The ballroom has gone quiet—or maybe it hasn't, maybe the silence is just in my head, the entire world narrowing down to this single moment. This single woman. She takes one step down the staircase, then another, the massive skirt swaying with each movement like waves of dark water, and I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't remember why I was planning to leave, why I wasdreading this evening, why I ever thought coming alone was a mistake.
I can only watch.
Our eyes meet across the distance—across the glittering crowd, the spinning dancers, the petty gossips who suddenly seem very small and very irrelevant.
And I understand, in that moment, what it feels like when the world fades around you. When every other person in the room becomes a blur of color and noise, irrelevant and forgotten. When two hundred people cease to exist because the only thing that matters—the only thing that hasevermattered—is the woman looking back at you.
She found the invitation. She must have seen it on the counter, half-hidden where I left it like a coward. She read it, understood what it meant, and she got dressed—in that impossible gown that must have taken hours to arrange, with that impossible hair and that impossible makeup, looking like something out of my most dangerous dreams—and she came here. Forme. To stand beside me in a room full of people who want nothing more than to tear me apart.
She gave up her evening—maybe even postponed that interview, that opportunity—to come and be with me.
She came for me.
The group behind me is still talking—I can hear them vaguely, like voices underwater, speculating about who she is and where she came from and whose Omega could possibly be that stunning. The blonde is saying something acidic, one of the men is laughing nervously, and I don't care. I don't care about any of them. I'm walking toward the staircase like a man pulled by gravity, my feet moving without conscious direction, drawn to her like a moth to the only flame worth burning for.
She sees me coming. A small smile curves those devastating purple-black lips—shy at first, almost uncertain, the RosemarieI know peeking through the armor of silk and lace. The woman who falls asleep on couches and steals my shirts and makes the perfect coffee every morning without ever being asked. But then her chin lifts, her shoulders square, and that shy smile transforms into something fiercer. Something proud. Something that saysI'm here now, and I'm not afraid of any of them.
That's my girl. Show them what you're made of. Show them what I've known since the moment you walked into our lives.
The whispers are spreading now. I can feel them rippling through the crowd like a stone thrown into still water.Who is she? Where did she come from? Is that Julian's Omega? But I heard they didn't have one. I heard he was lying.
Let them whisper. Let them speculate. Let them choke on their assumptions and their gossip and their small, petty cruelties.
Because she's here. She's real. And she's looking at me like I'm the only person in this entire glittering, artificial nightmare worth seeing.
My Omega.
The thought surfaces unbidden, and for once, I don't push it away. I don't analyze it or rationalize it or remind myself that this is temporary, that she's not really mine, that our arrangement has an expiration date.
Right now, in this moment, with the chandeliers blazing above and the hypocrites murmuring around us and the whole world watching?—
My Omega... in a ballroom of fake feigns.
CHAPTER 30
The Queen's Gambit
~ROSEMARIE~
The ballroom sprawls beneath me like a glittering wound—beautiful and bleeding with excess.
I stand at the top of the grand staircase, one gloved hand resting on the marble balustrade, taking in the scene below. Crystal chandeliers cast everything in warm golden light, making the sequins and diamonds and carefully arranged smiles sparkle like they're something genuine. Couples waltz in the center of the floor with rehearsed precision. Groups cluster near refreshment tables, their laughter sharp and performative. Everyone is dressed to impress, dripping in designer labels and old money and the kind of confidence that comes from never having been told no.
I know this world. I grew up in this world. The fake pleasantries and calculated compliments, the way everyone watches everyone else for signs of weakness. The "do it for appearances" mentality that turns every social gathering into a performance where the stakes are your reputation and the prize is momentary relevance.
I hate it. I've always hated it. And yet here I am, dressed to the nines and ready to play the game one more time.
But this time, I'm not playing for myself. This time, I'm playing for him.
My eyes scan the crowd until they find what they're looking for—a figure in deep aubergine velvet standing near one of the massive mirrors, silver hair gleaming under the chandeliers. Julian. He's surrounded by a small group of people who are clearly saying something unpleasant, their body language predatory, their smiles sharp enough to cut. But even from this distance, I can see the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful blankness of his expression, the way he's holding himself like a man prepared to endure rather than enjoy.
He didn't tell me about this. He had an invitation—two invitations, actually—and he chose not to ask me to come.
I'd known he was there. When I was in the living room telling Tank and Elias about the interview opportunity, squealing like an overexcited child about coffee shops and business collaborations and dreams finally coming true—I'd caught his scent. That distinctive blend of bergamot and sandalwood and expensive cologne, drifting toward me from the hallway like a calling. Subtle but unmistakable to an Omega who's been spending far too much time memorizing the way her Alphas smell.
I'd waited for him to appear. To interrupt. To make some dry comment about me being too loud or too enthusiastic or too something. But he never showed up. Long after the conversation ended and Tank and Elias had gone to do whatever manly things they do when I'm not watching, Julian remained absent. A ghost who'd been there and then wasn't.
That's what made me curious. That's what made me investigate.
