Bound by His Shadow: The Billionaire's Secret Weapon

Chapter 17: The Elevator

Seraphina had barely slept, but her left hand was steady. Before dawn she went to the garden and poured water, a little at a time, into that patch of soil. The surface of the soil had already dried. Rosa was up early; from the far end of the arcade she watched for a long moment and did not come over. Seraphina set the watering can back against the wall and straightened.

In the conference room yesterday, Isabelle had deliberately called her "Miss Sterling," then corrected herself to "Mrs. Vance." Seraphina remembered that insult, and remembered her own reaction more clearly: her left hand had opened at her side, almost ready to strip Isabelle's Gift on the spot, and then she had forced herself to draw her five fingers back, one by one.

Back in the East Wing, she stood before the mirror. The pothos on the windowsill had put out a new leaf. Damian waited outside the door. His message was short: "The invitation arrived last night. The boss says to go as Mrs. Vance."

As Mrs. Vance. Lucian himself was not going.

She chose a dress in mist gray. The woman in the mirror was calm, almost unfamiliar. She spread the fingers of her left hand, stretching them one by one to full extension, then drew them slowly back. Her Gift was there.

Damian drove. The car was quiet, only the sound of tires on pavement. She leaned against the window and watched the city slide backward.

The tea party was held on the glass terrace of a club in the north of the city. Trays of champagne moved through the crowd; the clink of glassware was fine and constant, buried under laughter no one bothered to hold in. The sun hit the glass and made people squint. Isabelle Ashford moved among her guests, remembering every name and every recent loss of money. Her hem swept the floor without a single wrinkle. Her laughter landed with precision, and whoever it landed on looked at her once more.

When Seraphina entered, Isabelle's gaze swept over and stopped for a single second. Then she crossed the crowd toward her, both hands extended, her smile so sincere it could not be faulted.

"Mrs. Vance. I'm so glad you could come."

The whole room turned to look. Some recognized Seraphina and murmured among themselves, voices low but glances unmasked. The contract marriage announcement had only gone out days ago; the entire city was guessing what the last surviving Sterling looked like.

Seraphina did not take her hand. She only inclined her head. "A charity hosted by Miss Ashford. Of course I would come."

Isabelle smoothly looped her arm through the arm of a woman beside her and raised her voice half a step: "Everyone, this is Mrs. Vance. Tonight she is the one person most worth knowing."

So the whole room pressed in. Someone came over with a glass, made small talk that wound around three corners, and finally asked: "And how did you and Mr. Vance meet?"

Seraphina picked up her tea and took a sip. "That question, you should ask Mr. Vance."

The questioner laughed sheepishly and backed away. Isabelle watched, smiling even deeper. She raised her glass and gestured toward Seraphina, as if recommending a collectible to the whole room. The rest of the guests stopped approaching and watched instead from a few steps away.

Seraphina carried a cup of tea to the edge of the terrace. It had gone cold. She did not ask for it to be replaced.

She was not watching the crowd. Her attention was fixed on Isabelle's fingertips. Isabelle circled the guests with her champagne, her hand pale and her fingers long; only the fingertips would flush red for an instant, like fire burning beneath the skin. The Ashford fire was tied to their emotions. The face could hold it down; the hands could not. Seraphina was waiting.

Isabelle had come up beside her at some point, her voice pitched just loud enough for the people nearby to hear: "That dress truly suits you, Mrs. Vance. Come to think of it, the Sterlings used to love hosting tea parties too, didn't they? I heard my mother mention it when I was a child."

The terrace went quiet for a beat.

Seraphina did not look up. She watched the tea leaves drifting in her cup and spoke slowly: "Miss Ashford has an excellent memory. No wonder you could recite every figure from the energy negotiation down to one decimal place."

Isabelle's smile stopped on her face. It did not c***k, but it stopped for a second. A few ladies nearby exchanged a glance; no one spoke. Isabelle drew that hand behind her back, as if to hide something.

Seraphina saw her index finger resting on the rim of her glass, the pad of it flushing a very faint red. The fire was climbing.

After that, Isabelle did not come near her again. The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon at opposite ends of the terrace, each working the room. The sun crawled westward, inch by inch.

By the time the tea party broke up, the sun had slanted low. Isabelle stood at the door seeing her guests off, shaking hands, saying goodbye, elegant as a statue touched by the evening light.

Seraphina stayed until the last. Once the crowd had mostly dispersed, she made her way toward the elevator.

She reached the private elevator just as Isabelle arrived at it. They stood a few steps apart, and neither spoke first. The doors opened. Isabelle stepped inside and turned. The doors began to close.

She looked at Seraphina. The gap narrowed, bit by bit.

All afternoon, Seraphina's left hand had hung at her side without trembling once. Now she opened it. Five fingers, opening slowly. Her Nullification slipped through the gap and brushed lightly against Isabelle's fire.

When only a thread of the gap remained, a very soft hiss sounded inside the elevator.

A small flame flickered up from Isabelle's fingertips, no more than a little ball. The tongue of fire licked the handbag she was carrying, the leather curling back where it burned, a scorched smell rising.

Isabelle looked down at her hand. Since the day her Gift awakened at sixteen, it had never once slipped her control.

The doors closed.

Seraphina turned away. Damian stood three steps behind her, his face unreadable. To the closed doors, her voice low enough that only she could hear it, she said: "Need any help, Miss Ashford?"

She walked on. As she passed Damian, the corner of her mouth lifted a fraction, almost too faint to see.

Damian saw it.

In the evening, Damian stood in the study giving his report. Lucian sat behind the desk, his pen still moving.

"Isabelle looked terrible when she left," Damian said. "Her handbag was burned in one spot. She did it herself. The Ashford fire has never slipped in a setting like that. When she came out of the elevator, she stared at her hand for a long while. Her face was white."

Lucian's pen stopped.

"What did Seraphina do?"

"She didn't do anything," Damian said. "She was just standing outside the elevator."

"Nothing?"

Damian paused. "But she smiled. No one noticed. I saw it."

Lucian turned a page of the document. His head was down, and the corner of his mouth lifted a fraction, not enough for a smile, only a very slight movement.

Damian saw it and said nothing.

Before leaving the study, Damian wrote a line in the security log: The boss was in a good mood today. Reason unknown.

Lucian sat alone. Outside the window, the light faded by degrees. He was thinking of the moment Seraphina stood outside the elevator. Yesterday, her left hand had opened and she had forced it closed again. Today, the hand had stayed open.