Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 851

Chapter 851: The Art of Seeing People

This woman had spent hours—actual human hours—learning about art placement, collector psychology, and light refraction angles. Not because she gave a single fuck about art. Because she gave a fuck about doing her job right.

"Thank you," Celeste said quietly.

Helena’s expression didn’t change. "Don’t thank me. Just tell me where you want the next piece."

Two Hours Later

They’d fallen into a rhythm.

Celeste would indicate a piece, explain its significance, articulate her vision in passionate, borderline manic detail.

Helena would calculate placement, test sight lines, adjust positioning with precision that bordered on obsessive, occasionally muttering things like "this angle makes the buyer feel superior" or "this one triggers mild existential dread—good for high-ticket sales."

And somewhere in that process, the conversation had started.

"So you just... left the CIA?" Celeste asked, unwrapping a canvas that depicted urban decay in shades that made her chest ache like someone had punched her heart. "Walked away from that whole life?"

"I was about to get fired." Helena positioned a sculpture. "Technically. Going rogue tends to result in termination. Usually with extreme prejudice."

"Why did you?"

"Go rogue?" Helena’s jaw tightened fractionally—the first crack in the armor Celeste had seen all day. "Because the people I was working for were more interested in protecting their interests than doing what was right. Because I saw opportunities to make money and took them. Because I was arrogant enough to think I was smarter than everyone else."

She moved a spotlight three inches to the left. Checked the angle. Moved it back two inches.

"I was wrong about the last two," she said simply.

Celeste recognized that tone. The weight behind it. The shape of regret that someone was trying to carry without letting it show on their face, because showing weakness was probably in the same category as leaving fingerprints at a crime scene.

"But you’re trying to be better now," Celeste said. Not a question.

"I’m trying to be useful and change myself along the way. Find something meaningful for my life." Helena straightened. "Peter gave me a chance when he should have handed me to my sister. I intend to earn that chance."

"Your sister being Ava...?"

"Ava. CIA. Currently in charge of monitoring Peter and deciding whether he’s a threat to national security." Helena’s smile was knife-thin, the kind that said family dinners were less "pass the potatoes" and more "pass the cyanide."

"Family dinners are complicated. Especially when half the table is trying to decide whether the other half should be renditioned to a black site."

Celeste laughed despite herself. "I bet."

She set the canvas down, studied the space they’d created. It was coming together. Actually coming together. The chaos was resolving into something intentional, something that told a story.

"Why art?" Helena asked abruptly. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"What?"

"Why this? You could do anything with Peter’s resources like your other six friends from Miami. Run a hedge fund. Start a tech company. Launch a fashion line. Why did you decide to continue your art galleries?"

Celeste was quiet for a moment, fingers trailing over the edge of a frame like she was touching something alive.

"Because art is about seeing," she said finally. "Really seeing. Not just looking at something and noting colors and shapes, but understanding what the artist was feeling when they created it. What they were trying to say. What they couldn’t say any other way."

She turned to face Helena.

"Everyone just looks at surfaces. Rich people, poor people, powerful people—they all just see what’s in front of them and decide that’s all there is. But artists? We dig deeper. We find meaning in things other people dismiss. We look at something broken and see beauty. We look at something ugly and find truth."

Helena’s expression was unreadable.

"That’s naive," she said.

"Maybe." Celeste smiled. "But I’d rather be naive and hopeful than cynical and right. Because cynicism doesn’t create anything. It just tears things down. Hope builds. Even when it’s stupid to hope, even when all evidence says you should give up—hope is what makes people try anyway."

She picked up another canvas.

"Like you," Celeste continued. "Everyone would look at your resume and see a rogue operative who betrayed her country. Someone who can’t be trusted. Someone who chose money over principle. That’s the surface."

"That’s the truth."

"That’s a truth. Not the truth." Celeste met Helena’s gaze directly. "What I see is someone who made mistakes and is working to fix them. Someone who’s brilliant and capable and loyal to the people who give her a chance. Someone who spent hours calculating light angles for an art auction she probably shouldn’t even care about but because she takes her job seriously and wants me to succeed."

Helena’s jaw worked. Some emotion flickering behind those cold blue eyes that might have been surprise, or gratitude, or anger at being seen so cleanly it felt like being stripped naked in public.

"You don’t know me," Helena said, but the edge was gone from her voice—replaced by something quieter, almost vulnerable.

"Not yet." Celeste smiled. "But I’m good at seeing past surfaces. It’s kind of my thing."

That Evening

The space had transformed from chaos into something deliberate and powerful, the kind of deliberate that whispered "you can’t afford to ignore this" while politely pretending it wasn’t judging your entire life choices.

"A really good canvas." Celeste smiled—small, real, the kind that reached her eyes and made them crinkle. "Lots of layers. Complex. Some dark patches, sure—blood-red streaks, shadow-black voids, the kind of marks that don’t wash out. But also strength. And potential. And someone who’s trying, which is the hardest fucking thing anyone can do when the world keeps telling you you’re broken beyond repair."

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