Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 507

CELESTE

The day of the engagement party finally came, and I met it from a velvet stool in front of a mirror the size of a wall, surrounded by more professionals than I had ever employed in my entire life.

Margaux, the makeup artist, had declared my face a canvas and refused to let me blink without permission. Andre, the hairstylist, had spent the better part of an hour twisting my hair into something that looked effortless and had taken forty minutes to achieve. Bianca had painted my nails in a shade so pale it caught the light like glass, and Odette, the stylist who coordinated all of them, stood guard over the garment bag in the corner like a soldier protecting a flag.

"You are smiling again," Margaux said, the brush in her hand hovering an inch from my lips. "If you smile one more time, I will wipe everything off and start again."

"How am I supposed to stop smiling?" I said, pressing my lips together before she could threaten me again. "My fiancé is waiting for me at the estate. The whole world is about to watch him announce that he belongs to me. Smiling is the least I can do."

"Let the woman smile," Andre said from behind me, pins clamped between his teeth. "A happy bride is free advertising for all of us."

"Engaged woman, Andre. We are not at the wedding yet."

"For the amount of security outside that door, you might as well be a queen at her own coronation."

When they finally finished, Andre kissed the air beside both my cheeks and told me not to cry the makeup off before midnight. Bianca packed her brushes with the quiet satisfaction of an artist signing her work. Margaux gave me one last critical look, found nothing to correct, and nodded once, which from her was practically a standing ovation. Odette eased the gown out of the garment bag, held it up to the light for me to see, and laid it across the bed like an offering.

Then the door clicked shut behind them, and the suite fell quiet.

I stood there in the middle of the room, alone for the first time since morning, and let out a breath I had not realized I had been holding. The mirror held my reflection, and for a long moment I simply stared at her, this woman in the making, this version of me that Dominic had not seen yet.

Julien Vasseur had designed the gown. The same Julien Vasseur whose name appeared in fashion magazines so often that he had stopped giving interviews, and he had made this one dress for me as if he had spent his whole career waiting to create it. The silk was the deep green of a forest at dusk, of water at the bottom of a deep lake, and it moved like liquid whenever I turned. The bodice hugged me like a second skin, the neckline draped softly across my collarbones, and the back fell open in a slow curve that made me feel beautiful before I had even put the whole thing on. The skirt caught the light in rivers, pooling at my feet when I stood still and rippling around me when I walked, and I had never owned anything that made me feel the way this dress made me feel.