In the quiet sanctuary of Dominic Valerius’s private study, Victoria stared at the invitation.
“He’ll be there,” Victoria said, tracing the gold embossing. “With her.”
“He has to be,” Dominic said, pouring two glasses of scotch. He moved with a predatory grace, his eyes fixed on Victoria. “He broke his company to hurt her, but he’s still trapped in the cage he built. Cynthia Sharpe has him on a leash now.”
Dominic slid a glass toward her. “Come with me, Victoria. Not as Mrs. Croft. As Luna. As the artist who rose from the ashes.”
Victoria looked at him. Dominic was dangerous, yes. He was using her to get to William, to twist the knife. But he also offered her the one thing William never had: a weapon.
“I have nothing to wear,” she said softly. “Everything I own… it was all chosen by him. It’s all pastels and modesty.”
“Then we make something new,” Dominic smiled.
Hours later, the dress arrived. It was liquid silver silk, designed to look like moonlight draped over skin. It was backless, plunging dangerously low, held together by delicate crystal chains.
Victoria stepped into it in front of the mirror. She turned to the side. At eight weeks pregnant, there was the faintest swell to her lower abdomen–invisible to the world, but glaring to her.
The dressmaker had been clever. The silk was gathered at the waist in a Grecian drape that concealed the secret perfectly while accentuating her hips and the long line of her leg through a thigh-high slit.
She looked at herself. She didn’t look like a wife. She looked like a celestial event. She applied a dark, blood-red lipstick.
“Ready?” Dominic asked from the doorway, his voice dropping an octave.
“Ready,” Victoria said. She wasn’t going to the ball to dance. She was going to burn it down.