My Rival, My Partner

Chapter Eleven: The Gala

Claire's POV

The Halloway Preservation Society's annual gala was the kind of event Claire generally avoided on principle, a room full of donors in evening wear congratulating each other on caring about architecture they'd never actually set foot inside, but Dane had asked her to come as backup, and backup, in this particular case, meant a buffer against Callum Ashworth's father, whom Dane would be meeting for the first time in a social setting.

"You look like you're about to walk into a deposition,"

Claire said, adjusting Dane's collar in the hotel lobby with the brisk efficiency of a woman who had done this exact task for him at three separate weddings.

"That's roughly the energy, yeah."

"He can't do anything to you here. It's a public gala. Worst case, he's condescending, you smile through it, we leave and get real food after, because I refuse to eat anything called an 'amuse-bouche' as an actual dinner."

Dane's laugh came out more nervous than she'd have liked, but it was something, and she squeezed his arm once before they went in.

The ballroom was exactly what Claire had expected, chandeliers, a string quartet earning their fee with great dignity, a bar serving wine nobody was actually drinking so much as holding. She spotted Callum first, easy to find in any crowd, tall and effortlessly composed in black tie, deep in conversation with an older man who had the same sharp jaw and pale eyes, aged into something colder.

Robert Ashworth turned as they approached, and Claire watched him catalogue Dane in the span of about two seconds, the cut of his suit, clearly good but not the kind of good money that came easily, the careful, deliberate posture of a man who'd taught himself to take up space in rooms that hadn't been built to welcome him.

"Mr. Copper."

Robert extended a hand, and his handshake, Claire noted, lasted exactly one second too long, the kind of thing that was probably a negotiating tactic he'd used so many times it had stopped feeling like a choice.

"My son speaks very highly of your work. Community-minded. Sentimental, even. Refreshing, in this industry."

It was, on its surface, a compliment. Claire had spent enough years in rooms like this to hear what was actually underneath it, sentimental doing quiet, deliberate work as a synonym for soft, for not quite serious, for a man being politely filed under a category that made him easy to underestimate.

"Thank you,"

Dane said, level, giving nothing away.

"I find the community usually knows what a building needs better than the people funding it."

Something flickered in Robert's expression, not quite offense, more like recalculation, a man revising a number upward.

"Bold," he said. "I like bold, provided it's paired with results. We'll see which this partnership produces."

Callum, standing slightly behind his father's shoulder, wore the specific careful blankness Claire had come to recognize from Dane's descriptions, the mask that came down whenever Robert Ashworth was in the room, nothing like the man Claire had heard about secondhand through Dane's increasingly unguarded stories.

"If you'll excuse us," Robert said, already turning, "I have other guests to greet. Enjoy the evening."

It was, Claire thought, watching him go, a masterclass in saying nothing threatening while making the air in the room feel three degrees colder.

She found Dane's hand had curled into a fist at his side, and reached over to uncurl it gently, one finger at a time, the way you'd defuse something.

"He's testing you," she murmured.

"That's all that was. A man used to winning by making people doubt themselves before the real negotiation even starts."

"I noticed."

"You did great."

Across the room, Callum caught Dane's eye over his father's retreating shoulder, and something passed between them, an apology, unspoken, and beneath it, something steadier, a promise that whatever his father was building toward, Callum wasn't going to let it stand unchallenged.

Claire watched the exchange with the particular satisfaction of a woman whose theory was being proven correct in real time, and made a mental note to text Marcus the second she got outside:

*Robert Ashworth is exactly as bad as advertised. Storm bet still on.*