CHAPTER TWO – The Wedding Night.

 

          CELESTE

The dinner table stretched between us like a battlefield.

Golden candelabras flickered against white china, casting elongated shadows across the roasted meat and imported wine. Soft chamber music played from a live orchestra on a makeshift podium in the middle of the room. The music was automated, emotionless, like everything else in this house.

I sat upright in the high-backed black velvet-lined chair, my gown pristine, the veil long gone. The ring on my finger still felt foreign, like a cuff I hadn’t quite earned yet.

Across from me, Darius Vale sipped from his glass, watching me with the same calculated quiet he’d maintained all day. Unreadable and imposing. A man who owned every inch of the space around him without needing to raise his voice, or as much as a finger.

I chewed slowly, deliberately, trying not to show that my appetite had vanished the moment we had been left alone at the head of the table.

“You haven’t touched the venison,” he said at last, voice low and unhurried.

I met his eyes. “I’m not used to rich food.”

A lie. I’d been trained to eat in silence across dinner tables even before I knew how to hold a fork properly.

He leaned back in his chair. “Your father was a senator. Surely you were raised on excess.”

Another test.

I offered a demure smile. “Excess, yes. Palate? No. He preferred convenience to elegance.”

He tilted his head slightly, like a hawk adjusting to the wind. “Convenient men rarely survive long in politics.”

I sipped my wine. “Hence his untimely death.”

He paused. “That must have been difficult. Losing him so… publicly.”

Difficult? No. Watching his car explode in the driveway from my bedroom window, while gripping tightly the pages of my read of the week, had been anything but difficult.

I cast my gaze down. “It was.”

Silence again. I could feel him dissecting me from across the table; my tone, my body language, the way I reached for the wrong utensil before correcting myself. He was trying to unravel me with patience instead of pressure. A chess master with time to kill. A man who knew how to play his game well.

“I know what this arrangement is,” I said finally. “I’m not under any illusions.”

Darius didn’t blink. “Enlighten me.”

“It’s just political theatre. You needed a bride, and I needed a future.”

“You sound rehearsed.”

I looked up, letting my smile crack. “Maybe I am.”

He stood then, slow and deliberate. “Come.”

He didn’t offer his hand. Just turned and walked away, obviously expecting me to follow. I hesitated, just long enough to remind myself that this wasn’t real. That I wasn’t only Mira Lanford's grieving daughter, but also a social pawn.

I was Celeste. Spy. Liar. Weapon.

The corridor to the east wing was dimly lit, designed for privacy and shadows. Our footsteps echoed in tandem as we reached what I could only assume was the master suite. Darius opened the door, holding it just long enough for me to step inside before following behind.

The room was warm, quiet, and elegant enough to make me feel suffocated. A fire glowed in the hearth, throwing long, orange light across a four-poster bed draped in silk.

I heard him shut the door behind him with a soft click.

My throat tightened.

This was the moment I’d rehearsed over and over. The consummation. The beginning of intimacy. Of trust. Of infiltration. I’d studied seduction like a science. Knew how to control my breathing, blush on cue, and arch my back for maximum effect. I was armed with the knowledge I needed; I was well prepared.

But Darius didn’t reach for me.

He walked past me, slowly removing his cufflinks. His jacket hit the back of a velvet chair. His watch came off next, followed by the slow unbuttoning of his shirt. Every movement he made was precise. Intentional.

And then, he turned to me.

“Take off the gown,” he said quietly.

I didn’t move.

Not from fear. But from the unfamiliar sensation crawling under my skin- a tension, sharp and coiled, something that felt too close to anticipation.

“You’re not going to help me?”

“I want to watch.”

That shouldn’t have made my pulse skip. But it did.

I turned my back to him, lifting the small clasps of the gown with steady fingers. The silk slipped down my spine like a sigh, pooling at my feet. I was left in delicate lace. No veil, no clothes, no pretence. I turned back slowly.

His eyes didn’t wander. They devoured. But he didn’t touch me.

He approached me, stopping only when he stood close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from his skin. His fingers brushed my shoulder, trailing down my arm. Not to arouse, I discovered, but to assess. As if he were trying to memorise every inch of me.

“I won’t force anything tonight,” he said finally. “But I will ask one thing of you.”

I swallowed. “What?”

He leaned in, lips close to my ear.

“Don’t lie to me. Not here. Not in my bed.”

His voice was silk-wrapped steel, fanning against my neck. A warning dressed like a whisper.

I turned my head slightly, our lips inches apart. “Are you always this suspicious of your brides?”

He didn’t smile. “Bride. I’ve never had one before. Before you.”

A beat of silence passed, and then he stepped back.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa. You may use the bed.”

I stared at him, stunned for reasons I didn’t dare name.

He didn’t wait for a response. Just took the folded blanket from the foot of the bed and settled himself on the antique couch by the fire like he wasn’t built to be anywhere else.

I slipped beneath the covers of the bed, every nerve wired and burning. Not from the cold. Not from disappointment. But from confusion.

He was supposed to take me. That’s how the mission should have worked. Instead, he was making space. Building something slower. More dangerous. I lay awake, staring at the fire, listening to his breathing.

He didn’t touch me, but I felt it anyway. The weight of his presence, the warning in his words, the certainty that when he finally did claim me, it wouldn’t be for show.

It would be for real.

And when that moment came, I wouldn’t be the one in control. And I hated the thought of that.