THE BILLIONAIRE I USED TO KNOW

Chapter 3 — The Gala

The Hendricks Gala was exactly the kind of event Elena had spent her whole life on the edge of — close enough to see the chandeliers through tall windows from the street, never quite invited past the velvet rope that separated people like her from people like this. Now she walked in on Damian Cole's arm wearing a dress that cost more than her father's monthly mortgage used to, back when there had still been a mortgage and a company steady enough to pay it, and every eye in the room found her before she'd made it ten feet past the entrance.

"Smile," Damian murmured, close to her ear, his breath warm against her skin in a way that sent an unwelcome shiver down her spine. "They're deciding right now whether this marriage is a scandal or a love story. Give them the second one."

"And if I don't feel like performing?"

"Then feel like it anyway. For an hour." His hand settled at the small of her back, warm even through the thin silk of her dress, guiding her gently through the crowd like she was something precious rather than something purchased. "After that, I'll take you home."

She hated how easily her body responded to the touch — the small, treacherous warmth of it spreading up her spine, like her skin had decided to trust him before the rest of her had caught up to the decision. It was infuriating, how a single hand on her back could make her forget, for a moment, that this entire evening was a performance for an audience that didn't care whether either of them was happy, only whether the story was good enough to repeat.

The whispers followed them through the room in a low, constant current, impossible to fully block out even as she kept her chin high and her expression composed. The Rossi girl. Cole finally settled down. Did you hear it was arranged? I heard the father was drowning in debt. I heard Cole basically bought her. Elena let the words wash past her, refusing to let any single one land, and was more grateful than she wanted to admit for the solid, certain presence of Damian beside her, steering her through the worst of it with the ease of a man who'd navigated a thousand rooms exactly like this one.

It was near the bar that she first noticed the man watching them too closely, his gaze lingering a beat past what politeness allowed. Mid-forties, expensive suit that fit a little too perfectly, a smile that didn't reach anywhere near his eyes.

"Richard Voss," Damian said under his breath, before she could ask, his voice dropping into something flatter and more careful than his usual tone. "He wanted your father's company before I did. Wanted you, too, if the rumors from a few years back are accurate."

"Charming."

"He's dangerous," Damian said, and for the first time all night the practiced ease dropped out of his voice entirely, replaced with something harder underneath. "Stay away from him, Elena. I mean that."

"Is that concern, Mr. Cole?"

"It's a warning." He didn't look at her when he said it, his eyes tracking Voss across the room instead. "There's a difference, and I'd rather you understand it now than find out the hard way."

But when Voss approached them ten minutes later, all easy charm and a hand extended a beat too long toward Elena's, Damian's arm tightened almost imperceptibly around her waist — not possessive exactly, or not only that, but close enough that she felt the tension in his whole body through the small point of contact.

"Mrs. Cole," Voss said, letting the name sit strangely in his mouth, like he was trying it on to see if it fit properly and finding it didn't. "Damian's kept you well hidden. I had no idea Rossi's daughter was so —" his eyes moved over her, slow and assessing in a way that made her skin crawl, "— striking."

"Careful, Richard," Damian said, pleasant and cold at once, a tone Elena suspected had ended more than one business relationship in the past.

"Just an observation." Voss's smile didn't waver, practiced and unbothered. "You'll have to forgive me, Elena — I knew your father for years, long before any of this. I was surprised he chose Cole over my offer, when the time came. Mine was considerably more generous, financially speaking."

"My father chose what was best for his company," Elena said evenly, keeping her voice steady despite the way her pulse had picked up. "I trust his judgment."

"Of course you do." Something flickered behind Voss's eyes — calculation, maybe, or a private amusement she didn't like the shape of. "Enjoy the evening. I imagine there's a great deal you don't yet know about your new husband."

He walked away before she could ask what exactly he meant by that, leaving the sentence hanging in the air between them like something dropped and shattered. Beside her, Damian had gone very still, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on Voss's retreating back with an intensity that told her, more clearly than any words could have, that the comment had landed somewhere it hurt.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Nothing," Damian said, too fast, too smooth, the words coming out a half-second before he'd properly composed them. "He likes to make people nervous. It's a hobby of his."

She didn't believe him, not entirely. But she filed the moment away with the others accumulating quietly in the back of her mind — the way he'd said her name the first day like it wasn't new to him at all, the wall that went up every single time she asked why her, specifically, out of every company he could have bought and every woman he could have married for appearance's sake — and said nothing else about it for the rest of the evening, though she felt the weight of the unanswered question follow her home.