, no name, only an initial: T.

Do you ever wonder what was taken from you?

Hazel frowned. Probably a journalist fishing for scandal. She deleted it without answering, but the words stayed lodged somewhere under her ribs.

When she joined Dimitri downstairs, she wore the same calm expression, the same impossible grace. Only her pulse betrayed her, quick and soundless.

Outside, the flashbulbs resumed their worship. She took Dimitri’s arm again, stepping into the night that smelled of rain and champagne. The city applauded the illusion.

Inside her phone, unseen, another message arrived.

T.: You were never supposed to be her.

Hazel didn’t see it yet.

But the glass had begun to crack.