POV: Celeste Valez
The champagne in my hand was warm. Not flat—just warm, the way it gets when you've been holding it too long because you've forgotten you were holding it at all.
That was me tonight. Standing in the middle of a ballroom that glittered like an over-polished jewel, smiling with my lips but not my eyes, pretending the world was exactly as perfect as it looked in the photographs.
The Valez name was supposed to make me untouchable. That's what people liked to say—power in the bloodline, wealth in the bones. But all I felt was the constant hum of expectation under my skin, a thousand invisible threads pulling me toward the version of myself everyone else wanted me to be.
My dress was white silk, custom-fitted, the kind of fabric that clings like it knows secrets about your body. Every time I moved, the lights from the chandeliers slid over it like liquid gold. Somewhere behind me, the string quartet was playing something expensive-sounding. I didn't recognize the piece. I doubted anyone here did—it was background music, just another part of the illusion.
Father had been parading me from conversation to conversation, introducing me to men whose smiles were sharp enough to cut. "Connections," he called them. But I knew better. These weren't introductions; they were assessments. And I was the merchandise on display.
I sipped the champagne, forcing a pleasant hum in my throat at a joke I hadn't heard. I could feel the perfume-heavy air pressing in, every laugh and clink of glass swelling and breaking like waves against the inside of my skull. I wanted to leave.
And then—
The air shifted.
It was subtle at first, like the moment before a storm when the temperature changes and you don't know why. I didn't see him. Not yet. But my skin prickled, a warning I didn't have a name for.
Someone was watching me.
I turned my head slowly, like I might catch the feeling off guard. But the crowd was a blur of sequins and tuxedos, all moving and speaking and laughing as if nothing at all had changed. Still, my pulse had gone sharp in my throat.
Father excused himself to speak with a senator, leaving me momentarily unguarded. I set the champagne down on a passing waiter's tray and let my gaze wander through the crowd—careful, lazy, pretending I wasn't searching for anything.
And then, in the reflection of the tall gilded mirror across the room, I saw him.
Not directly—only a shadow at first, a tall figure in black, half-turned away from me as if he hadn't been watching at all. But I knew. The same way you know the exact second the ocean's tide starts to pull you in.
He moved before I could, disappearing deeper into the crowd.
I should have looked away. I should have reminded myself that strangers at events like this were always dangerous in one way or another. But instead, my fingers curled against my palm, and I caught myself stepping forward.
The glittering crowd pressed closer, but my world narrowed to that shadow slipping away, as if the room itself conspired to erase him from sight. I swallowed down the sudden ache in my chest—part dread, part something darker.
Father's voice, clipped and practiced, called my name again. I turned to find him already negotiating my next social obligation, but my mind had slipped free. This wasn't about politics or alliances. It was about the impossible thread pulling me toward the man who should never have mattered.
I caught the waiter's eye, snatching my glass back as if it was a lifeline. My fingers trembled, and I cursed the weakness. I wasn't supposed to be weak. Not here, not ever.
Then—there he was again. Closer this time, stepping out from behind a marble column with the ease of a predator in his element. The room seemed to tilt, the chandelier lights fracturing into shards behind his silhouette.
He didn't smile. He didn't need to. His presence was enough—sharp, commanding, utterly inescapable.
"Celeste." The name was a low brush against my skin, a thread pulling tighter.
I didn't turn. I couldn't. But I knew. He had crossed the threshold into my world, and the cage I had so carefully built was cracking.
"Some cages are made of iron. Mine was made of silk."
The words slipped from me like a secret, meant only for him. A confession. A warning.
He stepped closer still, voice a rough whisper just at the edge of hearing. "And silk cuts deeper than steel."
The music swelled around us, a soundtrack to a collision neither of us could escape.
The room, the crowd, the polished smiles—they all faded away. In that moment, there was only the electric pull between us. The unspoken promise and the threat tangled in his gaze.
I finally faced him, heart hammering in my ribs. His eyes were dark, stormy, unreadable.
"Why are you here?" I asked, voice barely more than breath.
His lips curved in a ghost of a smile. "To remind you that some debts don't disappear with silence."
I should have walked away. I should have told him to leave before this began. But the truth was—I didn't want him to.
The dance of shadows and silk had started. And there was no turning back.