Page 61 of Code Name: Ghost

I step behind her and slide my hand along her jaw. She leans into the touch without speaking. “I promise, but not today. Today, we’ve got a job to finish.”

She doesn’t look away from the window. “Figured,” she says as she turns to me with a smile. “You only ever touch me like that when you want something complicated.”

“I always want something complicated.”

That earns me another smile. “So, remind me, my main job?”

I move around her and lean against the counter. “Beaumont’s consort. Decorative. Controlled. But I need more than a pretty submissive on my arm. I need you watching Juliette. Every breath. Every flicker in her voice.”

Cherise’s lips part, just slightly. “You’re trusting me?”

“That’s a given. I’m starting to think your instincts are better than mine,” I admit.

Her brow lifts. “That an admission of weakness?”

“No.” I grip her chin and make her look at me. “It’s an admission that I don’t want you out of my sight.”

Her breath catches. I don’t let her look away.

“I need you with me,” I say, low and certain. “Not just for the role. Not just because you know her. But because I want you there.”

She searches my face, but I give her nothing else. Just truth, naked and cold.

“Then let’s give Juliette a show she won’t forget.” She says with finality.

16

CHERISE

The gown fits like sin—dark ruby silk molds to my curves, the corset bodice cinching my waist until my heartbeat thrums loud in my ears. It catches the low light of the villa with each step, stilettos striking marble like the beat of something ancient. Something dangerous.

Nick walks beside me, silent and composed, his presence a magnetic pulse I can feel under my skin. He’s dressed in a suit that screams wealth and violence, every line of it tailored to intimidate. His watch glints under the sleeve, his cufflinks catching the light. But it’s not the clothes that make him dangerous tonight.

It’s in the precision of his movements, the sharpness in his eyes that no longer softens when they meet mine, the way his voice carries weight with every syllable like it was carved from stone. This isn't the Nick I shared a bed with. This is the ghost Cerberus built in the dark—the one who can charm diplomats with a smile while plotting their destruction behind his eyes. The one who walks like every inch of the ground owes him something. The one who doesn’t ask for trust—he demands it. And the part of me that should be afraid... isn’t. It’s fascinated. Ensnared.

Nikolai Beaumont.

I’d seen flashes of this version of him before, in the way he moves when he takes control, in the way his voice drops when he’s giving an order. But this? This is something else entirely. This is Nick, stripped of softness. Calculated. Cold. Deadly. And the scariest part isn’t that I’m afraid of him.

It’s that I’m drawn to it.

Drawn to the chill precision in his stare, the controlled power in every breath he takes. Drawn to the game we're playing—a game where my silence is a weapon, my submission a statement. And maybe it should scare me, this seduction by danger, but it doesn't.

I feel eyes on me the moment the black velvet rope is pulled aside.

The villa is draped in shadow and money—deep leather chairs, mirrored walls, gold-edged glassware. The clientele is Monaco’s elite: old wealth, old blood, old secrets. Eyes linger on Nick as he leads me in, one hand low on my back, the other tucked into his pocket like this is his throne room and we’re not just here to negotiate—we’re here to dominate.

A hostess leads us to a private area, the kind shrouded in privacy screens and steeped in soft shadows, where whispered power plays out like theater. Nick sits down first, stretching out with the ease of a man who knows the room bends around him. I follow, slipping in beside him—not across. I sit close enough that our legs brush, his hand resting lightly on my thigh, my shoulders angled toward him. It's not an accident. It's a statement. A warning. A claim. It says I’m his, and he doesn’t have to say a word to prove it.

Then she arrives.

Juliette Morin is everything I remember and worse—elegant, ruthless, and wrapped in silk and subtext. Her beauty is the kind that’s been sharpened into a weapon, and the moment she walks in, the temperature of the room drops. Her presence coils around us like a noose, delicate but unrelenting, and every step she takes hums with intent. She’s not just here to negotiate. She’s here to measure the depth of our control—and the cost of hers.

She wears ivory silk, her hair swept back in a chignon that belongs in a royal portrait, and her heels could double as weapons. She moves like the world owes her something—and she’s already decided she’s going to collect.

Her gaze slides over me like I’m just another accessory—elegant but forgettable. Cool. Dismissive. Then it hits Nick, and everything about her shifts. Her posture straightens. Her expression sharpens. The pause is subtle, but the weight of it lands like a trigger being pulled. Her eyes linger, not with warmth, but with calculation—recognition wrapped in curiosity, showing that she’s already revising her plan.

Her smile blooms like poison. “Monsieur Beaumont,” she purrs, slipping into her chair across from us like she owns the table. Her accent is Parisian-polished and razor sharp. “I was told you were dead.”

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