His hand tightened on her waist. “Do we?”
The music ended before she could answer. Around them, couples separated and reformed. Victor didn’t let go. They stood there, pressed together in the middle of the ballroom, pretending to be something they weren’t.
“Victor…”
“We should go.” He stepped back, professional distance reasserting itself. “It’s getting late. You have the Morrison deposition tomorrow.”
The ride back was quiet.
Victor stared out his window. Ava watched the city lights blur past.
“Thank you,” she said as the car pulled up to her building. “For tonight.”
“You held your own.”
“I had help.”
He turned to look at her, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her again.
Then Derek’s voice crackled through the intercom from the driver’s seat.
“Are we sitting here all night, or…?”
Victor pulled back. “Goodnight, Ava.”
She climbed out of the car, the September air cool against her flushed skin. At her building’s door, she turned back. Victor was still watching through the window.
She raised her hand. A small wave.
He nodded once.
The car pulled away, leaving her standing in borrowed Prada with a demon’s mark over her heart.
Inside, Ava leaned against the elevator wall and pressed her palm to her chest. The mark pulsed warm beneath the midnight-blue silk, responding to her heartbeat. Or maybe to her thoughts. She wasn’t sure anymore where she ended and the claim began.
The doors opened on her floor. Mia’s light was off, probably still at the gallery. Good. She wasn’t ready for questions.
In her room, she unzipped the dress carefully, hung it on the closet door, and stood in front of her mirror in nothing but her underwear and the jade pendant. The mark was visible now, a faint luminescence against her skin. She traced its edges with one finger.
Poor Celeste.
Who had she been? What had happened to her? And why had the whole room known except Ava?
She pulled on pajamas and climbed into bed. Sleep didn’t come for hours.
The restof the week passed in a blur of demon law and deliberate avoidance.
Wednesday, she saw Victor in the hallway. He nodded. She nodded. Neither of them stopped walking.
Thursday, they ended up in the same elevator. Forty-seven floors of silence, his reflection in the polished doors carefully not looking at hers.
“The Henderson file…” she started as the doors opened.
“On your desk,” he said, and was gone before she could respond.
They communicated through Derek or brief emails, dancing around Tuesday night like it was a live wire. Every time she tried to bring it up, Lilith, the dance, the almost-kiss in the car, something interrupted. A client call. An urgent filing. Victor disappearing into meetings that ran conveniently long.
She wanted to ask about Celeste. The question sat on her tongue a dozen times. But how did you ask your fake boyfriend about the woman whose name made every demon in the room flinch?
