2025-12-18 19:25:21The banquet hall glittered like something out of a fever dream—all crystal chandeliers and polished silver, tables groaning under the weight of gourmet dishes that cost more per plate than Marcus earned in a month. Wine flowed freely, the bottles bearing vintage dates older than some of the guests. Jewelry sparkled on every wrist and throat, enhanced with cultivation energy that made precious stones glow with an otherworldly light.
And there, at the head table beneath the largest chandelier, sat Sophia.
She'd changed into an elegant emerald dress that hugged her figure perfectly, making her look like some fairy-tale princess. Her Saintess aura radiated from her skin, a soft golden glow that made her appear ethereal, untouchable. Divine.
Alexander Grant sat close beside her—too close—serving food onto her plate with practiced intimacy. He murmured something in her ear, and she actually laughed. A real laugh, musical and light, the kind Marcus hadn't heard from her in over a year.
"Perfect pair, aren't they?" someone whispered nearby.
"Born for each other," another voice agreed.
Marcus sat at the smallest table near the entrance, separated from the main gathering by what felt like miles of polished floor. His table was meant for overflow guests, distant relatives nobody cared about, people who needed to be present but not seen.
He pushed food around his plate mechanically, tasting nothing.
"Marcus!" Victoria Sinclair's voice rang out, Sophia's cousin, all false sweetness and genuine malice. "How's the job search going? Still looking after all this time?"
Conversations quieted. Heads turned. The predators smelled blood.
"I'm exploring opportunities," Marcus replied carefully.
"Exploring opportunities," Wellington Radcliffe repeated with a snort. "That's corporate speak for 'unemployed for three years.'"
Laughter rippled through the hall.
"Now, now," Marcus Sinclair boomed from the head table, his voice carrying effortlessly. "Let's be fair. Marcus helps with household chores. That's... something. Every great woman needs someone to handle the domestic duties."
More laughter, sharper this time.
"He does the laundry beautifully," Elena Sinclair added, examining her wine glass. "I've seen the sheets. Very crisp. Perhaps that could be his career path—professional laundryman."
The humiliation burned through Marcus's chest like acid, but he kept his face neutral. Three years had taught him how to swallow rage, how to smile through contempt.
"Speaking of careers," Marcus continued, standing now, commanding the room's attention, "Alexander here closed three major deals this month! Three! The Whitmore contract, the offshore expansion with the Chen family, and that tricky negotiation with the Morrison Group. The boy's a natural!"
Alexander waved off the praise with practiced modesty. "I only did what Sophia trained me to do. She's the true genius behind the strategy."
"You're too modest," Sophia said, her voice warm in a way Marcus hadn't heard directed at him in months. "I couldn't have done it without you. You're invaluable to me."
Invaluable to me.
The words struck like physical blows. Marcus's hands clenched beneath the table.
She'd never said that about him. Never called him invaluable, necessary, important.
In three years of marriage, he'd never been anything but a burden she tolerated because she'd made some misguided promise about destiny and Saintess intuition.
"A toast!" Grandfather Sebastian raised his glass, his voice still strong despite his eighty years. "To Alexander Grant—a young man who understands how to treat a Saintess properly! Who knows what true strength and capability look like!"
Crystal clinked. Voices rose in agreement.
Marcus's glass remained on the table, untouched.
Dessert arrived in waves of culinary artistry—delicate pastries that looked like jewels, chocolate sculptures too beautiful to eat, fruits carved into impossible shapes. The staff moved with choreographed precision, serving the head table first, working their way through the hierarchy.
Marcus's dessert arrived last. Naturally.
Then Alexander stood, and the room fell silent with anticipation.
"Sophia," he said, his voice carrying that smooth confidence of someone who'd never been denied anything. "I saw this and thought of you."
He produced a velvet box, opening it to reveal a delicate crystal necklace that caught the chandelier light and threw rainbows across the ceiling.
The centerpiece was a flawless diamond, suspended in an intricate web of silver and smaller crystals that seemed to pulse with faint holy energy.
"It reminded me of your pure and radiant spirit," Alexander continued. "The way you bring light to everyone around you."
Gasps echoed through the hall. Someone actually clutched their chest like they might faint from the romance of it all. Sophia's eyes glistened. Actual tears. "Alexander, I... I don't know what to say. It's beautiful."
"May I?" He gestured to the necklace.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 136 PART 2
Elize Yarrow drew back her hand and slapped Atlas Lancaster across the face.The sound of it filled Pearl on the Water's thirty-second floor the way sounds filled enclosed spaces when nobody was making any competing noise — completely, immediately, with the kind of clarity that made every person in the room flinch and then go very still.Atlas's head turned with the impact. His hand came up to his face. He stood for one breath in the specific suspension of a man whose brain was processing an input it had never once anticipated.Then he looked at her.His eyes were not performing anything."You have no idea—" he started.Elize picked up the beer bottle from the nearest table.The man whose beer it was had already relocated himself three tables away. He watched her take it with the expression of someone who had made peace with the loss.She brought it down on Atlas Lancaster's head.Not with the hesitation she'd shown with Dalton — that indecision was gone, burned out by everything the
CHAPTER 136 PART 1
The cross-cup was Elize's idea.She reached across Marcus's chest, took his wine glass from his hand, drank from it deliberately, then refilled it and handed it back — the specific intimacy of the gesture calibrated for maximum visibility. She didn't announce it. She didn't perform it for the room. She simply did it, which was worse, because things done without performance carry a weight that theater never quite manages.At the corner of her vision, she watched Atlas Lancaster's excellent posture develop a hairline fracture.The four young elites who had been Atlas's audience all evening were no longer pretending to eat. They sat with the specific stillness of people watching a social document being written in real time — something that would be referenced in conversations for the next six months, in rooms Atlas Lancaster would not be present in.Atlas looked at Elize."You're embarrassing yourself," he said. His voice was very controlled. Too controlled — the kind of control that exi
CHAPTER 135 PART 2
"Not Elize," Marcus said. "The heirloom. She's packaging." He looked at Atlas with the mild expression of someone identifying something obvious. "Does her father know that? Does he think you're marrying his daughter, or does he think he's found a buyer for the family's most valuable asset and the buyer needs a marriage license to make the transaction work?"Elize had gone very still.Not the stillness of someone processing something surprising — the stillness of someone who had suspected something for a long time and had just heard it confirmed out loud by a third party who had no reason to soften the delivery.Her hand lowered. The wine bottle rested against the table."You're not interested in her at all," Marcus said. Conversationally. To Atlas. "Not even slightly. She could be anyone. You just needed the Yarrow name and whatever's in the vault that comes with it."Atlas's composure had reached its structural limit."You," he said, and the word came out stripped of its previous pol
CHAPTER 135 PART 1
The footsteps from the south corridor were getting louder.Atlas Lancaster stood at the edge of table fourteen with his hands at his sides and his jaw doing the specific work of a man maintaining composure through structural effort alone. Behind him, Haddon Mitchell was being assisted from the floor by two of Atlas's friends from the corner table, one hand still pressed to his mouth, his eyes streaming. The burning had subsided from immediate crisis to ongoing catastrophe, which was an improvement, but not one that showed on his face.The restaurant had reorganized itself. Tables near the window had developed sudden interests in their food. Waitstaff had found reasons to be elsewhere. The man in the gray suit was still eating his ribeye with the transcendent composure of someone who had decided at some point earlier in the evening that his steak was the fixed point around which the universe could arrange itself however it liked.Atlas looked at Elize, settled against Marcus's shoulder
CHAPTER 134 PART 2
"Then put your arm somewhere convincing." She settled against his chest with the comfort of someone who had decided that if she was committing to a performance, she was going to give it everything. "Atlas is watching."Marcus's arm settled at the back of the chair, and the overall picture presented to the restaurant — to Atlas Lancaster specifically — was of two people who had been in this arrangement for considerably longer than this evening.Atlas Lancaster was gripping the edge of the table.Not visibly, not in any way that his training would permit to show, but the knuckles were making decisions that his composure hadn't approved.From the corner table, his friends were no longer pretending to eat.Haddon Mitchell, who had arrived from up north as Atlas's guest and who operated under the impression that his family's regional influence in northern Five-River Province constituted a general license to behave however he liked, leaned over to Atlas and said something. Atlas's jaw moved
CHAPTER 133 PART 1
Atlas Lancaster had excellent posture.It was the kind of thing that became noticeable when everything else about a person was being carefully managed — the straight spine, the squared shoulders, the chin at a precise and practiced angle. He had pulled a chair to the edge of table fourteen with the smooth entitlement of someone who had never been told a table wasn't available to him, and he sat with the specific quality of a man who was performing relaxation rather than experiencing it.He looked at Marcus Steel.Marcus was looking at the harbor."I feel like we got off on the wrong foot," Atlas said. His tone carried the warmth of someone who had decided that charm was the correct instrument for this situation. "I'm Atlas Lancaster. Given that you're clearly someone worth knowing in this province, I think—""Are you talking to me?" Marcus said."I—yes.""I thought so." Marcus turned from the window. He looked at Atlas with the mild attention of someone identifying a sound they hadn't
You may also like
Rise of Ryan Conner
Alvin Sam16.8K viewsTHE FUTURE IS BEHIND.
Jaydee15.5K viewsDemons Battle
Princez16.6K viewsAgainst Heaven'S Destiny
Djisamsoe 30.3K viewsCan a battle crazed hero be the savior of humanity?
Crimson moonlight358 viewsSoul of the Dragon Emperor Reincarnated to destroy
Jovial chirpy408 viewsStranded Stranger
Author Warren II2.9K viewsThe Crownless Curse
Emay1.3K views