CHAPTER 30: CELESTE'S CLAWS

The gala ballroom glittered with exactly the kind of wealth that made my dress, however carefully chosen, feel suddenly inadequate. Chandeliers the size of small cars. A string quartet playing something I half recognized from a commercial. Henry's hand rested at the small of my back as we entered, steady, grounding, though I noticed he kept scanning the room the way a man scans a battlefield rather than a party.

"Relax," I murmured. "You look like you're expecting an ambush."

"With this family, that's not an unreasonable expectation."

"Comforting, as always."

"I try." A faint, tired smile tugged at his mouth. "Stay close tonight. Please."

"Worried I'll wander off and embarrass you?"

"Worried about exactly the opposite."

He wasn't wrong.

Celeste found us within fifteen minutes, gliding across the room in a dress that probably cost more than my first year's salary, champagne flute dangling from perfectly manicured fingers.

"Henry." Her voice carried, pitched just loud enough for the surrounding cluster of board members to catch every word. "I was hoping you'd be here. It's been ages."

"Celeste."

"And Roseline." Her eyes swept over me, quick and assessing, the same once-over she'd given me at the mansion weeks ago. "You look lovely. Is that dress from the new collection? I saw it in a magazine somewhere."

"I wouldn't know. I just liked the color."

"How refreshing." Her smile didn't waver, but something sharper moved behind it. She turned back to Henry before I could respond further, angling her body in a way that neatly excluded me from the conversation entirely. "Henry, I was just telling your father's old business partner about the foundation gala next month. We really should discuss the seating arrangement, the way we always used to."

"We can discuss it with the committee."

"Oh, don't be stiff." She laughed, light and musical, touching his arm in a way that made something hot and unwelcome twist low in my stomach. "You used to let me handle all of this. It was practically our thing."

"That was a long time ago."

"Was it? Feels like yesterday." Her gaze flicked briefly to me, then back to him, something calculating settling behind her perfectly composed expression. "Family events always run smoother with someone who actually understands the Kingsley name. No offense, Roseline. It's simply a matter of experience."

I felt my jaw tighten. "None taken."

It was taken. Every careful, pointed word of it.

She steered Henry toward a cluster of board members before I could decide how to respond, her hand still resting on his arm with an easy familiarity that made my chest burn in a way I refused to examine too closely. I told myself it was annoyance. Professional irritation at being so blatantly dismissed in front of people whose opinions apparently mattered to this family. The explanation felt thin even as I built it.

I didn't entirely believe myself.

Mia would have called it exactly what it was within about three seconds. I was grateful, for once, that she wasn't here to say it out loud.

I found Vivian a short while later, watching the scene from near the bar with the satisfied patience of a woman observing a plan unfolding exactly as designed, a glass of champagne untouched in her hand, like she was savoring the moment too much to bother drinking. She caught my eye and smiled, warm as ever, utterly unbothered.

"They do look well together, don't they," she said, following my gaze toward Henry and Celeste, who were now deep in conversation near the gala's main stage. "Celeste understands this world. She was raised in it. Knows exactly which fork to use, which senator to charm, which scandal to smooth over before it reaches the papers."

"Henry married me, Vivian."

"Of course he did." Her smile widened, almost pitying. "Paper is such a flexible thing, though, isn't it. Easily torn. Easily rewritten, given the right circumstances."

The threat sat there, dressed in silk and champagne, and I understood with sudden, cold clarity exactly what I was watching. This wasn't coincidence. Celeste hadn't simply reappeared in Henry's orbit by chance. Vivian had placed her here, tonight, in front of the board, in front of the press, a carefully positioned crack aimed directly at the marriage she'd never wanted to exist in the first place.

"You're using her," I said quietly.

"I'm introducing old friends." Vivian's eyes glittered, cold beneath the warmth. "What they do with that opportunity is entirely up to them."

"She thinks this is real. That you're actually encouraging something."

"Celeste is a grown woman capable of her own choices." Vivian sipped her champagne, unbothered. "If she chooses to remind Henry what a suitable match actually looks like, I hardly see how that's my doing."

"You're not even denying it."

"I don't lie to family, dear. I simply arrange things, and let people draw their own conclusions."

I watched Celeste laugh at something Henry said, her hand finding his arm again, proprietary and practiced, like she'd done it a hundred times before and expected to do it a hundred more, and felt jealousy flare through me hot and sudden and impossible to fully deny, however much I wanted to.

I hated how much it hurt to watch, hated it enough that I almost didn't recognize the feeling for what it actually was.

I turned away before Vivian could see it on my face, moving toward the terrace doors for air I desperately needed, when Henry's voice cut cleanly through the crowd behind me.

"Excuse me."

I turned back in time to see him extract his arm from Celeste's grip with quiet, deliberate finality, cross the ballroom floor in a handful of long strides, and reach me before I'd fully processed what was happening.

He took my hand.

Not a polite gesture for appearances. His fingers laced through mine, firm, certain, in full view of the board, the press, Vivian, Celeste, every careful eye in that glittering room.

"Dance with me," he said.

It wasn't really a question.

My heart hammered somewhere near my throat as he led me onto the floor, Celeste's stunned expression burning somewhere behind us, Vivian's composure cracking for one bare, satisfying second before she smoothed it back into place.

"What are you doing?" I whispered as the music swelled around us.

"Dancing. With my wife." A faint, dry edge touched his voice. "Novel concept, apparently, to half this room."

"Henry, everyone's staring."

"Let them."

"Reminding everyone in this room exactly who I married."

"Henry."

"I mean it, Roseline." His hand settled at my waist, steady despite the sudden unsteadiness I felt radiating through my own chest. "I'm done letting this family decide who matters in my life."

The gesture terrified me more than I wanted to admit, standing there in the middle of that glittering ballroom, his hand warm against mine, something real and unscripted blooming in a marriage neither of us had ever meant to feel this much.

Across the room, Celeste's composure finally slipped entirely, and Vivian's smile had gone thin and brittle at the edges. I didn't look away from Henry long enough to enjoy either sight.

I was too busy wondering what it meant that I didn't want to.