The gala sparkled with the opulence of those who had never known want. Under crystal chandeliers, the murmur of sophisticated conversation mingled with the tinkling of champagne flutes and the soft notes of a string quartet. The guests, draped in silks and velvets, wore calculated smiles as they navigated a sea of financial promises and flattery disguised as courtesy.

Among them, Aguenelle Thryndal stood out without even trying. Not because of her wealth - for in that room they were all owners of fortunes - but because of her presence alone. The wolf among the lambs. Standing at the bar, his posture was impeccable, the line of his black suit drawing his silhouette with almost insulting precision. Her watch, a limited edition piece, peeked out from under the cuff of her Egyptian cotton blouse, and her fingers, long and sure, held a glass of red wine with the naturalness of one who has mastered even the most mundane pleasures.

Her gaze, two golden hazelnut shafts with fiery reflections in the warm light of the crystal chandeliers, did not glide without purpose. It was not entertained by ladies laughing behind lace fans, nor by businessmen shaking hands on deals that the next day might be broken. No.

His eyes had already found their prey.

The air seemed to thicken in his chest when he saw her. Not because it was the first time in years-God knew her life was filled with chance encounters with him, brief smiles in conference rooms, polite gestures at meetings she loathed with the same intensity with which she adored him. But tonight was different. Tonight, he was there. Not as a face in the crowd, but as the very epicenter of the storm Aguenelle had been holding back for years.

And she, damn it, couldn't look away.

The suit he wore highlighted every line of her body with a mastery that defied logic. The fabric molded to his movements as if made of liquid shadows, casting an elegance that was at once classic and devastatingly imposing. Her neck, strong and well-defined, was exposed, and Aguenelle had to repress the primal urge to run her lips over it, to mark with her teeth every inch of that skin she had so often imagined under her fingers.

Felicia, the woman he had chosen years ago, was a few meters away. Distracting herself with investors, with false smiles, with a power play that for Aguenelle was a damned puppet theater.

The world offered him a gap. An instant. One sin wrapped in velvet and opportunity.

Aguenelle did not hesitate.

She moved with the precision of a predator: sure footsteps, the light brush of her perfume - sandalwood, leather, something woody and deep - permeating the air as she passed. She made no sound as she stopped beside him. She did not touch him. She did not make the slightest gesture to invade his space.

She only tilted her face just enough for her breath to brush his ear, for her voice to spill out with the cadence of a forbidden confession.

"It's always a pleasure to see you, Sweetie..." Her voice slipped out like a low, intimate murmur, a barely audible caress amidst the bustle of the event. Then, with a pause laden with that calculated provocation, he tilted his head slightly, his gaze catching her like an invisible net. "Though I wonder, is it pleasure or torture?"

The edge of a smile tugged at his mouth.

"Depends on how long you decide to ignore me tonight."

The air seemed to shift between them, as if the temperature in the room had dropped just a degree. Aguenelle didn't need to touch him to make her skin react. She needed nothing more than his proximity, the cadence of his voice, the intensity with which she looked at him, trapping him in that game in which she always managed to have the upper hand.

The rest of the gala went on, the music continued, the toasts followed one after the other, the business was done. But for her, the world was reduced to that moment, to that man and to the mute response that shone in his eyes.