The benefit auction was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a venue that spoke of old money and cultural refinement. Ava had attended business functions with Lucien before, but this was different—more intimate, more exclusive, with guest lists that read like a who's who of New York's most powerful elite.
After their conversation in his office three days ago, something had shifted between them. Not fixed—too much damage had been done for simple fixing—but shifted. Lucien had been different. Still controlling in some ways, still prone to possessive glances when other men looked at her too long, but there was a new awareness to his actions. As if he was catching himself mid-manipulation and choosing, sometimes, to pull back.
It was progress. Small, halting, imperfect progress, but progress nonetheless.
Tonight, he'd asked her to accompany him rather than commanding it. The dress had been a gift rather than a requirement, accompanied by a note that said she was welcome to wear whatever made her feel comfortable. She'd chosen the dress—a stunning emerald green silk that made her eyes look impossibly bright—but the choice had been hers.
Small victories, but victories nonetheless.
"You look beautiful," Lucien said as they entered the museum's Great Hall, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back. Not gripping, not possessive—just present.
"Thank you." She smoothed the silk nervously, still not entirely comfortable with the luxury that had become part of her life. "This is... intimidating."
"It's just people with too much money trying to feel good about themselves," he said with the casual cynicism of someone who belonged to that exact category. "We'll make an appearance, I'll write a check, and we can leave whenever you're ready."
The offer to leave when she was ready, rather than when he decided, was another small shift. Ava found herself smiling despite her nervousness.
"I'd like to see the auction items first," she said. "I've never been to anything like this."
His expression softened. "Then we'll take our time."
They wandered through the exhibition hall where auction items were displayed—jewelry that cost more than houses, vacation packages to private islands, artwork that belonged in textbooks. Ava found herself drawn to a painting near the back of the room—an impressionist piece showing a woman reading in a garden, dappled sunlight falling across her face.
"It's beautiful," she murmured, studying the brushstrokes and the way the artist had captured the quality of afternoon light.
"Morisot," Lucien said beside her, reading the placard. "Berthe Morisot. One of the few female impressionists who gained recognition during her lifetime."
"I didn't know you were an art enthusiast."
"My mother was." Something flickered across his face—the familiar pain that always came when he mentioned her. "She used to take me to museums when my father was working. Said that art was important because it taught us to see beauty in ordinary moments."
Ava looked at the painting again, seeing it through new eyes. A woman reading, something so simple and everyday, transformed into something luminous and precious through the artist's vision.
"She sounds like she was wonderful."
"She was." His voice was quiet, reflective. "I wish you could have met her."
The casual intimacy of the statement—the implication that he'd thought about introducing her to his mother, that he saw some kind of future where that would have been possible—made her chest tighten with complicated emotions.
Before she could respond, the auction began. They found seats near the middle of the room, surrounded by people in designer clothes discussing their summer homes and their latest acquisitions. Ava felt out of place despite her beautiful dress, despite months of navigating Lucien's world. This wasn't her sphere, would probably never be her sphere no matter how long she stayed.
But Lucien's presence beside her was oddly grounding. He didn't hover or control—just sat close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, solid and reassuring in a room full of strangers.
The auction moved quickly through items—jewelry selling for six figures, a week in Monaco going for more than most people made in a year. Ava watched in fascinated horror as people bid casually on things that would have changed her entire life just a year ago.
Then the Morisot painting came up.
"Lot forty-seven," the auctioneer announced. "Berthe Morisot's 'Woman Reading in a Garden,' oil on canvas, circa 1880. We'll start the bidding at five hundred thousand dollars."
Ava's breath caught. Half a million dollars for a painting she'd admired for its beauty, not realizing its astronomical value.
"Five hundred thousand," someone called from the back.
"Six hundred thousand," another voice countered.
The bidding escalated quickly, jumping in hundred-thousand-dollar increments that made Ava's head spin. When it reached one point two million, she thought it was over.
Then Lucien raised his paddle.
"One point five million."
His voice was calm, almost casual, as if he were ordering coffee rather than bidding more money than most people would see in a lifetime. Ava turned to stare at him in shock.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Buying a painting," he said simply.
"Lucien, that's—"
"One point eight million," someone else bid.
"Two million," Lucien countered without hesitation.
The room had gone quiet, the kind of interested hush that came when serious money started being thrown around. Ava felt dozens of eyes turn toward them, curious and speculative.
"Two point two million," the other bidder tried.
"Three million." Lucien's voice was final, brooking no argument.
The silence stretched. The other bidder shook his head, conceding defeat. The auctioneer's gavel came down with a crack that seemed to echo through the hall.
"Sold! For three million dollars to Mr. Lucien Drake."
Applause rippled through the room, the kind of polite appreciation wealthy people gave when someone else spent obscene amounts of money for charity. Ava sat frozen in her seat, unable to process what had just happened.
"Why did you do that?" she whispered as the auction moved to the next lot.
Lucien looked at her with an expression that was impossible to read. "Because you liked it."
"I liked it for thirty seconds! You just spent three million dollars—"
"On something that made you smile." He said it as if that justified the ridiculous expenditure. "Besides, it's for charity. The money goes to arts education programs for underprivileged children."
The casual way he dismissed spending three million dollars made her dizzy. This was his world—where art sold for the price of houses, where a moment's admiration could translate into astronomical purchases, where money was so abundant it ceased to have the same meaning it had for normal people.
"I don't know what to say," she admitted.
"You don't have to say anything." His hand found hers, fingers intertwining in a gesture that felt intimate and reassuring. "I wanted to buy you something you would actually appreciate, not just expensive jewelry or designer clothes. The painting made you happy for a moment. I'd like to make that moment permanent."
The sincerity in his voice made her throat tight with emotion. This was the Lucien she'd glimpsed in their conversation three days ago—the one who didn't know how to express care except through grand gestures, who confused possession with affection but was at least trying to understand the difference.
"Thank you," she said softly. "It's beautiful."
"It's yours."
They stayed for the rest of the auction, though Ava could barely focus on the remaining lots. Her mind kept returning to the painting, to the casual way he'd spent three million dollars because she'd smiled at it, to the implications of being with someone for whom money was truly no object.
When the auction concluded, they mingled in the cocktail reception that followed. Lucien introduced her to board members and philanthropists, his hand never leaving the small of her back. She was getting better at these events—had learned to make polite conversation about vague topics, to smile and nod and say just enough to seem intelligent without revealing how out of place she actually felt.
She was talking to the wife of a hedge fund manager, discussing the challenges of arts education funding, when a man approached them. He was older—late sixties, perhaps—with steel-gray hair and a face that suggested both wealth and disappointment with how that wealth had been earned.
His eyes landed on Lucien first, and Ava saw his expression twist with something that looked like contempt. But then his gaze shifted to her, and his face went completely white.
"My God," he breathed, staring at her with an intensity that made her deeply uncomfortable.
"Can I help you?" Lucien's voice was cold, controlled, with an edge of warning beneath the politeness.
The man ignored him, continuing to stare at Ava with an expression that was equal parts shock and something else—recognition? Grief?
"You look just like him," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "The eyes especially. But the way you carry yourself... Christ, it's uncanny."
Ava felt ice form in her stomach. "I'm sorry, do we know each other?"
The man seemed to realize he was staring. He blinked, took a step back, and glanced at Lucien with an expression that had shifted from shock to something darker—accusation, perhaps, or bitter understanding.
"No," he said quietly. "We don't know each other. But I knew..." He trailed off, shaking his head as if clearing unwanted memories. "Forgive me. I'm being terribly rude."
He turned and walked away quickly, disappearing into the crowd before Ava could ask any of the hundreds of questions suddenly flooding her mind. She stood frozen, aware that several people nearby had witnessed the strange exchange and were now watching with barely concealed curiosity.
"Ava." Lucien's voice was tight, controlled in a way that suggested he was holding back some powerful emotion. "We should go."
But she couldn't move. Couldn't process what had just happened. The man's words kept echoing in her mind: You look just like him.
She turned to Lucien, studying his face. All the color had drained from it, leaving him pale and rigid with what looked like barely controlled fury. His jaw was clenched so tight she could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin, and his hand on her back had gone from gentle to possessive—not quite painful, but close.
"Like who?" she asked quietly.
"No one." The word came out too quickly, too forcefully. "He was confused. Probably drunk."
"He wasn't drunk, Lucien. He looked at me like he'd seen a ghost."
"Then he mistook you for someone else." His voice had gone cold, distant—the same tone he'd used in Paris when he was trying to push her away. "It's not important."
But the rigid tension in his body, the way his eyes had gone dark and dangerous, the white-knuckled grip he had on her back—all of it suggested that it was very important indeed.
"Who did I remind him of?" she pressed, unable to let it go. "Who do I look like?"
Lucien stared at her for a long moment, and she watched him make a decision. She could see it happening—the way his expression closed off, the way walls slammed back into place that she'd thought were finally starting to crumble.
"No one," he repeated, his voice like ice. "We're leaving."
It wasn't a suggestion. Before she could protest, he was guiding her toward the exit with a hand on her back that felt more like force than comfort. People parted for them, probably sensing the dangerous energy radiating from Lucien Drake in full CEO mode.
They made it to the car in silence. James opened the door, and Ava slid into the back seat, her mind racing with questions and theories. Lucien climbed in beside her, his face still pale, his jaw still clenched with barely controlled emotion.
As the car pulled away from the museum, Ava turned to look at him in the dim interior lighting. He was staring straight ahead, his profile carved from stone, looking nothing like the vulnerable man who had confessed his fears to her three days ago.
"Lucien—"
"Not now." The words were clipped, final. "We'll talk about this later."
"When?"
"When I'm ready."
The casual dismissal of her right to information—to understanding what had just happened—felt like a slap. After days of what she'd thought was progress, of him trying to be more open and less controlling, they were right back where they'd started. Her asking questions, him shutting down and demanding blind compliance.
Ava looked out the window at the Manhattan streets flowing past, her reflection ghostlike in the glass. You look just like him, the man had said. Who was "him"? And why had that recognition made Lucien look like he wanted to commit murder?
More importantly, why was he so determined to keep it from her?
The questions swirled in her mind as the car carried them through the night, taking them back to the carefully controlled world Lucien had built around them. A world where he held all the answers and she was expected to simply trust him.
But after tonight, Ava realized with crystalline clarity that there were still secrets between them. Big ones. The kind that made strangers go pale with shock and recognition. The kind that made Lucien's carefully constructed vulnerability disappear in an instant, replaced by walls of ice.
And she was determined to find out what they were