The billionaire investment

Chapter6

Chapter 5: The Gala

Williams Capital's annual investor gala wasn't optional. Marcus made that clear with the kind of flat, non-negotiable tone that had stopped surprising me weeks ago. "You're the face of the turnaround," he said, not glancing up from his laptop. "Investors want to see confidence, not spreadsheets. They want a story, and right now, you're it."

"I don't do galas," I told him.

"You do now."

I hadn't expected the dress code to feel like armor. I definitely hadn't expected the hour I'd spend standing in front of my closet that evening, discarding option after option, before finally settling on the floor-length emerald gown I'd bought two years ago for an occasion that never came — my father had passed before I'd had the chance to wear it to the anniversary gala he'd always dragged me to. Wearing it now felt like carrying a piece of him into a room full of people who had no idea what this company actually cost to keep alive.

Toke zipped me into it with the kind of critical, appraising look only a best friend could get away with. "You look like you could fire someone and make them thank you for it."

"That's the goal."

"Is it the only goal?" Her eyebrow arched meaningfully. "Because a certain billionaire is going to be there, and I've seen the way you two have been not-looking at each other for weeks."

"Toke."

"I'm just saying. Wear the dress for you. But if it happens to also devastate him a little, I won't be mad about it."

I didn't dignify that with a response. I also didn't disagree with it, which told me more than I wanted to admit.

The ballroom at the Windermere was the kind of overdone elegant that made you feel slightly underdressed even in a gown that had cost more than my first car — crystal chandeliers, a string quartet doing its best to be unobtrusive, a sea of tailored black and glittering jewelry that represented more collective net worth than most countries' GDP.

Marcus found me within minutes of my arrival, and something in his expression flickered — brief, involuntary, gone almost before I caught it — when he took in the dress.

"You clean up well, Ms. Adeyemi," he said, recovering into his usual composure.

"You sound surprised."

"I'm not surprised. I'm..." He seemed to search for the word, which was unusual enough on its own that I noticed. "Distracted. Which is inconvenient, given the number of people in this room I need to have coherent conversations with tonight."

It was the closest thing to a compliment I'd gotten from him, and it landed harder than it should have.

His hand settled at the small of my back as we moved into the crowd together — an entirely practical, entirely business gesture, the kind investors expected to see from a united front. It still made my pulse stutter in a way no spreadsheet ever had.

"Smile," he murmured near my ear as we approached the first cluster of investors. "You look like you're facing a firing squad."

"I feel like I am."

"You're doing fine." A pause, his voice dropping just slightly. "Better than fine."

We worked the room for two hours — introductions, careful small talk, the delicate choreography of making a struggling company sound like a smart bet without lying outright about how close to the edge we'd actually been. Marcus was good at it in a way that still unsettled me a little, effortlessly charming when the room needed charm, sharply precise when it needed numbers, never once letting the mask slip in front of anyone but me.

I found myself watching him work a cluster of skeptical shareholders, dismantling their doubts one calm, confident sentence at a time, and thought, unbidden: I understand now why my father trusted this man with everything, even before I knew the full story.

It wasn't until close to eleven, both of us finally free of obligation for a few stolen minutes, that I slipped out onto a private terrace for air. The noise of the ballroom faded into a low hum behind glass doors, replaced by the city spread out gold and glittering below, the kind of view that made problems feel smaller for exactly as long as you were looking at it.

I didn't hear him follow me out. I just felt the terrace door open, felt the temperature of the air shift slightly as he came to stand beside me.

"Hiding?" he asked.

"Regrouping." I glanced sideways at him. "You're good at this. The room, the charm. I didn't expect that from you, given everything the press says."

"I'm good at reading what a room needs." He loosened his tie slightly, the first crack in his own armor all night. "Tonight it needed us to look like a team that trusts each other completely."

"And do we?" The question came out quieter than I meant it to, more honest than I'd planned.

He didn't answer right away. The silence stretched long enough that I turned fully to look at him, and found him already watching me, something unguarded flickering behind his eyes that I hadn't seen from him before — not the calculated warmth he used on investors, something rawer.

"I want to," he said finally. "More than I expected to. More than I know what to do with, if I'm honest."

My breath caught somewhere in my chest. The city noise fell away entirely. For one suspended moment, the distance between us — six inches, maybe less — felt like the only variable in the world that actually mattered, and every question I'd been carrying since the overheard phone call went quiet, drowned out by the much louder question of what would happen if I closed that distance myself.

His hand found mine on the railing, fingers brushing against mine so lightly I almost thought I'd imagined it.

"Marcus—"

Then his phone buzzed, sharp and insistent against the quiet, breaking whatever had been about to happen between us like glass. He glanced at the screen, and I watched his whole expression shutter closed again, the wall going back up so fast it was almost violent.

"I have to take this," he said, already stepping back, putting distance between us with the same practiced efficiency he used to close every deal. "Excuse me."

He didn't come back for the rest of the night.

I stood alone on the terrace for a long time afterward, staring out at the city, furious at a phone call I knew nothing about, furious at myself for how much its interruption had hurt.

Whatever secret you're protecting, Marcus Williams, I thought, finally heading back inside alone, it's already costing us both more than you think it's saving.