Chapter 387: December evenings pt 2
The ballroom was alive... a living, breathing thing made of laughter and perfume and polished glass. Chandeliers threw light across sequined gowns, and champagne shimmered in tall, trembling flutes.
The sound of a string quartet hummed softly beneath the buzz of conversation, and I felt the weight of two hundred pairs of eyes lift and fall, shift and settle... most of them, eventually, on me.
It was like walking into a current.... people parting instinctively as Ash and I stepped through the gilded doors. The emerald fabric of my dress caught every glint of light, and for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I was shining or burning.
Then I saw him.
Kael.
He was across the room, standing near the bar, speaking to someone from finance, but even surrounded by people, he stood out like a single flame in a sea of glass. His black suit was immaculate, fitting him like it had been stitched in reverence; the faint gleam of his watch caught the light when he gestured. His dark hair was slicked back just enough to look deliberate, but there was that one strand falling forward... always unruly, always him.
He looked like he was built for this... this world of polished surfaces and perfectly timed laughter. But then he turned.
And the world narrowed to him and me.
His gaze found mine instantly, like it was a reflex, like he’d been waiting for this one exact heartbeat to look up. His conversation died mid-sentence. The noise around me dimmed, blurred, disappeared. I could’ve sworn the music stopped too... or maybe it was just the sound of my own pulse, loud and aching in my ears.
There was something in his eyes that melted me completely... something warm and dark and utterly unguarded.
The space between us seemed to fold.
And then he was walking toward me.
Every step of his was slow, deliberate, the kind that made people move out of his way without realizing they had. I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t. My throat felt tight, my heart trembling like it didn’t know whether to race or stop altogether.
When he finally reached me, he stopped close... close enough that I could see the droplets of light caught in his lashes, close enough that his cologne wrapped around me like a memory I’d been missing.
"Hi," he said, voice low and rough, like he hadn’t used it all evening.
"Hi," I breathed back, my voice barely holding steady.
His gaze traced over me, unhurried, reverent... the curve of the dress, the open back, the soft waves of my hair. It wasn’t lust exactly; it was something deeper, something that made my stomach twist in on itself.
"You’re wearing the dress," he said at last, and there was this rough edge to his tone that sent heat up my neck.
"I told you I would," I managed.
"I know." He shook his head a little, smiling in that quiet, dangerous way of his. "But seeing it in person..." His eyes caught mine again, steady and burning. "You’re going to kill me, Aria. You know that, right?"
For a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe. I’d never felt more powerful and more exposed all at once. The way he looked at me, like I was the only person in the room worth seeing, it was intoxicating and terrifying and beautiful.
"You look pretty handsome yourself," I said softly, forcing the words out around a shaky smile.
He chuckled, low and warm. "I’ve been ready for an hour," he said. "Just standing around, waiting for you to show up so I could do this."
"Do what?" I whispered.
He reached out, his fingers sliding through mine, the contact so natural it felt inevitable. The warmth of his palm bled into me, grounding, claiming. He tugged gently, pulling me closer... not all the way, but close enough that his breath touched my cheek, close enough that the air between us was too small for both of us to breathe in.
"Be next to you," he murmured. "Where I belong."
It didn’t matter that we were surrounded by people... every single one of them watching, whispering, speculating. Kael didn’t seem to care. His eyes stayed on me, dark and unflinching.
"People are staring," I said quietly.
He smiled without even glancing away. "Yes that’s the point."
The moment I turned from Kael’s gaze... the kind of look that made the air feel too heavy to breathe, a new movement caught my eye across the room.
Sylas.
He was just stepping through the entrance, flanked by a few familiar faces from corporate strategy, but his attention landed on me almost instantly. The noise of the room seemed to fall away again, a strange echo of what had just happened with Kael... but this time, the warmth in my chest twisted into something else entirely.
He stopped dead, halfway across the marble floor, his hand still shoved in his pocket, a drink he hadn’t yet sipped in the other. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and I saw the faintest tremor of breath leave him.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
He looked at me like he didn’t know whether to walk toward me or disappear and then, when his gaze flicked past me to Kael, still standing close at my side, the warmth in his eyes faltered. The tips of his ears turned pink, then his entire face followed, blooming red beneath the golden light.
I saw him swallow hard, his jaw clenching, the polite mask snapping into place... but it didn’t quite hold.
Kael noticed him too, of course. I felt it in the subtle shift of his posture beside me, the faint tightening of his hand still holding mine. The unspoken tension rippled between them across the distance... invisible to everyone else, but suffocatingly clear to me.
Sylas blinked once, like shaking himself free of something, and then gave a stiff nod, not at Kael, not at me, but somewhere in between, before mumbling something to the person beside him and pivoting away.
He was already excusing himself before reaching us, muttering under his breath, "Excuse me... I— I just remembered something," as if he couldn’t trust himself to stand there another second.
Ash’s soft, amused voice cut through the moment. "Oh wow," she muttered beside me, low enough only for me to hear, "the men in your life have the emotional range of wet toast."
I bit back a nervous laugh, my stomach twisting with guilt and nostalgia. Sylas’s retreating figure disappeared into the crowd, and for some reason, it hurt... not sharply, but like a dull ache behind my ribs that refused to fade.
Kael said nothing, but I felt the storm behind his silence... the possessiveness, the protectiveness, the thin thread of jealousy pulsing beneath the calm surface he always wore in public.
Ash raised a brow and glanced between us. "Okay, lovebirds," she said finally, "I’m getting a drink before the testosterone levels choke me."
She winked and vanished toward the bar, leaving Kael and me alone again.
I was just about to tease Kael for looking too pleased with himself when I caught movement at the edge of the room.
Sarah.
She stood near the grand staircase, a black dress clinging elegantly to her frame, her hair loose over her shoulders. Her face was unreadable... blank, almost but her eyes... the second they found mine, something flickered there. Guilt. Longing. Maybe both.
The sight of her hit me like cold air. My chest tightened, my pulse stuttered, and for a moment, everything I’d been holding down... all that confusion and hurt and missing her.. surged back up, uninvited and sharp.
I turned away first. Pretended I hadn’t seen her. Pretended my heart wasn’t beating in the wrong rhythm again.
Kael said something... low and teasing... but I didn’t catch it right away. I nodded absently, forcing a smile, praying he wouldn’t notice the tremor in my hands.
The night was only just beginning.
And suddenly, I wasn’t sure I was ready for what it might bring.