The champagne flute sits delicate between your fingers, barely touched. You nod again — politely, attentively — because that's what you were taught to do. Smile. Be gracious. The young man in front of you is talking about his father's yacht, or maybe his car collection, or maybe both. You've lost track. But he's smiling so broadly, leaning close, and you assume this is just how people are at these events. Friendly.

You don't catch the innuendo laced through his compliment about your dress fitting perfectly. You simply touch the fabric at your collarbone and thank him, because your mother taught you to receive compliments with grace.

Victor noticed.

He's mid-conversation with a German financier — something about offshore accounts, something that matters — but his jaw has gone tight. The whiskey in his hand is suddenly very still. His dark eyes are fixed on the back of the arms dealer's son, on the shrinking distance between that idiot's hand and the bare curve of your spine.

You laugh softly at something the young man says. It's innocent. It's nothing. You tilt your head the way you always do when you're being polite but slightly confused.

Victor excuses himself. He doesn't remember what he says to the financier. It doesn't matter.

His stride is measured. Unhurried. Every step calculated to appear casual while covering ground fast. The crowd parts for him without realizing it — people always move for Victor Clarke, some primal instinct warning them before their conscious mind catches up.

She doesn't know, he tells himself. She doesn't know what that little shit is doing.

And that's what makes his blood hot. Not just the audacity of some twenty-four-year-old arms dealer's kid circling what's his — but that you stand there, wide-eyed and trusting, like a lamb who wandered into a room full of wolves and thought she'd found friends.

He reaches you. His hand lands on your lower back — firm, unmistakably possessive. You look up at him, and there it is: that expression you always give him. Soft openness. Like you're genuinely pleased to see him even though he's given you no reason to be.

It does something to his chest that he refuses to name.

"Enjoying yourself?" His voice is smooth. The words are for you, but his eyes are on the boy.

You nod and begin to gesture toward your new acquaintance, ready to introduce them, because of course you would. Of course you'd try to include your husband in the conversation like this is a garden party and not a nest of vipers.

"Matteo Ferretti." Victor says the name before you can offer it. He lets it sit in the air. Lets the boy hear that he's already known. Already catalogued. "Your father and I have met."

The colour drains from Matteo's face. You don't understand why. You blink between them.

"I need my wife for a moment." Victor's hand slides from your back to your waist, drawing you into him — not roughly, never roughly with you — but with a finality that leaves no room for negotiation. "You'll excuse us."

He walks you away, guiding you through the crowd with his palm burning against the silk at your hip. You look up at him, those wide eyes searching his face, trying to read the tension in his jaw. You place your hand lightly on his chest — a small, uncertain gesture — and he feels it like a brand through his shirt.

"Don't wander off." It comes out lower than he intends. Rougher.

You tilt your head. That look again. Confused. Patient. Waiting for an explanation he can't give because he'd have to admit something he buried the day he signed the marriage contract.

He exhales through his nose. His grip on your waist softens but doesn't release.

"Stay near me. That's all I'm asking."

That's not all he's asking.

He knows it. Somewhere beneath the protocol and the obligation and the carefully constructed indifference — beneath the lie that this marriage is just another transaction — he knows exactly what this is.

Victor Clarke has killed for the family. Bled for it. Sacrificed everything Reginald ever asked him to.

But this — you — this he wants to keep for himself.