Chapter 5: Velvet Daggers
The stylist arrived at exactly 12:00 p.m., as promised.
She was French. Or pretended to be. Pencil-thin with bleached eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, and an assistant who moved like a shadow and didn't speak. The woman introduced herself only as "Mathilde."
"Elara Quinn," she said, pursing her lips as if she were tasting the name.
"Just Elara," Elara replied.
"No, darling," Mathilde corrected, unzipping a garment bag with theatrical flair. "Tonight, you're Mrs. Blackthorn."
Three other bags followed. They were rolled in like weapons, not dresses. Silk, velvet, satin—all dark, all sleek, all designed to say something about the woman inside them. None of them said Elara.
"You do realize this isn't a real marriage?" Elara asked dryly as Mathilde held up a navy gown with a slit up to the hip.
Mathilde didn't look away from the dress.
"Of course," she said. "Which makes it all the more important that you look like it is."
For the next two hours, Elara was plucked, zipped, spun, and measured like merchandise. Someone waxed her brows. Another technician ran a scanner over her skin to "check hydration." A man with a tight ponytail said the word cheekbones so reverently she nearly slapped him.
At one point, someone asked if she'd ever had dermal filler.
"No," she said.
"Hm," they replied, and made a note on a tablet anyway.
By the end, she was in a floor-length black velvet gown that hugged her body like it was memorizing it. The neckline was daring. The slit was dangerous. The heels were offensive.
Mathilde circled her like a cat assessing prey it had no intention of eating.
"You'll be the most talked-about thing in the room," she said.
"I'm not sure that's a compliment."
Mathilde smiled, gently adjusting one diamond earring.
"Oh, darling," she whispered. "It's not meant to be."
The Glass House looked like a weapon disguised as architecture.
Perched on a private cliff overlooking the city's eastern skyline, it was all mirrored panels, geometric edges, and deliberate opulence. A fleet of black cars curved along the entrance drive like polished vipers. Inside, light poured from a vaulted ceiling of cut glass, refracting in a thousand quiet judgments.
When Elara stepped out of the car, Caelum was already waiting.
He offered his arm.
She hesitated—but only for half a second.
Then she took it.
"You look... sharp," he said.
Not beautiful. Not elegant. Sharp.
It was the kind of compliment that sounded like strategy.
"And you look like money laundering in a tux," she replied.
He smirked. Just barely.
Inside, the room opened around them like a stage. Every face turned. Every voice lowered just enough to pretend it wasn't whispering. Men in suits who owned airports. Women with eyes like knives. Cameras they weren't supposed to see.
Caelum leaned in as they descended the marble staircase.
"Smile like you've been bought."
"I don't fake well."
"You won't need to."
The second their feet hit the floor, a woman in emerald silk swept toward them—flashing white teeth, diamond wrists, and a familiarity Elara instinctively disliked.
"Caelum," the woman said, pressing a kiss near his cheek. "You didn't say your wife would be so... photogenic."
Elara extended a hand before the other woman could.
"Elara Blackthorn," she said evenly. "Legally, if not spiritually."
The woman blinked. Caelum's smirk deepened.
"And you are?" Elara asked.
The woman smiled tightly. "Someone who used to be on his arm."
"Elara," Caelum murmured, amused, "this is Genevieve Crane. She runs the domestic affairs council under the Foundation."
Genevieve turned back to him. "You always did know how to pick... unpredictable."
"I don't pick," Caelum said. "I invest."
Elara didn't flinch.
But she'd never wanted to break a champagne flute in someone's face more in her life.
The room moved around her like a sea of teeth.
Elara didn't cling to Caelum's arm. She let her hand rest lightly at the crook of his elbow, every inch of her posture practiced to say: I belong here, and I don't care if you think I don't.
Across the ballroom, clusters of men stood like towers—politicians, billionaires, names with initials instead of first names. And their wives, all lacquered smiles and silent judgments, drifted like precision weapons in heels.
Caelum leaned in. "You're being watched."
"I know," she said.
"Not just by them."
Her eyes flicked sideways.
He didn't say more. He didn't have to.
She spotted him near the far bar—Alec Moreau. Dark suit, open collar, drink untouched. Watching. Not at Caelum. Not at the crowd.
At her.
Caelum shifted slightly, angling her body toward him like a statement.
She turned to Caelum, voice low. "Using me to provoke your shadow?"
He didn't deny it.
"Elara," a voice interrupted, unfamiliar and clipped.
She turned.
A woman. Older. Severe jaw. Diamond necklace that could ransom a country. A face Elara recognized from finance articles but couldn't name.
The woman studied her with interest. "You're Celine's sister."
Elara went very still.
"Yes," she said slowly.
"Then you know Richard Blackthorn," the woman continued. "He adored your sister. Devastated when she disappeared from his life so suddenly."
Elara's throat closed.
Caelum's grip on her arm tightened, just briefly.
"Excuse us," he said, his voice a cool blade.
He steered Elara away before she could reply, navigating them to the back hallway beyond the ballroom, away from eyes and cameras.
When they stopped, she turned to him, fire under her skin.
"You knew she was involved with your father," she hissed.
"I knew they crossed paths," Caelum said. "I didn't know she was adored."
"You're lying."
"And you're not ready for the truth."
Elara shoved him back—not hard, just enough to make him blink.
Then she said, low and furious, "Don't use me as a pawn when you're too much of a coward to flip the board."
And then she walked back into the room without him.
She didn't get ten steps before the whispers followed her like perfume.
Is she the one?Quinn's sister?So that's the scandal.Blackthorn's finally gone sentimental. Or mad.
Elara didn't slow down.
She didn't head for the bar, or the restrooms, or a balcony to pretend she cared about the skyline. She walked straight to the largest knot of donors, gathered around a sculpture made of curved glass and obscenely expensive steel.
She didn't speak.
She just stood there, shoulders back, chin lifted.
Let them look.
Let them wonder.
It took Caelum less than a minute to find her. She could feel him before she saw him—like a shift in gravity, or a cold wind that touched only her skin.
He moved through the crowd without speaking, without excusing himself, without stopping.
He reached her, took her hand.
"Elara," he said smoothly, his voice carrying just enough.
She turned toward him, smiling tightly. "Are we pretending again?"
"No," he said. "We're making sure they understand."
Then, in one fluid movement, he pulled her to him—not roughly, not sweetly, but with the kind of precision that made the air freeze.
His hand slid up her back. His other cupped her cheek.
And he kissed her.
Not soft.
Not hungry.
Possessive.
Calculated.
Deep enough to silence the room. Long enough to send cameras scrambling.
When he pulled away, her breath caught in her throat—and not just from surprise.
He leaned in again, his lips brushing the shell of her ear.
"You wanted a stage. Now they're all watching. Let's see what you do with it."
Then he stepped back.
Left her standing there, trembling.
Not from fear.
From fury.
And something far more dangerous.
The party didn't end.
It never did. These people didn't gather—they fed. On rumor, on tension, on spectacle. And Caelum had just handed them the richest course on a platinum tray.
Elara didn't chase him.
She let the crowd surge back in around her, let the music swell, let the next round of champagne glasses distract them. But her heart didn't slow. Her hands didn't stop shaking.
Not because of the kiss.
Because of what it wasn't.
When she finally found him again, he was standing near a wall of glass, talking to Alec in clipped, low tones. They stopped the second she approached.
Alec smiled, but not with his eyes. "Mrs. Blackthorn," he said. "You make a very convincing wife."
"Funny," she said, not smiling back. "You make a very unconvincing human."
He chuckled and drifted off, leaving them alone.
Elara didn't waste time.
"You don't get to touch me like that," she hissed. "Not in public. Not in private. Not ever."
Caelum's gaze flicked to hers—sharp, unreadable.
"You signed a contract."
"I signed to play your wife, not your puppet."
"That kiss made them believe."
"It made me want to set your suit on fire."
He stepped in then, close enough she had to tilt her chin to keep eye contact.
"You keep asking for truth, Elara," he said, voice low, breath warm. "But you have no idea what it costs. You keep pushing."
"Because you keep hiding."
"I'm protecting you."
"From what?"
A pause.
Then he leaned down, his mouth nearly brushing her jaw.
"From bleeding out on a secret you're not ready to hold."
She didn't move.
Neither did he.
And in that breathless, burning pause between heartbeats, she realized—
He wasn't bluffing.
He was warning her.