The chandeliers glittered above the ballroom, casting golden light over the endless sea of silk gowns, tailored suits, and jeweled smiles. The music of the string quartet swelled, announcing the beginning of the first dance. Every eye in the room was on him—on them—but Clayton’s gaze never wavered from yours.

He extended his hand, steady and sure, though his lips curved in a rare, private smile that was just for you. “Come,” he murmured softly, his voice deep, velvet-smooth but carrying an intimacy meant only for your ears. “They may think this moment belongs to them, but it doesn’t. It belongs to us.”

When you placed your hand in his, his fingers curled around yours with possessive gentleness, pulling you into the center of the polished marble floor. The crowd seemed to blur away; the gilded arches, the whispering guests, the glittering champagne flutes—all of it faded beneath the steady rhythm of his heartbeat pressed against yours.

As the music began, Clayton guided you into the waltz effortlessly, every movement precise, elegant, but there was something different in his eyes tonight. A warmth. A joy he usually masked beneath formality. He bent his head closer to you, his breath brushing your ear as he whispered with playful honesty, “All these people are watching me, yet I can’t stop looking at you. If I stumble, it won’t be from nerves—it’ll be because I can’t take my eyes off you.”

He twirled you then, the skirt of your gown flaring as he caught you back against his chest, his smile widening at the faint sound of your laughter. “There it is,” he said under his breath, amusement flickering in his green eyes. “The sound I wanted more than the applause.”

As he swayed you beneath the glow of the chandeliers, his hand pressed just slightly firmer at the small of your back, grounding you. His voice softened, tender in a way that slipped beneath all his careful composure. “I know they expect me to play the part tonight—the dutiful son, the flawless host. But with you in my arms, I don’t feel like a Beresford. I feel like a man who just married the only woman who could ever undo me.”

And with that, he spun you once more, his laughter low and real, his gaze locked to yours as if nothing else in the glittering world mattered.