Chapter 85

I could feel every single set of eyes on us. Ashton was... well, Ashton. He looked like a walking piece of art. But not just beautiful. Dangerous-beautiful. Like one of those hyperrealistic 3D paintings of a cliff. Stare too long and you start to feel the drop. Me? I wasn't bad either. Maybe a little less angelic than him, but definitely more than presentable. But I could tell it wasn't the looks that had frozen the room. It was the way I was linking arms with him—easy, intimate, completely unselfconscious. Thanks to our multiple rehearsals (which, fine, had paid off), we didn't look like just a party fling. We looked like the real thing. I could practically see the thought bubbles forming above every head: "Isn't that Mirabelle Vance?" "Wasn't she engaged to Rhys Granger?" "Didn't she cause a scene at the last Laurent event?" "How is she not blacklisted?" But the main headline was clear: "What the hell is she doing with Ashton Laurent?" The whispers started immediately. We reached the