THE MASQUERADE
792 Words
Velvet’s main ballroom pulsed with low bass and high secrets.
It wasn’t just an event; it was theater. Masked faces, crystal chandeliers, champagne towers, and coded glances over flutes of Dom Pérignon. Every guest had a secret, and every secret had a price.
Ava stood at the edge of the ballroom in a black velvet gown that clung like a second skin. Her mask was obsidian lace, delicate but sharp, like her. Beneath it, her eyes scanned the room, searching.
Damien hadn’t spoken much on the ride over.
He hadn’t kissed her, either.
Just rested a hand on her thigh like a claim. A warning. A promise.
Now, he was gone; swallowed by the crowd of elites and ghosts.
She hated that it still affected her; the way his absence felt like abandonment and possession all at once.
Then she saw him.
Across the ballroom.
In a charcoal suit that could gut any woman’s resolve, his black mask hiding nothing of his predatory stillness. He wasn’t dancing, wasn’t mingling.
He was watching.
Her.
She turned away before he could reach her.
Because tonight, Ava needed answers more than heat.
“Looking for someone else?” a voice murmured from her left.
She stiffened.
A man in a silver mask stepped closer. His cologne was unfamiliar. His smile wasn’t.
The stranger from Pont Neuf.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said under her breath, clutching her flute tighter.
“I could say the same,” he replied. “Especially now that Damien knows you’ve seen the file.”
Her blood chilled.
“He hasn’t said anything,” she whispered.
“Of course he hasn’t,” the man said. “He’s waiting to see if you’ll pretend you didn’t. Or if you’ll ask him the question you’re not ready to hear the answer to.”
A waltz began. The stranger held out his hand.
She hesitated.
Then placed her fingers in his.
They moved into the dance. Smooth. Untraceable.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“You don’t need it. You only need the truth.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Then give it to me.”
“He had your father exiled, Ava. Kept him alive but silenced, because killing him would’ve made things messier. But trust me, in Velvet, exile is a slower kind of death.”
The room spun with them.
Her heels clicked in time with her fury.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then why come to me now?”
“Because you’ve become leverage. Because Velvet thinks you’re either a pawn or a wildcard.”
The waltz ended.
The man leaned close.
“Damien wants you because you remind him of your father. But he’ll break you the same way.”
Then he vanished into the crowd.
Later that night, Damien found her on the terrace overlooking the Seine.
“You danced with a ghost,” he said.
“I dance with men I don’t trust all the time.”
His jaw ticked.
“And yet you sleep beside me.”
“I said trust, not desire.”
He moved closer. His hand brushed her bare back, fire in its wake.
“Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, Ava.”
She turned to face him.
“I saw the footage,” she said, voice level.
His face didn’t change.
Not visibly.
But something shifted in his eyes.
Slowly, he reached for her hand, laced their fingers.
“And what did you think you saw?”
“My father. You. Betrayal.”
He exhaled once, slow and measured. “There are things you don’t understand; yet.”
“Then help me.”
“I am.”
“By lying?”
He stepped back.
“I kept you alive by not telling you. You think Velvet would’ve let you anywhere near this building if they knew who you really are?”
“I had a right to know.”
“Not yet.”
Silence crackled between them like static before a storm.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” he said, his voice darker now. “You’re not just a woman I want. You’re the variable I can’t control. And in my world, that makes you dangerous.”
Ava stared up at him, tears burning behind her mask.
“Then maybe I’m right where I belong.”
He took her face in his hands. Rough, desperate.
“God help me, Ava. You’ll either save me or destroy me.”
He kissed her.
And she let him.
Because anger felt too much like love tonight.
Because his mouth tasted like the edge of a lie.
And because deep down, she wasn’t sure she wanted the truth anymore.
- Writer
