Cyrus blinked, his dark eyes lingering on me for a beat too long before drifting toward the velvet-curtained VIP entrance. His expression gave nothing away. It never did. But something in the quality of his stillness, the way the candlelight caught the gold streak at his temple, unsettled me in a way I couldn't name.
"Another round of the tangy dragon prawns," he told the waiter, wiping his hands on a linen napkin with the kind of deliberate, measured control that governed every movement he made. Each fold precise. Each gesture unhurried. The silver signet ring on his right hand caught the low light as he set the napkin down.
"There's no need." I raised a hand, stopping the waiter mid-turn, and reached for the glass of water beside my plate. The coolness of the crystal steadied my nerves, grounded me in the present. "I'm not in the mood for prawns."
Cyrus's brows drew together, a flicker of frustration passing behind those unreadable eyes. "We can try something else. How about the fish?"
"No need," I repeated.
His jaw tightened as he studied me, searching for something. "What about beef then? It's your favorite."
"No." My voice came out firm, final, leaving no room for negotiation.
Cyrus went still. Not the practiced stillness of a man accustomed to controlling rooms and commanding silence. This was surprise, raw and unguarded, lasting only a fraction of a second before the mask slid back into place. The tension between us thickened, settling over the table like smoke from the candles guttering in their iron holders.
I broke eye contact first. I reached for my napkin and wiped my mouth with careful, deliberate strokes, forcing composure into every movement the way a woman forces thread through the eye of a needle.
I turned to Patrizio, keeping my voice steady despite the warmth of the wine still humming through my blood. "Sorry, Patrizio. I've got to be at the office early tomorrow to wrap up a project. Benedetto would have my head if I showed up late."
I rose from my seat. My steps were unsteady, but manageable. The heels of my shoes clicked against the private dining room's marble floor. "I'll be heading home now. Can't afford to fall behind schedule."
Lilith's voice sliced through the murmur of the room, threaded with a concern so delicate it could have been spun from glass. "Adriana, is this because of me? Are you upset?" Her dark lashes lowered, her gaze dropping to her hands in her lap, guilt arranged across her features like a jeweler setting stones. "You can have the prawns from my plate if you'd like. Cyrus was just trying to help me with them. Please, don't be mad at him."
Her tone painted me as the villain. The jealous outsider making a scene at a Family dinner. I raised an eyebrow, incredulous.
"Me? Upset? No, no, no. It's not like that." I waved her concern away with a loose gesture, biting back the sarcasm that clawed at the back of my throat. I wasn't angry. I was simply exhausted. Exhausted by all of it. "I just really need to get some rest is all. I'll be heading out now. Enjoy the rest of your meal."
With a calm smile that cost me more than anyone at that table would ever know, I slid out of my chair and pushed it back beneath the edge of the white tablecloth.
A firm grip closed around my wrist.
I startled, looking up to find Patrizio's intense gaze locked onto me. His rings pressed cold against my skin.
"You really need to chill, Adriana," he said, his scowl deepening, carving hard lines into his otherwise handsome face. "Are you still mad at Cyrus? Is this about him attending the meeting with Lily yesterday?"
The directness caught me off guard. The aggression coiled beneath his words even more so. The last time Patrizio had spoken to me, his demeanor had been measured, almost playful. This was something else entirely.
"Patrick." Cyrus's voice cut through the air like a blade drawn from its sheath. His eyes narrowed at the hand clamped around my wrist.
Before Patrizio could respond, Lilith spoke again, her voice carrying the precise weight of a woman accustomed to defusing tensions between dangerous men. "I'm so sorry, Adriana. I realize the mood turned sour because of me." She paused, her expression arranged into something that looked, from every angle Cyrus could see, entirely sincere. "I should've asked you to invite Cyrus instead of assuming. And Cyrus, you owe Adriana an apology as well."
Cyrus raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. "Apologize?" He glanced between Lilith and me, confusion clouding his sharp features.
From the angle where I stood, I caught what Cyrus could not. Lilith leaned back in her chair, a smirk playing at the corner of her lips. A flicker of satisfaction. She seemed oddly pleased with how the evening was unraveling.
Cyrus turned back to Lilith, his expression serious, the candlelight casting deep shadows beneath his cheekbones. "Yesterday was a crucial sit-down. You needed my help to secure the bid, right? The Dicellore import operation is a cornerstone of the Braveclaws Territory. I came to assist, to smooth things over with the other families. What's the issue?"
His words hit me like a fist to the sternum. The anniversary he had promised to be present for, the one evening I had asked him to keep sacred, was buried under business. Under the Family. Under her.
"Yeah, you're right!" I cut him off, my voice edged with a cheerfulness so brittle it could have shattered against the floor. I wrenched my wrist free from Patrizio's grip and turned to face the room. "No need for apologies, Cyrus." I forced a smile that didn't reach my eyes. Didn't even come close. "I really need to go and get ready for work tomorrow."
Without waiting for a response, I turned and walked out of the VIP room, holding myself together with every step, my spine straight, my chin level. The heavy door swung shut behind me, but not fast enough. Their voices bled through the gap before the latch caught.
"Cyrus, she's clearly upset. You should apologize." Lilith's voice was firm, cutting through the tension with surgical precision.
"But she said herself that no apology was needed!" Patrizio's interruption was sharp, his frustration scraping against the words.
"Patrizio—"
"What?"
"Enough, both of you." Cyrus's voice, low and decisive, ended it. "She just needs more time to calm down."
I gritted my teeth. The words stung more than I cared to admit, burrowing under my skin like shards of glass. She just needs more time to calm down. As though I were a child throwing a tantrum. As though my feelings were an inconvenience to be managed.
I ignored the muffled exchange behind me and walked through the restaurant, past the mahogany bar, past the hostess who smiled without seeing me, and out into the cold night air. I flagged down a taxi at the curb, my heart pounding with a toxic cocktail of anger and hurt.
As the car sped through the darkened streets toward my apartment, my mind raced.
Ridiculous.
How could Cyrus dismiss my feelings so easily? Why did they all treat me like I was the villainess in this scenario?
The frustration was suffocating. Worse than suffocating. The air itself felt like it was conspiring against me, pressing in from all sides, thick and hostile.
Had I really become that person? Constantly angry at Cyrus for spending time with Lilith? Was that why he could speak so dismissively, so confidently, as though he already knew the script and I was the only one who hadn't read it?
But my pain was real. The way Cyrus seemed to prioritize Lilith over everything else was not imagined. It was happening, day after day, incident after incident. I had watched him drop everything to be at her side, leaving me feeling neglected and unimportant, like a piece of furniture in a room he no longer entered.
As I struggled to contain the storm inside me, tears slipped down my cheeks. I turned my face toward the window so the driver wouldn't see. I tried to stifle my sobs, pressing my knuckles against my lips, but the pain was too raw. Too real. It spilled out of me in the dark backseat of that taxi like blood from a wound that refused to close.
Cyrus: [Are you home yet?]
I closed my phone the moment his message flashed across the notification bar.
With a frustrated sigh, I set the phone aside on the study desk I had just finished wiping down. A few hours ago, my old apartment had felt cold and unwelcoming, the air thick with the dust that had accumulated during two years of absence. Two years I had spent at Cyrus's penthouse, playing house in a world that was never truly mine.
I let out another breath, this one closer to relief, as I looked around at the much cleaner space. The bare walls. The simple furniture. The silence that belonged only to me.
"Finally," I muttered, tossing the dirty rag into a corner just outside the bedroom. I washed my hands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing away the day's grime until my knuckles were pink, before collapsing onto the now-pristine bed. The sheets smelled of detergent and nothing else. No cedarwood. No pine.
As if on cue, my phone vibrated against the desk, insistent and relentless.
Cyrus: [The dinner tonight didn't end well because of how you acted. Let's make it up to them soon. We will invite them to another dinner.]
I closed the messaging app, leaving his message marked as [read], and stared at the ceiling. The plaster was cracked in one corner. A water stain spread outward like a bruise.
Because of how you acted.
The words sat in my chest like a stone.
Just as I was about to surrender to the mercy of sleep, my phone rang again, the vibration steady and demanding against the wood. I glanced at the caller ID.
[Cyrus].
"Sure, Cyrus. Sure." I let his name pulse on the screen, unanswered, until the call died on its own.
I opened InstaPic instead, scrolling without purpose, without thought. The first post that filled my screen belonged to @Lilith.Dicellore.
It was a photograph taken in the backseat of Cyrus's black town car. Cyrus was turned away, his sharp profile caught in half-shadow, one hand holding his phone, his attention fixed on something distant and unreachable. Lilith was leaning against his shoulder, her dark hair cascading over the lapel of his coat, a wide, triumphant smile lighting up her face. The warm glow of the car's interior made it look intimate. Deliberate.
The caption beneath the photograph read: [Thank you Mr. Heir for always making me your number one :)]
At the very bottom of the post, the timestamp glowed faintly. [120 seconds ago]. And beside it, a small tag: [close friends only post].
I scoffed. A short, hollow sound in the empty apartment.
So Lilith had finally decided to stop pretending. To be direct about her intentions, her claim, her quiet war of attrition.
Fine. Go ahead and take Cyrus away. It no longer mattered to me.
I let out a mocking smile, the kind that tasted like ash, and tapped out a comment beneath the post. My fingers moved with deliberate detachment, each letter pressed with the calm of someone who had already decided to stop caring.
[Congratulations on being number 1!]
I hit send and decided to call it a night.
