Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 554

Her mother appeared then, threading through the crowd with Pat right behind her. Her mother's eyes were red, but she was smiling so wide I thought her face might split.

"My darling girl," she said, pulling Celeste into a hug so tight I heard her squeak. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, Mum," Celeste said, her voice muffled against her mother's shoulder.

Pat stepped forward, her own eyes shining. She hugged Celeste without a word, holding her for a long moment, and when she pulled back, she cupped Celeste's face in her hands.

"You deserve this," she said, her voice thick. "You deserve all of it. Every single bit."

"So do you," Celeste said, and they hugged again.

Celeste's mother turned to me and pulled me down into a hug of her own. "I am proud of you," she whispered into my ear. "Thank you."

The evening continued. The music swelled. The champagne flowed. I stood at Celeste's side, her hand in mine, and I watched her glow under the attention of everyone who mattered. She belonged here. She had always belonged here, and now everyone knew it.

I was watching her laugh at something Pat had said when I heard the voices.

Two women, standing near one of the pillars, their heads bent together. Their husbands stood beside them, smiling blankly, clearly not listening. The women were speaking in the careful, carrying tones of people who wanted to be overheard but not confronted.

"I simply do not understand it," one of them said, her voice dripping with contempt. "A man like Dominic Ford, with all his money and his name, and he chooses a woman like her? She is unremarkable. She has nothing to offer him. No family name, no fortune, no connections. She is a nobody, a divorcee who got lucky."

The other woman laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. "I heard her family lost everything. She is practically a charity case. I do not know what he sees in her."

"Perhaps she is good in bed," the first woman said, and they both laughed.

I felt Celeste's hand tighten on mine. I looked down at her. She was smiling. Not a forced smile, not a pained one. A genuine, easy, untroubled smile.

"Do not," she said quietly, before I could speak. "They are not worth it."

"They just insulted you within earshot of your own engagement party."

I waited until they reached the doors. Then I raised my voice, not loud enough to shout, but loud enough to carry.

"Also, effective immediately, I am severing all business ties with every company represented by those two gentlemen. My office will have the paperwork drafted by morning."

The room rippled. Conversations stuttered and resumed. The two men looked back, their faces pale, but security did not slow down.

Celeste looked up at me, her eyebrows raised. "That was excessive."

"They insulted my fiancée at her own engagement party. They are lucky I did not have them arrested."

She shook her head, but she was smiling. And that smile was worth every severed contract in the world.

Sparrow appeared at my side a few minutes later, Scarlett still with him. He looked at Celeste, and for a long moment he simply studied her. Then he smiled, a rare, genuine smile that softened the hard edges of his face.