The Devil Wears Armani
The ballroom smelled like old money and fresh lies.
Elena Vasquez stood at the edge of it all, a glass of champagne balanced between two fingers, watching Roman Blackwell the way she had watched him for five years. From a distance. From the dark. From the other side of a grave he thought she was buried in.
He was laughing at something across the room. Low and easy. The kind of laugh that made women forget their own names.
She hadn't forgotten hers. Either of them.
"He's looking this way," Iris murmured beside her.
"Let him look," Elena said.
And Roman Blackwell did look. His eyes swept the room like everything in it belonged to him already. Then they landed on her and stopped.
Just like that.
She held his gaze and took a slow sip of champagne. Five years of rebuilding yourself from ash did something to a woman. It turned your blood cold and your nerve into something unbreakable.
He excused himself from his circle without breaking eye contact.
Good. She needed him to come to her. Make him feel like it was his idea.
He moved through the crowd the way water moved around stone, effortless, people stepping aside without realizing it. Tall. Broader than she remembered from old photographs. Dark suit, no tie, the top button of his shirt open like a quiet act of rebellion. Roman Blackwell at thirty-two was a problem she had spent months preparing for.
She hadn't quite prepared for this version of him.
"You're the only person here who looks like they don't want to be," he said, stopping close enough that she caught his scent. Cedarwood and warm skin and something darker underneath.
Elena tilted her head. "Maybe I don't."
"Then why come?"
"Same reason anyone does." She glanced around slowly then brought her eyes back to his. "To see what's worth taking."
Something shifted behind his gaze. Interest sharpening into something more dangerous.
"Roman Blackwell," he said, extending his hand.
She let one beat pass before taking it. His grip was firm and warm and he held on half a second longer than a handshake required.
"Elena Vasquez. Mercer Financial." She slipped her hand free. "I believe your team reached out about the Aldridge account."
"They did." His eyes hadn't moved from her face. "I didn't expect you to be here tonight."
"I like knowing who I'm working with before I sit across a table from them." She kept her voice even. "Saves time."
The corner of his mouth pulled up. Not quite a smile. Something more private than that.
"And what do you think?" he asked. "Now that you've seen me."
Elena looked at him the way a woman with nothing to lose would. Steady. Unbothered. Not the way Zara would have five years ago, with a pulse that gave everything away.
Zara was dead.
"I think you're exactly what I expected," she said.
She watched that land. Watched him turn it over, deciding if it was a compliment or an insult. The uncertainty looked good on him.
"Dangerous answer," he said quietly.
"I've been told."
Iris appeared at her elbow right on cue. "Elena, Mr. Hargrove is asking for you."
She glanced at Roman once. "Excuse me."
She walked away without looking back. She knew his eyes followed her because she felt them, warm and heavy between her shoulder blades the whole way across the room.
Her chest was tight.
That was unexpected.
She found a quiet corner near the far wall and pressed one hand flat against the cool surface, breathing slowly.
"You're flushed," Iris said beside her.
"I'm fine."
"You're human." Iris handed her water. "He's more dangerous than his photographs."
"I know."
"Zara."
"Don't." The name cut through her like something sharp. She straightened. "Elena. Always Elena."
Iris studied her quietly. "Just remember what his family took from you."
She didn't need the reminder. She carried it every day. In the scar along her left ribs. In the silence where her mother's voice used to live. In the space her little brother's laugh once filled.
She remembered everything.
She turned back toward the ballroom and found Roman Blackwell already watching her from across it. Like he hadn't stopped. Like he didn't care that she could see him doing it. One hand in his pocket. Gaze dark and steady and far too focused.
Her pulse did something she refused to name.
*Come on then,* she thought, holding his stare across the glittering room. *Pull me closer, Roman. That's exactly what I need you to do.*
She smiled at him. Slow and just warm enough.
He smiled back.
And somewhere beneath the ice she had spent five years building, something cracked.
Just barely.
Just enough to terrify her.
