The gala had barely started and Camille already felt the shift in the room.
Everywhere she walked, eyes followed.
Not because of her dress.
Not because she was "Dante Moretti's wife."
But because she walked like someone who refused to be swallowed by the room.
Dante stayed behind her by a few steps.
Not beside her.
Not ahead.
Behind.
Watching every single interaction like it was part of a board meeting where someone was about to get fired.
Camille didn't give him any attention. She didn't have to. She knew he was tracking her.
Which was why the moment another man stepped into her path, Dante noticed before she even opened her mouth.
"Camille Laurent," the man said smoothly, offering a hand. "I've been hoping to meet you."
She recognized him immediately.
Elias Varon.
The young tech investor whose new company was currently disrupting one of Moretti Corporation's subsidiaries.
He wasn't just a rival.
He was a threat.
Camille extended her hand out of courtesy.
Dante's expression froze instantly.
Not jealousy in a romantic sense.
More like the reaction of a man who just watched someone reach toward something he considered strategically important his stability, his control, his public image.
Elias held her hand a moment too long.
Not intimately.
Not flirtatiously.
Just long enough to imply he knew Dante would see it.
Camille saw the flicker in Dante's eyes — the first crack in his famously unreadable calm.
She didn't pull away.
Not because she cared about Elias.
But because she cared about the way Dante reacted.
"Your presentation last quarter impressed me," Elias said. "You handled the press better than half the CEOs in this room."
Dante stepped forward at last.
Not rushing.
Just enough to position himself between them without saying a word.
"That's interesting," Dante said flatly. "Since the conference you're referring to was invite-only."
Camille turned sharply toward him.
That tone was one she'd never heard from him before sharp, cutting, threaded with something he didn't want to name.
Elias shrugged. "Information spreads."
"Not to you," Dante replied.
The tension shot through the air so sharply Camille felt the shift in the crowd.
This wasn't about her.
It was about power.
Elias smiled like he enjoyed the hostility. "Your wife seems to have more allies than you think."
Camille didn't flinch.
Dante did.
Barely. A flicker. But real.
His gaze slid to her. Not angry. Not questioning.
Just this intense, unguarded look that said:
"Who else have you been talking to that I don't know about?"
She held his stare.
"I don't need your permission to speak to people," she said quietly.
That hit him harder than she expected.
Elias excused himself with a smug nod, leaving the two of them in a corner of the ballroom where the music suddenly felt too loud.
Camille tried to walk away.
Dante blocked her path.
"Don't do that," he said.
"Do what?"
"Act like this is nothing."
"This is nothing," she answered, folding her arms. "You're overreacting."
"That wasn't overreacting," he said, his voice tight, low. "That was me watching someone try to use you to undermine me."
Camille stared at him, stunned by the honesty.
"That's not your concern," she said.
"It is," Dante snapped.
His voice wasn't loud.
It didn't have to be.
The raw edge of it sliced between them.
"You're part of my public image now. What you say, who you interact with, how you present yourself it all reflects back on me."
"So I'm a business tool."
"You're my wife," he countered immediately.
Silence hit like a blow.
Not romantic.
Not soft.
Just heavy the weight of something he didn't even realize he'd said until he heard it.
Camille's chest tightened with something she didn't want to examine.
"Your contract wife," she corrected.
Dante's jaw locked. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" she demanded.
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
Because he didn't know himself.
The air tightened again.
Not with attraction but with two people standing too close on the battlefield of their own emotions.
Finally Camille stepped back.
"Let's not do this here," she said quietly.
Dante's eyes darkened not in anger, but something harder.
"Every person in this room is now watching us," he said. "If you walk away from me, they'll think there's a crack in our alliance."
"Maybe there is."
His inhale shook the smallest sign of instability she'd ever seen from him.
And for the first time since the contract began, she felt it:
He wasn't worried about the image.
He was worried about her stepping away from him.
That realization hit him just as hard.
"Camille…" he began, voice lower now, almost controlled again.
But she turned.
Not dramatically.
Not angrily.
Just firmly.
"Get your emotions under control, Dante," she said without looking back. "You're losing your grip not me."
He didn't follow her this time.
He just stood there, watching her go.
For the first time, not out of authority.
Out of fear he didn't understand.