Now, she was choosing to stay.

Chapter 3: The Devil's Invitation

For three seconds, Clara forgot how to breathe.

Christian Vance stood before her, his expression unreadable, his promise hanging between them like a sealed contract.

Starting tonight, Clara, you will never walk into any room alone again.

She should have felt relieved.

Instead, a strange, terrifying warmth spread through her chest.

Because Christian Vance was not the kind of man who made promises lightly. He was the kind of man who bought entire companies to eliminate a competitor, who could silence a room with a single glance, and whose enemies occasionally disappeared from the financial district without leaving so much as a forwarding address.

And now he was offering to become her boyfriend.

"Why?" she whispered.

Christian's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Why what?"

"Why would you do this for me?"

His gaze moved toward the tart on the counter. For a moment, something almost resembling amusement crossed his face.

"Because you make terrible decisions when you're frightened."

Clara blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"You've been standing in my kitchen for the past ten minutes trying to figure out how to hire a stranger to pretend to love you." He glanced at the discarded towel. "And you nearly fainted while doing it."

"I was not trying to hire a stranger."

"Then who were you planning to ask?"

Clara opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Christian's smile deepened.

"Exactly."

She folded her arms across her chest, attempting to recover some of her dignity.

"Even if I accepted your offer, you would have to understand that this is strictly temporary. I need someone to accompany me to the gala. That's all."

"Of course."

"And you cannot interfere with my father's clinic."

"Agreed."

"Or threaten Julian."

Christian's expression changed.

The amusement vanished.

"That," he said quietly, "might be difficult."

"Christian."

It was the first time she had spoken his first name.

The sound seemed to settle between them.

He studied her for a long moment before giving a small, almost imperceptible nod.

"I won't touch him."

Clara exhaled.

"Thank you."

"Unless he touches you first."

Her eyes widened.

"That is not what I meant."

"I know."

Christian stepped away from the island and reached for his phone.

"Marcus."

A voice answered immediately.

"Sir?"

"Prepare the black car. We're going to the east wing."

"Of course, sir."

Christian ended the call.

Clara frowned.

"The east wing?"

"Your new room."

"My room?"

"You'll need something other than a maid's uniform tomorrow night."

She looked down at herself.

The black dress was comfortable, practical, and entirely unsuitable for a society gala.

"I have clothes."

Christian looked at her.

"Clara, you have three dresses, two pairs of shoes, and a handbag that has been repaired with duct tape."

She stared at him.

"How do you know that?"

"I have eyes."

"You've been watching me?"

"Not intentionally."

The answer was delivered so calmly that she could not tell whether he was teasing her.

Before she could ask anything else, Christian turned toward the doorway.

"Come."

Clara hesitated.

"Where?"

He looked over his shoulder.

"To meet the woman who will make sure Julian Thorne regrets ever learning your name."

The east wing of the Vance estate was a world Clara had never been permitted to enter.

As a housemaid, she had spent the last six months moving through the estate's service corridors, cleaning rooms that belonged to people whose lives were so extravagantly different from hers that they might as well have belonged to another species.

The east wing, however, was something else entirely.

It was a private residence within a residence.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the ocean. Sculptures stood beneath recessed lighting. A grand piano rested beside a wall of antique books, and a narrow staircase curved upward toward a mezzanine lined with paintings.

Christian walked ahead of her.

Clara followed, her footsteps growing quieter as she absorbed the impossible beauty around her.

"Do you actually live here?" she asked.

"Occasionally."

"Then where do you live the rest of the time?"

"Wherever I need to be."

"That sounds exhausting."

He glanced at her.

"It is."

For the first time, she noticed the faint shadows beneath his eyes.

The man looked invincible, but perhaps he had simply learned how to hide the exhaustion of being feared.

They stopped before a set of double doors.

Christian opened them.

Inside stood a woman in her late forties, dressed in an elegant charcoal suit. Her silver-streaked hair was pulled into a severe bun, and her eyes were sharp enough to cut glass.

She looked Clara up and down.

Then she looked at Christian.

"You're serious?"

"Very."

The woman sighed.

"Of course you are."

Christian gestured toward Clara.

"Clara Bennett. She'll be attending tomorrow's gala with me."

The woman crossed her arms.

"And what exactly am I supposed to do with her?"

"Make her look like she belongs beside me."

The woman turned toward Clara.

"Do you?"

Clara swallowed.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Do you belong beside him?"

The question was so direct that Clara almost laughed.

"No."

The woman blinked.

Christian's mouth twitched.

Clara continued, "But I intend to make everyone believe I do."

For a moment, silence filled the room.

Then the woman smiled.

It was the first genuine smile Clara had seen from anyone in the Vance household.

"Interesting," she murmured.

She extended her hand.

"Isabelle Laurent. Former creative director for the House of Laurent. I have dressed queens, heiresses, and women who wanted to become either. But I have never dressed a woman who looks at Christian Vance as though she intends to survive him."

Clara shook her hand.

"That may be because I do."

Isabelle laughed.

Christian turned toward the window.

"Good. You have until tomorrow evening."

Isabelle's smile disappeared.

"Tomorrow evening?"

"Yes."

"Christian, you cannot expect me to transform a frightened housemaid into the most dangerous woman in the ballroom in twenty-four hours."

Christian looked back at her.

"Why not?"

Isabelle stared at him.

Then she smiled again.

"Because I will need twenty-six."

By midnight, Clara had learned three things.

First, Christian Vance had a wardrobe that could have financed an entire hospital.

Second, Isabelle Laurent was capable of making a person feel simultaneously beautiful and deeply inadequate.

And third, Christian had apparently decided that sleep was an unnecessary inconvenience.

Every time Clara glanced through the glass doors of the dressing suite, she saw him standing in the adjoining office, speaking into his phone.

His voice was always low.

Always controlled.

But the men on the other end of those calls seemed to become increasingly nervous.

At twelve forty-seven, Isabelle finally dismissed the seamstresses.

Clara stood before a mirror in a silk robe, her hair falling loosely over her shoulders.

She barely recognized herself.

The woman in the mirror looked older.

More composed.

Almost dangerous.

"Tomorrow," Isabelle said, adjusting the robe at Clara's shoulder, "you will not enter that ballroom as a victim."

Clara stared at her reflection.

"What will I enter as?"

Isabelle smiled.

"A woman who has decided that the world no longer gets to tell her what she is worth."

The words struck something deep inside Clara.

For six months, she had allowed Julian Thorne to dictate every aspect of her life.

She had hidden her name.

Her history.

Her grief.

She had worked beneath chandeliers while the people who had destroyed her family drank champagne above her.

And tomorrow night, she would stand beside the most powerful man in the city.

Not because she needed protection.

But because she was ready to fight.

At one fifteen in the morning, Clara finally left the dressing suite.

Christian was still in the office.

She found him standing beside a desk covered in documents.

He looked up.

"You're awake."

"So are you."

"I have work."

"Apparently."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Something wrong?"

Clara hesitated.

Then she stepped into the office.

"I need to know what you're getting me into."

Christian placed the document on the desk.

"Julian Thorne has spent the last three years trying to acquire the Vance Group's pharmaceutical division."

Clara froze.

"Pharmaceutical division?"

"Yes."