Page 95 of Corrupting Camille
She’s draped against his side like she was poured into place, one long, lethal line of bone-deep confidence and blood-red lipstick.
Ivy doesn’t cling. She occupies. She doesn’t giggle. She hunts.
Her hair is darker than I remember, slicked back into a knot that makes her look even more dangerous. Her gown is red. Of course. Cut so low it should be a scandal. Her eyes, still that smoky, spoiled shade of blue, sweep the terrace like she’s above it all.
Until they find me.
And then she smiles.
Not sweetly. Not politely.
She smiles like a challenge.
Because Ivy Prescott doesn’t look at people, she dissects them.
She sees me beside Preston, hand tucked into his elbow, smiling like I don’t want to scream. She sees the ring that’s not there yet, the dress I picked to fade, the fracture running straight through my spine.
She knows.
She fucking knows.
Because this isn’t some random plus-one Kane plucked from the socialite graveyard. Ivy and I go back. She’s been trying to outmaneuver me since we were sixteen.
And tonight?
She’s not just here to play.
She’s here to win.
I force a smile, tight, polished, rehearsed. The kind I’ve had locked into muscle memory since Cotillion. But my ribs feel like glass. Brittle. One wrong breath and I’ll shatter into a thousandgleaming pieces, all of them screaming what the fuck are you doing here with him?
Because this?
This isn’t coincidence.
Two weeks of nothing, no texts, no calls, not even a whisper of Kane’s voice through the static I keep searching for like an addict.
And now he shows up at this dinner, in this house, at this exact moment, with her?
Like it’s casual. Like it’s nothing.
But it’s not nothing.
It’s war.
It’s deliberate.
Surgical.
He’s sending a message, and every cell in my body receives it:
You’re not special.
You’re not sacred.
You’re not immune.
He’s showing me that I was always just a game.
