Chapter 3 - The Cold Stone of the TerraceHe moved with the silent, predatory grace of an apex hunter that owned every stone beneath his boots.
His custom Brioni dinner suit was open at the collar, his hands resting easily at his sides, his gray eyes fixed not on his screaming bride, but squarely on the girl kneeling on the marble floor.
Behind him walked Marcus, his chief enforcer, flanked by two towering men in charcoal wool coats whose unbuttoned jackets revealed the dark leather of shoulder holsters.
Genevieve’s triumphant smile faltered for a fraction of an instant, replaced by an expression of delicate, helpless victimhood.
“Damian, darling! Thank God you're here!” Genevieve cried, rushing forward and holding out the stained skirt of her gown. “Look at what this careless creature did! She ruined my Lyon silk! She spilled an entire bottle of Cabernet across my dress and then had the audacity to talk back to me!”
Damian didn't look at the silk.
He didn't look at the Cabernet.
He stepped past Genevieve as though she were a pane of dirty glass, stopping two feet from where Laurel was kneeling.
He looked down at her.
His gaze swept over her cheap, worn service shoes with their paper-thin soles, the dark shadows of exhaustion carved beneath her hazel eyes, and the rigid, unbroken posture of her spine.
“I told you to stand up,” Damian murmured softly.
His baritone was smooth, gravelly, and stripped of all theatricality.
Laurel swallowed the dryness in her throat, placed her palms against her knees, and pushed herself to her feet. Her calves trembled violently from sixteen hours on the unyielding floor, but she did not stagger. She stood tall, her hands folding neatly over the front of her white half-apron.
“I did not spill the wine intentionally, sir,” Laurel said, looking directly into his cold gray eyes. “Miss Sterling struck my tray with her arm.”
“She’s lying!” Genevieve shrilled, stepping up beside Damian, her manicured hand reaching out to grasp his forearm. “Damian, are you seriously going to take the word of an hourly temp over your future wife? She’s an incompetent nobody who belongs in a tenement!”
Damian slowly turned his head.
He looked down at Genevieve’s fingers resting on his midnight-blue sleeve.
His eyes were as dead and flat as a frozen canal.
“Take your hand off my arm, Genevieve.”
Genevieve froze. Her lips parted in shock, her breath catching as the sheer, suffocating menace radiating from him hit her like a physical blow.
Slowly, she pulled her hand back, her diamonds trembling against her wrist.
Damian looked across the circle of eighty guests, his gaze settling on the banquet supervisor.
“Mrs. Higgins.”
“Y-yes, Mr. Blackwood?” the older woman stammered, stepping forward with her hands clasped tight.
“Did Laurel Mercer strike my fiancée?”
“No, sir,” Mrs. Higgins said, her voice trembling but resolute. “I was standing ten feet away by the linen press. Miss Sterling extended her elbow into the service path while laughing. The collision was caused by Miss Sterling.”
A collective murmur swept through the room.
Genevieve’s face turned an ugly, mottled shade of crimson. “Higgins is lying to protect her staff! I will have her agency blacklisted from every country club in New York!”
“You won't blacklist anyone from this estate, Genevieve,” Damian said, his voice dropping into that chilling, lethal whisper that made seasoned dock bosses look down at their shoes.
May you like
He turned his gaze back to Laurel.
“Empty your pockets.”
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