Page 52 of Reveal Me
The hotel’s entrance blazes with light—crystal chandeliers visible through floor-to-ceiling windows, red carpet extending from the kerb to the revolving brass doors. Photographers wait behind velvet ropes, their cameras flashing as various notables arrive. My protection detail materialises from their vehicle, assuming casual proximity whilst maintaining professional distance.
Caspian offers his arm. I stare at it for a long beat before finally linking mine through it—purely for my mother’s benefit. It feels so wrong.
Together, we step inside the Shelbourne’s grand reception area. The marble-floored lobby soars overhead. ‘I can’t think of a better way to spend Wednesday evening.’ Caspianmurmurs into my ear as we join the stream of guests heading into the open ballroom doors.
I can.
He offers my arm a small squeeze and strokes and I cringe.
Every head turns as we enter. Their collective gaze feels like a physical weight. Conversations halt mid-sentence, champagne flutes freeze halfway to lips—the usual subtle shift in energy that occurs when I enter a room.
People rush to greet Caspian, but let’s be honest, it’s not him they’re rushing to. That’s not vanity, by the way, it’s the harsh truth of being royalty. Everyone wants a slice. It’s everything I haven’t missed.
I attempt to wiggle my arm free from Caspian’s, but he pins my elbow firmly against his side, staking a silent claim as we make small talk. I feel like a piece of meat. My mouth is dry. My head is pounding, and I’m silently praying someone, anyone, will get me a drink. God knows I could use one. Or five.
When we finally get a brief reprieve, instead of going to the bar, Caspian looks around, almost inviting the next round of guests to greet us. Not for the first time in my life, I feel like an endangered species—rare but not properly protected. I glance desperately around, searching for Grant and Toby. They’re five feet behind us, relentlessly surveying our surroundings.
‘Every eye in the room is on you.’ Caspian murmurs, eyeing my cleavage again as he moves his hand to the small of my back. My spine stiffens. ‘On us,’ he gloats. I’m just a royal trophy to him. One that he wants to own–for all the wrong reasons.
My eyes sweep the crowd, silently screaming for someone to help me. To get me the hell out of here. I shouldn’t have come.
You had no choice, a tiny voice in my head reminds me. It’s no different to any other public appearance I’ve had to make.
Faces blur together—a sea of black dinner jackets and designer dresses. Caspian dips his lips to whisper in my ear in a gesture that’s offensively intimate, but I don’t hear a word because my gaze collides with a pair of burning black eyes across the ballroom.
The world stops.
Everything else fades.
Nothing exists except those big black familiar eyes.
Sean Beckett stands by the bar. A fitted dinner jacket sculpts his broad shoulders to perfection. His crisp white shirt clings to his body in a way that should be illegal. Full lips press together in a grimace.
My pulse hammers.
He looks magnificent, but there’s no missing the jealousy blazing in his eyes. Jealousy and barely concealed fury. His jaw ticks as his gaze homes in on Caspian’s arm around my back
We stare at each other across three hundred guests, me silently trying to explain to him that this isn’t what it looks like. Him silently demanding answers that contractually, he doesn’t deserve, yet I feel compelled to provide.
He claimed me in Reveal, mounting me in front of every man there, and the way he’s looking at me now, I don’t trust him not to do the exact same thing. And given the sensations that prospect is inciting over my skin, I don’t trust myself not to let him.
He strides toward us without breaking eye contact.
The crowd seems to part instinctively for him; he commands as much attention as I do.
Imagine how much we would command together.
I squash that thought.
We can never be.
But tell that to the man stalking over here radiating a dark promise, and barely leashed fury.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SEAN
And this is exactly why I prefer to keep my underground life separate to the life I live above ground.
