We excuse ourselves shortly after, making our way through the crowd toward the bar. I keep Sophie close, my hand never leaving her body for more than a few seconds at a time. Each touch is deliberate, calculated—a message to her as much as to everyone watching.
I notice how the room reacts to us—the speculative glances, the whispered conversations behind raised hands. By tomorrow, gossip about Christian Hawthorne and the small-town shopkeeper will have spread through every corporate boardroom and social club in the city. The thought satisfies something deep within me. Let them talk. Let them know.
"You don't have to keep touching me," Sophie murmurs as we wait for drinks. "I'm not going to run away."
"I know." I slide my hand from her waist to the bare skin of her upper arm, a slow, possessive caress. "I want to."
Her pulse jumps visibly at her throat, her pupils dilating. Despite her words, her body responds to my touch like it was made for me.
"People are getting the wrong idea," she persists, though her voice lacks conviction.
"What idea is that?" I challenge, stepping closer.
"That we're…together."
"Aren't we?" I hold her gaze, daring her to deny what's happening between us. "Here. Now."
She swallows, unable to look away. "Just for tonight."
"We'll see." I accept two champagne flutes from the bartender, handing one to her. Our fingers brush, and I deliberately prolong the contact. "I'm not a man who settles for temporary arrangements, Sophie."
Uncertainty flashes across her face, but there's something else there too—a curiosity, a hunger that mirrors my own. She's fighting it, but losing. I can be patient. I've built an empire by recognizing when to push and when to wait.
"You make it sound like you're planning some kind of hostile takeover," she says, attempting humor to break the tension.
"There's nothing hostile about it." I sip my champagne, never taking my eyes from hers. "A successful acquisition requires both parties to recognize the value in the arrangement."
"Acquisition?" She stiffens slightly. "Is that what this is?"
"It's a metaphor, Sophie." I trace my thumb along her wrist where her pulse beats rapidly. "Though not entirely inaccurate."
Before she can respond, I notice Daniel watching us from across the room, his expression calculated. When he sees melooking, he raises his glass in a mock toast, his eyes fixed not on me but on Sophie. A challenge. A test of boundaries.
I shift, angling my body to block his view of her. The movement is subtle but unmistakable to anyone watching—a predator protecting what's his.
Sophie belongs here, by my side. The certainty of it settles in my chest like an immovable weight. I've spent a lifetime acquiring things—companies, properties, assets. None of them stirred this bone-deep need to possess, to protect, to claim. None of them mattered the way she does, after just one dance, one night.
It should concern me, this swift and consuming obsession. It doesn't. Instead, it feels like recognition—like finding something I've been searching for without knowing what was missing.
"Christian?" Sophie's voice pulls me back to the present. "You were somewhere else just now."
I look down at her—really look at her—and allow myself a rare, genuine smile. "No. I'm exactly where I need to be."
And so is she.
The orchestra shifts to something slower, more intimate. A perfect opportunity to reinforce the message I've been sending all evening. I take Sophie's champagne flute, placing it alongside mine on a passing server's tray. "Dance with me," I say, not a request but not quite a command either. Something in between—an inevitability. She hesitates only a moment before nodding, allowing me to lead her back to the dance floor. The brief resistance in her eyes is fading with each touch, each moment spent in my orbit. She's beginning to understand what I've known since the charity auction—this isn't temporary. This isn'tchance. This is destiny asserting itself with the same inevitability that guides Benets and empires.
This time, she comes to me more willingly, her body fitting against mine as if designed specifically for this purpose. My hand splays across her lower back, fingers playing at the edge where fabric meets bare skin. Her warmth seeps through the velvet, through my palm, straight into my bloodstream like the most addictive drug.
"You're staring," she murmurs, a fresh blush coloring her cheeks.
"I'm appreciating," I correct her. "There's a difference."
We move together more fluidly now, her body following mine instinctively. The dance is a waltz, traditional in steps but nothing traditional in execution. I hold her closer than propriety dictates, my thigh occasionally pressing between hers as we turn, my chest brushing against the softness of her breasts with each step.
The possessiveness that's been building all night crystallizes into something harder, sharper, more defined. Sophie Winters has awakened something in me I didn't know existed—a territorial instinct so primal it bypasses logic, reason, control. The pillars I've built my empire upon.
"You're different tonight," she observes, her blue eyes searching mine.
