✨Chapter 12 – Draft
690 Words
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The town car rolled to a stop outside the glittering hotel, its marble steps awash in gold light and camera flashes. I could already hear the muffled roar of the paparazzi outside, their voices like hungry wolves waiting for fresh meat. My stomach tightened. I didn’t want to be here—not in this gown, not on Damien’s arm, not paraded like some prize he’d won.
Inside the car, Damien’s presence filled the small space like a storm. His hand rested on my knee, firm but deceptively gentle, the weight of it a warning and a claim all at once.
“You’re going to walk in there with me,” he said, voice low, as though my refusal was never an option.
I kept my gaze fixed on the window, watching the camera lights flicker like lightning. “You think I’m here for you?” I said quietly. “I’m here because you made it impossible to say no.”
He turned my chin toward him, forcing my eyes to meet his. “I’m keeping you safe, Ava.”
The way he said it sent a shiver down my spine, not because I believed him, but because a part of me wanted to.
We stepped out into chaos—shouts, cameras, the blinding staccato of flashbulbs. Damien’s arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I felt the taut power in his grip, the silent message he was broadcasting to every person watching: She’s mine.
The lobby was worse. Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead, the air thick with perfume and too-sweet champagne. Faces turned toward us—some curious, some hostile. Whispers bloomed like wildfire.
And then I saw her.
Celine.
Draped in scarlet silk, her smile slow and venomous as she glided toward us.
“Darling,” she purred, brushing Damien’s cheek with her lips before turning her gaze on me. “You clean up well. I barely recognized you.”
I stiffened, ready to snap back, but Damien’s hand on my hip tightened. Not now, his touch warned.
We moved deeper into the ballroom, the crowd swallowing us whole. My eyes kept scanning for danger—not just Celine’s sharp tongue, but something else, something in the air I couldn’t name.
Halfway through the evening, Damien was pulled aside by a silver-haired man in an expensive suit. Their conversation looked civil, but I caught the flicker of Damien’s jaw tightening, his eyes going cold. I drifted closer, pretending to study the silent auction table.
“…you can’t keep it buried forever,” the man was saying. “When the truth gets out—”
Damien’s reply was too low to catch, but the look he gave the man was lethal.
Before I could process it, Celine was suddenly at my side, holding two champagne flutes.
“Care for a drink?” she asked sweetly.
I shook my head, but she pressed one into my hand anyway. “You might need it,” she murmured, eyes glittering with malicious delight.
The rest of the evening was a blur of false smiles and strained conversation. It wasn’t until the final toast that the trap snapped shut.
A massive screen lit up above the stage, playing a slideshow meant to honor Damien’s recent charity work. But halfway through, the images changed—grainy photographs, news clippings, whispers of scandal. Damien in a bloodstained shirt. Damien standing over a man whose face I couldn’t see. Headlines screaming words like murder suspect and under investigation.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. I felt every eye swing toward us. My champagne glass slipped in my hand, shattering on the floor.
Damien didn’t move. His face was carved from stone, but his grip on me was like steel.
“Don’t,” he whispered in my ear as the room seemed to close in. “Don’t walk away from me, Ava. Not now.”
But my heart was pounding too loud, my vision swimming. I had come here tonight thinking the worst thing was Celine’s games.
I was wrong.
The man beside me might not just be dangerous.
He might be a killer.
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- Writer
