Then, a stunning red head in a sweeping golden silk dress approached him, sliding into his orbit with an easy, confident smile.
Claude politely acknowledged her, dipping his head to listen as she leaned in close to say something over the roar of the orchestra.
Marceline’s jaw locked so hard a muscle twitched near her ear.
She violently turned her back on the scene, staring fixedly at a massive floral arrangement.
Kate, who had stepped up beside her with a glass of gin, caught the entire sequence.
“Are you all right?”
“Perfectly,” Marceline snapped, her tone dripping with razor-sharp ice.
Kate raised an eyebrow.
“You look absolutely furious, Celine.”
“I am not furious.”
“You look like you’re planning a hit.”
Marceline took a swift, uncharacteristically heavy drink of her champagne, the cold bubbles burning her throat.
“He’s just being rude.”
Kate glanced past her shoulder toward the main bar, her eyes scanning the crowd before turning back to Marceline, thoroughly bewildered.
“He hasn’t even spoken to you tonight.”
“Exactly.”
A long, heavy pause stretched between them.
Kate blinked.
“How on earth is that rude?”
Marceline didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
Because deep down, beneath the cold armor of her anger and the protective weight of Elliot’s file, she knew the humiliating truth.
He had shattered her composure, brought her to her knees in the dark, and made her vulnerable—and now, he was walking through Paris behaving as though she had never mattered at all.
Later in the evening, the grand gala spilled out onto the marble loggia overlooking the darkened gardens of the Palais Garnier.
The air out here was cooler, thick with the scent of damp earth, blooming jasmine, and distant rain, cutting through the heavy perfume of the ballroom.
She caught him alone near the stone balustrade.
Claude was looking down at his phone, his tall silhouette framed against the glowing city lights, when she approached.
The moment the sharp click of her heels hit the stone, he immediately slipped the device into his inner jacket pocket.
“Marceline.”
Polite.
Formal.
Completely unbothered.
She hated it with every fiber of her being.
“You seem remarkably unaffected,” she said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, razor-sharp register.
Claude turned to face her fully, his posture relaxed, his blue eyes unblinking in the dim amber light of the lanterns.
“By what?”
That single, calm question made her blood boil.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
He paused.
The faint thrum of the orchestra echoed from inside the glass doors.
He looked down at her, his expression softening into something quiet and measured.
“I thought you’d prefer that,” he said softly.
Marceline folded her arms tight across her chest, her emerald dress rustling against the stone.
“Prefer what?”
“Distance.”
That single word shut her up instantly.
Because there was no cruel mockery in his tone.
No smug satisfaction.
He wasn’t playing a game, he was genuinely, thoughtfully giving her the exact boundary he believed she wanted.
And somehow, that quiet consideration hurt infinitely more than his cold indifference.
She violently dragged her eyes away from his face, staring out into the dark, rain-slicked gardens.
“The other night was a mistake.”
Claude’s expression barely flickered.
“I know.”
She turned back to him, her chin lifting defensively, throwing up every wall she possessed.
“It meant nothing.”
A long, agonizing beat stretched between them.
“Of course,” Claude replied smoothly.
She hated how completely calm he sounded—how entirely in control of his own pulse he remained while hers was threatening to jump out of her throat.
“Good,” she bit out.
“Good.”
She stood there, waiting.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she searched his face for a tear in his mask, a sudden shadow of regret, anything.
He didn’t say another word.
Finally, the silence snapped her restraint.
“That’s all?” she demanded, her voice tight with fury.
Claude looked at her, his brows drawing together slightly in genuine confusion.
“What else would you like me to say, Marceline?”
She didn’t know.
That was the absolute, humiliating tragedy of it.
She had no answer.
Deep down, she wanted him to protest.
She wanted him to admit that he had been spiraling too, that he couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mouth, that he was breaking under the weight of the exact same agonizing tension.
She wanted him to look ruined.
Instead, he was standing before her like a saint, offering her the exact dignified exit she had claimed to want.
Claude gave her a small, formal nod of his head.
“It won’t happen again.”
He turned smoothly on his heel and walked back toward the gold-lit warmth of the ballroom, his dark tuxedo melting into the crowd.
Marceline stood alone on the freezing marble loggia, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at her sides, absolutely, blindingly livid.
Because now, her traitorous mind was screaming.
You backed me into a corner, you made me beg for you in the dark, and now you’re walking away acting like you’re entirely above it?
She clenched her jaw until her teeth hurt, watching his reflection disappear through the glass doors.
“Arrogant, insufferable bastard.”
The cold night air nipped at her bare shoulders, but Marceline couldn’t move.
She remained frozen on the terrace, staring at the empty glass doorway where Claude had vanished into the golden glow of the gala.
A violent, toxic storm of thoughts battered the inside of her skull.
He’s completely unaffected.
The realization cut deeper than any sharp word he could have thrown at her.
While she had spent two weeks drowning in paranoia, re-reading police files like a lunatic, and losing sleep over the memory of his touch, Claude hadn’t lost a single second of peace.
He had moved on with the effortless grace of a man who hadn’t just shattered her control.
He probably does this all the time.
Of course he did.
He was an Auclair.
He was powerful, gorgeous, and devastatingly calculated.
This wasn’t a earth-shattering moment for him—it was just another Saturday night.
A routine encounter.
A quick conquest wrapped in a charming, gallant facade.
He probably thinks I’m just another woman who fell for him.
The sheer humiliation of it made her stomach churn.
He probably saw her spiraling anger for what it really was, the desperate, pathetic defense mechanism of a woman who had let him touch her once and lost her mind over it.
He was giving her “distance” not out of respect, but out of pity.
Because he knew he had won.
Her knuckles turned bone-white against the marble balustrade.
I hate him.
She repeated it like a mantra, letting the icy venom flood her veins, desperate to choke out the dangerous, lingering heat in her chest.
I hate him.
I hate him.
I hate him.
And this time, she swore she would make sure he felt it.