Chapter 61 Chapter Sixty
ARA
My heart pounded like a war drum the entire walk to the Porsche, every beat screaming the same word: stupid, stupid, stupid.
The emerald dress clung to my body like it was trying to burn its way through my skin.
Each step made the fabric shift, whispering Ethan’s name against my thighs, my hips, my breasts.
I felt branded. Poisoned. Like I’d walked out of the penthouse wearing his hands instead of a dress.
I should have called Thayne the second I saw that note.
I should have told him the package never came, that his brother had dressed me up like a gift and slid me into his own game.
Thayne would have burned the dress, burned the building, in fact, he would have burned the whole damn city to keep Ethan’s colour off my body.
But I didn’t.
I’d slipped it on like a fool, because some terrified part of me thought refusing would be worse.
Now it was too late.
Munroe opened the car door. I slid into the back seat and the leather was like ice against my bare back, but it did nothing to cool the lava licking every inch of me.
The venue for the birthday party was Marilyn Munroe Hall.
Of course it had to be there.
The same hall where I’d almost shattered the first time Thayne brought me, where the walls had closed in and the stares had suffocated me, where I’d begged him to distract me and he'd kissed the panic right out of my lungs until I forgot how to be afraid.
I pressed my thighs together under the emerald silk, hating how my body still remembered that kiss, hating how it mixed with the terror crawling up my spine now.
Because tonight I wasn’t walking in on Thayne’s arm.
Tonight I was walking in wearing Ethan’s claim.
And I had no idea if Thayne would see the dress and understand, or if he would only see betrayal.
The Porsche purred to a stop and my stomach lurched with it.
Doors opened. Munroe, Sylvester and the others closed in fast, a wall of black suits and muscle boxing me in before the first flashbulb even popped.
I was swallowed by their circle, tiny like a child in the middle, my heels wobbling on the red carpet like a lamb surrounded by wolves pretending to be sheep.
Cameras exploded the second I stepped out.
The light was blinding, white-hot, a thousand suns trying to burn through my retinas.
I couldn’t see anything past the wall of bodyguards, but I could hear them, the journalists and paparazzi.
I could feel them, smell their hunger.
“Ara! Look over here!”
“Miss Irvington, who are you wearing tonight?”
“That dress is stunning! Turn for us!”
“Is it true you’re the reason the Slade brothers are at war?”
“Who’s the ring really from, Ara?”
Each question was like a knife sliding between my ribs.
My lungs forgot how to work in that moment.
The emerald dress felt tighter than ever, like it was shrinking, squeezing, screaming Ethan’s name louder with every flash of the cameras.
I was wrapped in his colour, his trap, his victory, and every single camera was drinking it in.
I wanted to claw the dress off my body right there on the carpet.
I wanted to scream that this wasn’t me, that this wasn’t my choice.
But I couldn’t. Not because I was afraid of defending myself, but because one wrong move, one tear, one flinch was all it would take and tomorrow the headlines would read:
ARA IRVINGTON ARRIVES IN ETHAN SLADE’S COLOUR.
THAYNE DUMPED?
I forced my chin up, forced my lips into the tiniest, coldest smile I could manage, and let them cage me forward.
Inside my chest, my heart was shattering into a million pieces.
The circle of bodyguards parted like curtains on a stage I never wanted to step onto.
And there he was.
Thayne stood alone in the middle of the chaos, no security, no shield, just him.
He stood tall, lethal, carved from midnight in a tux that looked like it'd been poured over his body.
Cameras flashed around him like lightning, but he didn’t blink.
He never did. Not even once.
Until his eyes found me.
One heartbeat. That was all it took.
His gaze dropped to the emerald silk clinging to my skin, slid over the plunging neckline, the slit that climbed too high, the colour that had no business being on me.
His jaw locked so hard I could swear I heard the crack from ten feet away.
Those frosty green eyes turned an angry shade that sucked me in.
I felt the moment he figured it out.
He knew this wasn’t the dress he’d ordered.
He knew whose colour I was drowning in.
Did he know the package he'd ordered wasn't delivered?
The look he gave me wasn’t just anger.
It was devastation wrapped in ice.
Like I’d taken a blade and slid it straight between his ribs while smiling for the cameras.
My knees almost buckled.
I wanted to scream that I'd had no choice.
I wanted to rip the dress off and burn it right there on the red carpet.
I wanted to run to him, fall at his feet, beg him to see me, not the poison wrapped around my body.
But I couldn’t move.
Because the whole world was watching.
And in that single, shattering second, I knew I'd lost him.
I saw it happen. The moment a look of frustration shone in his eyes.
The moment the man who owned me decided maybe I didn’t belong to him anymore.
The air was already choking me when a familiar slippery voice slid through the crowd like oil.
“The dress fits you so well, Arayna.”
My real name in his mouth felt like a slap.
Ethan stepped into the circle of light like he owned the night itself.
White tux, hair slicked back, that swollen lip curled into the smuggest grin I’d ever seen.
Cameras swung toward him like magnets.
He stopped right beside Thayne, close enough to look like family, but far enough to look like a threat.
“Dear brother,” he said, loud and theatrical, making sure every microphone caught it, “it does bring out her lovely curves, doesn’t it?”
The flashbulbs went insane.
Ethan’s eyes raked over me, slow and filthy, lingering on my chest, my hips, the slit that showed too much thigh.
He bit his bottom lip like he was already tasting me.
I felt the emerald silk turn to acid.
Thayne didn’t speak.
He didn’t even breathe.
He just stared at his brother with a look so cold, so murderous, the temperature around us seemed to drop ten degrees.
But the cameras only saw the smile Ethan flashed them, the casual hand he rested on Thayne’s shoulder like they were best friends.
The headlines were already writing themselves.
I could hear them in my head:
ETHAN SLADE CLAIMS THAYNE’S FIANCÉE IN VIRIDIAN VICTORY.
EMERALD DRESS SPARKS SLADE BROTHER SHOWDOWN.
WHO DOES ARA REALLY BELONG TO?
My throat closed at the last thought.
I was going to be sick.
Because Thayne’s hand hung at his side, fingers curled into a fist so tight the knuckles went white.
And he still hadn’t looked at me again. Not once since Ethan spoke.
It was worse than if he’d screamed. Or called me names.
I would have handled it better.
The silence from him hurt more than any words ever could.
I was standing between two monsters.
One had dressed me like a trophy.
The other looked like he was finally ready to let me go.