“If you have policy concerns, Charles,” he said, cool and unbothered, “I suggest you file them through the appropriate channels.”
“Oh, I’m merely a concerned citizen,” Hawthorne said evenly. “Watching with interest how influence… changes hands.”
The implication hung there, poisonous and deliberate.
Emilia met his gaze squarely.
“I suppose that’s the difference between us,” she said, voice even. “You see influence as something you hoard. We see it as something you earn.”
Hawthorne smiled in reply.
“Careful, Miss Carter. Not all battles are fought in open fields.”
He inclined his head mockingly and melted back into the crowd, leaving his only the veiled threat hanging in the air.
The moment he was gone, Emilia exhaled sharply.
Alexander turned to her immediately. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, still feeling the phantom chill of his presence. “Fine. Infuriated, but fine.”
Alexander’s jaw was tight. “He won’t touch you.”
“I’m not worried about me,” Emilia said quietly. “I’m worried about what he’ll try to do to you.”
He caught her hand and squeezed it, anchoring them both in the moment.
“Let him try,” Alexander said. “We’re stronger than he is.”
And for the first time all night—maybe the first time since the engagement—Emilia believed it.
Because standing there with him, under the fading glimmer of chandeliers and behind the polished armor of titles and appearances, she realized that this wasn’t just about surviving the palace anymore.
It was about building something stronger, even if men like Hawthorne were already sharpening their knives.
14
Emotional Support Bros
Sebastian sprawled in his townhouse study, one leg slung over the arm of a leather chair, phone in hand. He was meant to be reviewing a budget briefing or was it a charity board report? Instead, he was lost in society gossip.
The tabloids, once a reliable morning ritual of judgment and schadenfreude, had taken a backseat to spying on his father and working with Harper. A headline stopped his thumb cold:
Tech’s Favorite Golden Boy Ethan Klein: $12B Exit, One Massive Betrayal
He scanned the subhead, which if anything was worse: Girlfriend Maya Sanchez and Co-founder Jordan Russell Allegedly in Bali, Together.
Sebastian winced. His friend Ethan’s double betrayal served up for public consumption, brutal.
Their friendship had begun, as most of Sebastian’s did, with poor judgment and international consequences. Ethan Klein, American tech genius, chaos consultant, and occasional disaster-magnet, had entered his life during one of his more memorable lapses in self-preservation.
They’d met at a rooftop party in Monaco five years ago, where Sebastian had been flirting with a woman who, in his defense, had not mentioned that she was dating a terrifying Russian oligarch with rumored ties to arms deals and was rumored to be the reason two men had “accidentally” fallenout of windows to their deaths.
Things escalated quickly.
One minute, Sebastian was seducing her over champagne. The next, a bodyguard was murmuring into an earpiece and the temperature of the evening had dropped ten degrees.
Ethan, then a scrappy tech millionaire with a disarming grin, had overheard the oligarch muttering that he was going to murder that smug little aristocrat.