Dinner at Dame Eleanor's Fifth Avenue apartment was a quieter, more brutal affair than any public restaurant could ever be. The dining room was an oppressive vault of dark mahogany, lit by a chandelier that cast long, flickering shadows against portraits of stern Blackwood ancestors. The air smelled of beeswax and old money. Throughout the meal, the old woman didn't just look at Elara; she dissected her. Her gaze was like a slow-moving X-ray, searching for the fractures in Elara's composure.
"Adrian tells me you're wearing the ivory chiffon to the opera tomorrow," Dame Eleanor said, her voice like dry parchment as she cut into her poached turbot.
"Yes," Elara replied, her voice small in the cavernous room. She pushed a piece of fish around her plate, the appetite she'd spent years cultivating in poverty now completely vanished.
"A bold choice." Dame Eleanor sipped her wine, the crystal glass clinking softly against her rings. "Some in our circle will see it as a touching tribute. Others... well, others will see it as a display of exceptionally poor taste. To put the clothes of a tragedy on the back of a girl bought to settle a debt? It's almost Shakespearean."
"It was my choice, Grandmother," Adrian interrupted, his tone cold and sharp, leaving no room for further discussion.
"Of course it was, darling." His grandmother's smile was a thin, bloodless line. "You always had a flair for the dramatic. You inherited that from Sophia. She lived for the stage, even when there were no cameras." She turned her penetrating gaze back to Elara. "Tell me, child. Do you feel her presence? When you slip into her things, do you feel the weight of her air? Does the chiffon feel like skin, or like a shroud?"
Elara set her fork down carefully, her heart thumping against her ribs. "I never knew her, Ma'am. To me, it is just fabric."
"A blessing, in some ways," the old woman mused, leaning back. "Sophia was... fragile. Beautiful, yes, like a glass bird, but utterly breakable. The world was too harsh for her, and the Blackwood name was a crown she couldn't carry." She glanced at Adrian with a look that was half-pride, half-warning. "You've chosen a harder specimen this time, Adrian. A girl with iron in her spine. That's something new."
The backhanded compliment felt like a physical slap. Elara kept her face a mask of practiced indifference, her hands clenched in her lap where the table hid them. She was being compared to a dead woman as if she were a horse being traded in a stable.
After dinner, as they waited for the car in the grand foyer, Adrian stepped away to give final instructions to the driver. Dame Eleanor seized the moment. She stepped close to Elara, her grip on Elara's arm surprisingly strong, her fingers like bird talons.
"A word of advice, girl," the old woman whispered, her eyes ancient and terrifyingly sharp. "Tomorrow night, you will wear that dress. You will smile. You will play the part of the devoted bride. But remember this: you are not Sophia. Her tragedy is not yours to carry, and his grief is not a wound you were meant to cure. Do not let his darkness swallow you whole." She tightened her grip until it hurt. "Survive him, Elara. That is the only victory that matters in this family."
Before Elara could breathe a response, Adrian returned. The ride back to the penthouse was a suffocating silence. When they reached their floor, Adrian didn't follow her out of the elevator.
"I have work," he said, his face carved from granite. "Sleep. You'll need your strength for the vultures tomorrow."
Elara spent the night staring at the ivory dress. It hung on the door of her closet, glowing faintly in the moonlight like a specter waiting to be fed. She thought of Sophia, a woman whose life and death had been weaponized by the man she called husband. She thought of Adrian's knuckles brushing her spine as he unzipped the gown. And she thought of Dame Eleanor's warning: Survive him.
The next evening, the transformation was solemn, almost funereal. Valentina worked in a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight. She pinned Elara's hair into a sophisticated twist, applying makeup that made Elara's skin look luminous yet eerily timeless. When Elara finally stood, the chiffon whispered against the floor—a sound like a long-forgotten sigh. The diamonds in her ears felt like freezing tears, heavy and cold.
When she emerged into the living room, Adrian was waiting. He wore a classic black tuxedo, the stark contrast of the white shirt making him look even more lethal. He stared at her for a long, agonizing minute, saying nothing. His face was an unreadable mask, but his eyes... they held a tumult of grief and something that looked dangerously like hunger.
He offered his arm without a word.
The opera was La Traviata—the story of a courtesan doomed by society and disease. How fitting, Elara thought bitterly as they entered the Metropolitan Opera House.
The lobby was a sea of jewels and black tie, but as they walked toward their private box, a ripple went through the crowd. The air seemed to go still. Whispers followed them like a trail of smoke. Eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed in judgment.
"Adrian, my God. Is that... is that Sophia's dress?" An older woman, draped in emeralds, clutched her chest, her face turning a sickly pale.
"A tribute, Mrs. Delaney," Adrian said smoothly, his voice a perfect silken lie. "Elara wanted to honor my mother's memory."
The lie was so practiced, so effortless, that it made Elara's blood run cold. She kept her smile in place, her hand light on his arm, even as her heart hammered like a trapped bird against her ribs. She was a ghost on display, a prop in a play she hadn't auditioned for.
Their box offered a perfect view of the stage, but Elara could feel hundreds of binoculars from the tiers below fixed on her. They weren't watching the opera; they were dissecting the girl in the dead woman's clothes. During intermission, the onslaught continued.
"How touching, Adrian," one man remarked, though his eyes were cold.
"She looks lovely. So much like her," a socialite whispered, loud enough to be heard.
Each word was a needle pricking Elara's skin. Each fake smile was a tiny cut. She nodded, she thanked them, she played her part until her face ached from the effort. She was suffering under the weight of a thousand judgments, yet she had to remain a statue of grace.
It was during the second act, as the lead soprano sang her deathbed aria, that the atmosphere changed. In the velvet darkness of the private box, Adrian's hand suddenly found hers. His fingers laced through hers, his grip tight—almost painful. He wasn't looking at her; his eyes were fixed on the stage, but his jaw was clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek.
He wasn't holding her hand for comfort. He was holding onto her as if she were the only thing keeping him from falling into an abyss. He didn't let go until the final curtain fell and the lights flickered back to life.
The ride home was a hollow silence. In the penthouse elevator, Adrian stared straight ahead, his profile as sharp and cold as a blade.
"You did well," he said as the doors slid open. It was the first genuine acknowledgment he had given her since the wedding.
"Did I?" Elara asked, her voice weary and thick with the night's exhaustion. "Or did the ghost do well, Adrian? Did I play the corpse well enough for you?"
He turned then, his gray eyes blazing in the dim light of the foyer. He stepped close, cupping her face in his large, warm hand. His thumb stroked her cheek, tracing the line where a tear might have fallen if she had allowed her defenses to break.
"Tonight," he said, his voice a raw, jagged whisper that sent a shiver down her spine, "there was no ghost. There was only you."
For a terrifying, exhilarating second, Elara thought he would kiss her. His lips hovered a hair's breadth from hers, his breath warm and smelling of the champagne and woodsmoke. She could see the flecks of silver in his eyes, the raw vulnerability he usually kept buried under layers of ice.
But the moment snapped.
He dropped his hand and walked away without another word, leaving her standing alone in the foyer. Her skin burned where he had touched her. She was still wearing his mother's dress, his mother's diamonds, but she felt more exposed than if she were naked.
Alone in her room, Elara carefully removed the earrings, then the dress. She hung the ivory chiffon back in the closet, where it seemed to glow in the moonlight like a silent witness. She touched her cheek, feeling the ghost of his thumb.
"There was only you."
The words were more dangerous than any of his cruelties. They were a crack in the wall she had built to protect herself. For the first time, the lines between their roles had blurred. And as she put on the simple pearls her mother had given her, Elara realized she was terrified.
She wasn't sure which was more frightening: Adrian the tormentor who wanted to break her, or Adrian the man who held her hand in the dark and, for one brief moment, saw the woman behind the debt.
She didn't just have to survive the Blackwoods anymore. She had to survive the part of herself that wanted to reach back to him.
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