Noah’s mouth curves, humourless. “That’s not what your body says.”
Anger sparks, quick and sharp. “You don’t get to decide what I feel.”
“I get to protect what’s mine,” he replies calmly.
The words land heavy.
He leans in, forehead brushing mine, breath warm against my cheek. “I know you,” he continues, softer now. “I know what you came from. I know what he did to you.”
My heart pounds.
“And I know,” he adds, “that men like that don’t let go easily.”
Something flickers in his eyes then. Not jealousy. Calculation.
“Which is why,” he says, straightening, voice returning to normal volume, “we’ll be very visible tonight.”
He slips his arm around my shoulders again and turns us back toward the ballroom. Toward the lights. Toward the cameras.
Toward safety, he thinks.
As we step back inside, applause breaks out near the stage. Someone is being honoured. Noah pauses, claps politely, pulling me with him into the crowd. His hand doesn’t leave me. Not for a second.
He leans down, lips near my ear. “If he’s watching,” Noah murmurs, smile still in place, “I want him to see exactly where you belong.”
My stomach twists because somewhere, deep beneath the music and the laughter and the glittering lie of my perfect life, I know the truth.
If Kai is watching—He won’t see safety.
He’ll see a challenge and the thought sends a shiver through me that has nothing to do with fear.
Noah keeps me moving.
That’s the first thing I notice once the thought settles in—how he doesn’t let me stop anywhere too long, doesn’t let conversations linger, doesn’t let my attention drift. We glide from cluster to cluster, his hand always on me, always anchoring, always guiding.
Like if he keeps me in motion, I won’t fall apart.
Like if he keeps me visible, I’ll stay his.
The music shifts—slower now, heavier—and the lights dim just a fraction, enough to deepen shadows, enough to turn the ballroom into something more intimate. More dangerous.
Conversations drop in volume, laughter thickening with champagne and secrets.
I feel it again.
That pressure between my shoulder blades.
I don’t look this time. I can’t. Because if I do and I’m wrong, I’ll look insane. And if I do and I’m right—My breath hitches.
Noah feels it immediately.
His fingers dig into my waist, not painful, just firm enough to ground me. His smile never slips as he leans in to greet another donor, but his voice is low when he speaks against my ear.
“Focus,” he says. Not unkindly. Not gently either. “You’re here with me.”
I nod. I smile. I play along but my skin feels too tight, like it doesn’t fit right anymore.
A woman laughs behind me—soft, breathy—and the sound slices through my chest because it’s the wrong pitch, the wrong rhythm. Kai used to laugh like that when he was standing too close, when he’d said something he knew would get under my skin.
