Monster In Silk

⚜️ Jealousy

The Whitney Museum annual benefit was supposed to be safe.

No Van Alens — they had been quietly disinvited after Daniel Cho's death made page four and Silas made a call to the board. No finance archives. No alleys. Just art, champagne, and women in dresses that cost more than Cassie's old rent, pretending to care about sculptures.

Cassie wore black silk again. This time, Mrs. Agatha had not left a note. Adrian had chosen it himself — a long, liquid halter with a slit up to mid-thigh, backless again, because he had confessed at 2 a.m. over cold pizza that he was obsessed with her back.

"You have a spine like a violin," he had said, his fingers tracing it while she pretended to be asleep in the library. "I want to play it."

Now his hand rested exactly there, on the bare skin above the slit, as they entered the glass atrium. His tuxedo was perfect. His wedding band flashed black.

Selene was already there. Of course she was.

She wore red. Always red. This time a tight, strapless gown with a thigh-high slit that was trying too hard to be Cassie's dress but cheaper. Julian was not with her. She was with a new man — older, thick neck, Van Alen's lawyer, Cassie recognized him from her research.

Selene saw them and smiled, slow, honeyed.

"Cassie! Adrian! You made it! I was worried you wouldn't come after... you know. The article. The boy in the alley."

Cassie stiffened. Adrian's hand pressed more firmly into her back, a warning: don't react.

"Selene," Adrian said politely, coldly. "You look... festive."

"Thank you! I bought it for tonight, I knew you'd be here." She turned to Cassie, her eyes flicking to the black silk. "Oh, that dress is gorgeous. Is it The Row again? Adrian does love dressing you up, doesn't he? Like a doll."

"It's vintage," Cassie said calmly. "Some things get better with age. Some things just get... repetitive."

Selene's smile didn't waver. She picked up two glasses of red wine from a passing tray, handed one to Cassie, one to herself.

"To sisterhood?" she offered.

Cassie took it, because refusing would be a scene.

It was a mistake.

As their glasses clinked, Selene's wrist "slipped." A full glass of Barolo — dark, staining, expensive — flew forward and splashed straight across Cassie's chest, down the black silk, pooling in the halter, dripping down her bare stomach, onto her thighs.

Gasps. Phones turned.

"Oh my God! Cassie! I'm so clumsy!" Selene cried, loud enough for half the room to hear, already dabbing with a napkin, her hand pressing too hard, too low, smearing wine into silk. "I am so sorry, I didn't mean — your dress!"

The silk was ruined. Black silk shows red wine like blood on snow. It clung to Cassie's skin, transparent where wet, the outline of her bra visible, wine dripping down her legs.

Adrian moved before Cassie could breathe.

He took off his tuxedo jacket in one fluid motion and wrapped it around her shoulders, covering her chest, his hands lingering, possessive. Then he looked at Selene.

His face was utterly calm. That was how you knew he was going to destroy someone.

"Selene," he said, his voice low, carrying only to their small circle but making two nearby socialites step back, "you have exactly three seconds to take your hands off my wife."

Selene froze, napkin still pressed to Cassie's stomach.

"Adrian, I was just helping -"

"One."

Selene snatched her hands back.

Adrian pulled Cassie closer, his jacket dwarfing her, his arm around her waist. He looked down at her, wine dripping from her chin, and wiped it gently with his thumb, his eyes never leaving Selene.

"My wife," he said, to the room now, voice clear, cold, elegant, "spilled nothing. You spilled your insecurity all over her dress. It's a common problem when you have to borrow relevance."

Selene's face flushed under her makeup. "Adrian, it was an accident —"

"It was not." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. "Accidents happen once. You have had three accidents around my wife in seven days. A leaked contract, a dead informant with her initials, and now this. That is not an accident. That is a pattern. And I do not tolerate patterns that threaten what is mine."

He turned Cassie slightly, shielding her from the phones.

"You should leave," he told Selene, still in that terrible calm. "Before you embarrass Julian more than you already have. And before I tell Richard Van Alen that his lawyer is drinking with a woman who is under investigation for corporate espionage."

The thick-necked lawyer beside Selene went pale and stepped away from her as if she were contagious.

Selene looked around — no Julian, no Van Alen, no one. Only Cassie in Adrian's jacket, wine-stained but upright, and Adrian like a wall.

"This isn't over," Selene hissed at Cassie, low, vicious. "You think black silk makes you powerful? You're still just the girl who saved a camera instead of her own hand."

She stormed off toward the balcony, heels clicking.

Cassie was shaking, not from cold — the jacket was warm — but from adrenaline and humiliation. "Adrian, everyone saw -"

"Good," he said, his hand finding her bare back under his jacket, warm skin on warm skin. "Let them see. Let them see you covered in wine and still standing. Let them see me cover you. That's the photo I want on Page Six tomorrow."

He led her toward the restrooms, but Selene had doubled back. She intercepted Adrian at the balcony doors, alone — Cassie had stopped to grab napkins from a waiter.

"Adrian," Selene purred, switching tactics instantly, voice honey, hand on his arm, chest pushed forward. "I am sorry, okay? About the dress. About the article. I was jealous. I've always been jealous of her. But you... you don't have to be loyal to a contract. You could have someone who actually wants you, not your money."

She stepped closer, her red dress bright against his black shirt, her hand sliding up to his chest, to his jaw.

"Julian is nothing. Cassie is using you. I know you know that. Come to the balcony with me for two minutes. Let me show you what a woman who isn't pretending feels like."

She rose on tiptoes, lips aimed at his.

Adrian didn't step back. He looked down at her hand on his chest, then at her face, with an expression of such profound boredom and disgust that Selene's hand froze.

He plucked her hand off his shirt like it was a piece of lint, held it between two fingers, and dropped it.

"I don't recycle leftovers, Selene," he said, quietly, brutally, so only she could hear. "Especially not ones my brother has already tasted and my wife has already outgrown. And I don't f**k women who spill wine on my wife's dress to get attention."

Selene went white.

"And one more thing," Adrian added, leaning in, his voice now ice. "The silk you sold to Page Six had my wife's initials on it yesterday when Daniel Cho died. If I find out you touched that silk, I will make sure every brand you ever tagged knows exactly what you did at the Van Alen port party in 2022. Do you understand?"

Selene's lips trembled. "You wouldn't -"

"I would. Now get off my balcony. You are staining the air."

He walked away, leaving her alone on the balcony, red dress like a warning flag no one was saluting.

In the restroom, Cassie was trying to blot the wine, failing. The silk was ruined. Her hands were stained red.

The door opened. Adrian locked it behind him — the women's restroom, but no one dared tell Adrian Blackwood he couldn't enter.

"Come here," he said.

She turned, his jacket slipping, black silk clinging transparent to her chest. He didn't look at her chest. He looked at her eyes, which were wet but not spilling.

"She tried to humiliate you," he said, taking the damp napkins from her hands and throwing them away. He wet fresh ones with cold water himself.

"She did humiliate me," Cassie whispered. "Everyone saw."

"Yes. They saw a woman in a ruined dress standing taller than the woman who ruined it." He knelt — actually knelt on the marble floor of the Whitney restroom in his tuxedo pants — and gently, carefully, dabbed the wine from her thighs, from her calves, his touch clinical, reverent, not s****l, despite the position.

"Adrian, what are you -"

"House rule number nine," he said, looking up at her from his knees, his grey eyes dark, his hands on her bare legs, his jacket still covering her chest. "When someone spills wine on my wife, I clean it up. And then I make them regret ever buying the bottle."

Cassie stared down at him — billionaire, monster in a Tom Ford suit, on his knees in a women's restroom, cleaning wine off her legs — and felt something in her chest snap open, hot and terrifying.

"Stand up," she whispered.

He stood, slowly, his hands sliding up to her waist under his jacket, skin to skin.

"Your dress is ruined," he murmured, forehead touching hers.

"Your jacket smells like you. I like it better."

He kissed her then, in the locked restroom, tasting Barolo and cold water, his hands under the jacket on her bare back, her hands fisted in his black shirt, wine forgotten, Selene forgotten, only the heat of his mouth and the possessive, brutal way he whispered against her lips:

"You're mine, even in ruined silk, Cassie. Especially in ruined silk."