Beneath his wrath

She had hoped the night would pass quietly.

She had hoped he wouldn't be here.

Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass dry, white, and barely touched while her eyes skimmed the crowd with the detached grace of someone trained to look elegant even when she felt like bolting. Her dress, a deep sapphire column of satin, clung to her body like liquid regret. She hadn't worn it to be noticed. She wore it because it had once been her mother's before the estate auctions, before the silent departures. It was armor.

"Smile, Georgia," her godmother had whispered as they stepped in earlier. "You're still a Vance. No one needs to know you're here on borrowed time."

But time, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.

Because that was the moment Weston Clay walked in.

He entered like he owned the building no, like he owned the city, the stars, and the air itself. Taller than she remembered, broader at the shoulders, his tailored black suit sculpted to his frame with the precision of sin. His dark hair was slicked back from a chiseled face that had aged into something sharper, colder, yet devastating in its symmetry. There was something in his gaze something feral though his lips barely curved in polite acknowledgment as hands reached for him, voices rose to greet him.

He hadn't seen her yet.

And she should have walked away then.

But her legs wouldn't move.

Georgia remained frozen, breath shallow, her throat aching with the memories she'd spent five years burying under duty and desperation. And then his gaze slid toward her. As if drawn. As if summoned.

Their eyes met.

It wasn't a glance. It was a collision.

The room seemed to hush beneath the weight of it. The laughter dimmed. The clink of crystal dulled. Even the music stalled at least to her ears. All she could hear was the sound of her heartbeat, roaring between her ears like a warning drum.

Weston's gaze didn't flicker. His lips didn't twitch. But something passed through his expression, a muscle tightening at the corner of his jaw, a cold fire blooming in those storm-gray eyes.

He started walking.

Georgia turned sharply, pretending to sip from her glass, pretending she hadn't noticed. Her pulse throbbed in her throat. She counted her steps toward the back of the ballroom, weaving between bodies, toward the massive floral display beside the silent auction table.

He was behind her. She didn't hear his steps, but she felt them. Like static in the air.

"Running already?"

His voice low, smooth, biting cut through her spine like a scalpel.

She stopped.

Slowly, she turned. Her eyes rose to meet his, a cool veneer settling across her features like porcelain glaze.

"I wasn't aware I was being hunted," she said, her voice crisp, steady, a miracle considering the tremor in her limbs.

Weston's lips curled not into a smile, not quite. More like a show of teeth.

"You make it too easy, Georgia. Standing there in that dress, like a ghost from a better time."

"It's a charity gala," she said, ignoring the heat that flared in her chest. "Not a graveyard."

His gaze dipped, just briefly, before meeting hers again. "Are you sure?"

There it was his first strike. A subtle one, but sharp enough. Her lips parted with a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

"Don't," she said. "Don't turn this into something dramatic."

"Too late," he murmured. "You're here. I'm here. And I'd say the tension in this room could cut glass."

Georgia forced a laugh, light and hollow. "You've always loved your theatrics."

"And you've always run from the stage," Weston replied. "Tell me, how long did you plan to stay hidden behind hors d'oeuvres and false smiles?"

She took a step forward, narrowing the space between them, lowering her voice. "I came to support a cause. I didn't come for this."

"No?" he asked, his brow lifting. "You didn't come to relive old sins?"

Her face stilled. That stung sharp and precise.

"I came," she said slowly, "to escape."

His expression shifted then. Just barely. A flicker. Something unspoken passed between them loss, maybe, or longing.

"Too bad," he said quietly. "You walked into the wrong room."

And just like that, she remembered everything. The pain. The accusations. The night she'd left without goodbye. The night he hadn't chased her.

Georgia's fingers curled into her clutch.

"Why now, Weston?" she asked, softer this time. "Why tonight?"

"Because I knew you'd be here," he said without blinking. "Because some ghosts deserve to be faced."

His honesty was a slap.

"How long have you known?"

"I never stopped knowing," he replied.

The answer was maddening. Cryptic. Full of meaning she didn't dare unravel.

Someone passed behind them, laughing. The moment broke.

Georgia turned away, her breath catching. "Then I made a mistake coming here."

Weston stepped beside her, his voice brushing her ear like smoke. "Don't go just yet."

"I think I should."

"Stay," he said, quieter now, and it wasn't a command. It wasn't even a plea. It was something in between.

She turned to him, her eyes dark, her composure teetering on the edge.

"Why?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

Instead, he reached out and brushed a strand of her hair from her shoulder. The contact was barely there, but her skin flared beneath it. Memory. Want. Anger.

"Because," he said, his voice velvet over glass, "we have unfinished business."

She looked at him. The man before her was older, colder, but his eyes... they still burned like they once had. She hated that her body remembered. She hated that her heart skipped.

Her voice came out smaller than intended. "You shouldn't have come."

He smiled then. A real one. Dangerous. Laced with promise.

"Oh, Georgia," he said, "I never left."

And just like that, the room was spinning again.

The air in the corridor was cooler, quieter. A soft hush compared to the velvet crush of voices back in the ballroom. Golden sconces lit the space in low, romantic hues, casting long shadows across Georgia's shoulders as she walked with clipped, measured steps, her spine a rigid column of pride and restraint.

She didn't look back. She didn't have to.

His footsteps followed silent and sure, like a predator who already knew she had nowhere to run.

She stopped before the doors to the conservatory, the only place in the Clay estate where moonlight was allowed to rule the room. Georgia's hand hovered over the brass handle, fingers trembling before she pushed the door open.

The scent of orchids and lemon verbena greeted her first old money perfume. Inside, the conservatory stretched out in glass and wrought iron, its domed ceiling glittering with stars and the reflection of a city that never forgave. Potted palms arched toward the ceiling like reaching hands. A small fountain murmured in the corner, its trickle the only witness to her unraveling.

She walked in without waiting, her heels soft against the mosaic tiles, and stopped in the center of the room.

He followed her in and closed the door with a soft click that sounded, somehow, final.

"You always did love your dramatic exits," Weston said, voice echoing off glass and leaves.

Georgia turned slowly. "And you always loved chasing after them too late."

He didn't flinch.

That, more than anything, made her furious.

Five years. Five years of silence. Five years of whispered regrets and brutal realities of scraping together dignity while the world whispered that the Vance name was finished.

"You knew I'd be here?" she asked, arms folding across her chest, the silk of her dress shimmering with every breath.

"I had my suspicions," Weston said. "You've always been predictable when you're cornered."

Her jaw tightened. "And you've always been cruel when you're winning."

"I'm not winning, Georgia." His voice dropped. "Not tonight."