The livestream rolled on.
Marceline was in the middle of answering a detailed question about her go-to spring fragrance when André’s attention drifted lazily past her right shoulder.
“Oh.”
Kate glanced over her compact mirror at him.
“What?”
André’s smile turned instantly, irredeemably wicked.
“Nothing at all.”
Marceline narrowed her eyes at them both, her professional smile dimming by half a degree.
“What are you two doing back there?”
“Nothing,” Kate said with practiced innocence, taking a tiny sip of her drink.
Marceline turned her attention firmly back to the glowing phone screen.
“As I was saying, someone asked about my favourite—”
She stopped mid-word.
Her breath hitched in her throat.
Through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors just behind the seating area, Claude had stepped out onto the open-air terrace.
Maximilian was beside him, gesturing animatedly as he said something that made Claude throw his head back in a quiet, low laugh.
Claude had an unlit cigarette resting lightly between two fingers.
Marceline’s gaze locked onto his hand.
Long, elegant fingers.
The subtle glint of his broad silver watch against his cuff.
The slight, hypnotic movement of his thumb as he casually turned the cigarette back and forth between his knuckles.
Her mind betrayed her instantly.
Flashes of those exact hands locking around her hips, holding her pinned to the mattress, driving deep inside her until she shattered, surged back with terrifying, vivid heat.
She stared for two full, agonizing seconds too long—completely paralyzed by the ghost of him inside her.
Then she violently yanked her gaze back to the camera lens.
“—fragrance,” she blurted out, her voice a fraction too high.
André had to physically bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
Kate, however, leaned forward, her sharp eyes studying the sudden flush creeping up Marceline’s neck.
“Celine,” Kate murmured.
“What?” Marceline snapped under her breath, keeping her eyes glued to the chat text.
“You completely stopped talking.”
“I was thinking.”
Kate tilted her head, a smirk tugging at her lips.
“About fragrance?”
Marceline forced a bright, terrifyingly sharp smile for her four million viewers.
“Yes.
Fragrance.”
André looked thoroughly unconvinced.
Marceline pushed forward, her voice tight.
“Something woody.
Cedar, probably.
Warm, but…
sharp.”
André had to press his hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh.
Because just outside the glass doors, Claude lifted the cigarette to his mouth.
Marceline’s eyes betrayed her again.
She couldn’t stop them.
His lips closed around the filter.
A brief, steady inhale.
Then he lowered his hand, a thin trail of blue smoke drifting lazily into the warm night air.
Marceline forgot the question on the screen entirely.
The entire chat might as well have vanished.
The sight of his mouth brought a sudden, searing flash of memory—the taste of his lips, the friction of his stubble, the wicked, deliberate way his tongue had flicked and sucked over her breast until she was whimpering.
Oh, for God’s sake.
She violently forced her gaze away, staring fixedly at the champagne bucket.
Then, against every shred of her better judgment, her eyes darted back to the terrace.
Claude was listening to Maximilian now, his head slightly inclined, the cigarette resting idly between his knuckles.
His mouth moved as he offered a low, measured reply.
Marceline swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.
She had spent months acknowledging, with great annoyance, that Claude Auclair was obnoxiously handsome.
That had been manageable.
She could dismiss a polished face.
She could dismiss a tailor-made silhouette.
She could even dismiss those sharp, irritatingly blue eyes.
But now she knew what his mouth felt like on her skin.
She knew what it sounded like when he lost his composure inside her.
That was a completely different, utterly catastrophic problem.
Her stomach tightened into a knot.
“Celine?”
She blinked, snapping out of the trance.
André was staring directly at her.
“Hm?”
“You were supposed to answer the question.”
“I did.”
Kate glanced down at the glowing screen.
“You’ve been dead silent for twelve seconds, Celine.”
“I was reading.”
André leaned closer into the frame, his tone dripping with fake innocence.
“Reading what, exactly?”
Marceline smiled at the camera with the strained, terrifying composure of a woman whose entire nervous system had just been personally offended.
“The comments, André.”
André glanced past her shoulder toward Claude, then slowly turned his eyes back to her.
His expression became unbearably, wickedly smug.
“Right.
The comments.”
Underneath the low glass table, Marceline’s heel came down hard on his designer loafer.
“Ow!” André hissed through his teeth.
“Smile for the chat,” Marceline cooed smoothly into the phone lens.
André straightened his scarf, forcing a tight grin for the live stream.
“You are absolutely terrifying.”
“Good,” she whispered back, her eyes flashing warning signs.
“Keep that in mind.”
Outside, Claude laughed at something Maximilian said, the sound lost to the thud of the music beyond the glass.
Marceline’s eyes flicked toward him again—just for a fraction of a second.
This time, Claude happened to turn.
Their eyes almost met.
Almost.
Marceline immediately dropped her gaze back to her phone screen, her heart slamming against her ribs.
On the terrace, Claude’s blue eyes lingered on her profile for one long, silent heartbeat before he casually turned back to his conversation.
He didn’t approach her.
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t drop his quiet, untouchable mask or give the slightest indication that they had been tangled in the same sheets hours ago.
Nothing.
And somehow, that utter indifference was infinitely worse.
Marceline pressed her lips together into a hard, razor-thin line.
He doesn’t even care.
He doesn’t even know I’m watching.
That thought should have been a relief.
It should have been reassuring.
Instead, it infuriated her beyond all reason.
André, watching the quick play of shadow and red-hot irritation across her face, leaned toward Kate and murmured under his breath, “She is completely, irrevocably gone.”
Kate nodded slowly, keeping her eyes on her lip gloss.
“She’s been gone for a while.
She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Marceline snapped her head around, glaring at them both.
“I can hear you.”
André offered her a dazzling, utterly unbothered smile.
“Good.”
She grabbed her tumbler and took another aggressive, determined sip of sparkling water, setting the crystal down with a sharp clink against the table.
“Next question,” she commanded the phone screen, her voice dripping with ice.