“Then?” she prompted.
“Then we count the final hours until we may stop pretending this is only performance.”
With that, he left her standing in the vast, sunlit ballroom, the polished floor patterned with late-afternoon gold. Tomorrow would be the Winter Solstice Ball—and the last hours of their agreement.
But as Celine stood in the empty room where they had just danced like lovers—where their bodies had spoken truths their mouths refused to name—she knew the agreement was already cracked.
Tomorrow would be the test.
Could they display passion without drowning in it?
Dance along the knife’s edge without falling?
Convince society they were besotted while pretending, privately, to remain untouched?
She thought of his hands steady at her waist, the way her name sounded in his voice, the maddening precision with which they counted days and hours and breaths.
No—they were already falling.
The only question was whether they would land together or apart.
One more day after the ball.
The beautiful, perilous ball where all of society would watch the Beast and his bride waltz, searching for cracks in their carefully crafted façade.
If only they knew that façade was the only thing preventing the two of them from setting the entire ballroom alight.
Tomorrow could not come fast enough.
And it could not come slowly enough.
Because once they danced tomorrow—really danced, with the world watching—there would be no returning to careful distance and locked doors.
The countdown would become inescapable.
Just like them.
Chapter Fourteen
The burgundy silk whispered against Celine’s skin as Sally fastened the final hook, each small movement a reminder that tonight would be different. Tonight, all of London would watch the Beast and his bride dance, looking for evidence that their shocking marriage was either a grand passion or a terrible mistake. What they wouldn’t know—couldn’t know—was that it was both, and neither, and something else entirely that defied classification.
“You’re trembling, my lady,” Sally observed, stepping back to assess her handiwork.
“It’s cold,” Celine lied, though the fire blazing in the hearth made her chamber almost stifling.
“Of course it is,” Sally agreed diplomatically, though her knowing smile suggested otherwise. “Shall I fetch your wrap?”
“Not yet. I need a moment to... compose myself.”
Sally bobbed a curtsey and withdrew, leaving Celine alone with her reflection.
The woman in the mirror looked like a countess—elegant, sophisticated, untouchable. The burgundy gown fit perfectly, as she’d known it would, given the Duke’s exacting specifications. The diamonds at her throat and wrists caught the firelight, sending rainbows across the walls. Her hair was swept up in anelaborate style that had taken Sally an hour to perfect, with small diamond pins scattered throughout like stars.
She looked beautiful. She looked expensive. She looked like everything the Countess of Rothwest should be.
She looked nothing like herself.
A knock at the connecting door made her heart skip. “Come in,” she called, though she knew he wouldn’t. He would maintain the locked door religiously, even as everything else about their agreement crumbled around them.
