Page 77 of Shattered Ice
The table goes still. Calder sets his glass down with a sharp click. Gio’s grin vanishes. The wordscholarshiphangs in the air like smoke, toxic and deliberate. I feel Clara stiffen beside me, and a protective, violent heat lances through me. My hand finds her thigh under the table, squeezing hard enough to ground us both. I’m a second away from tearing Beatrice apart myself when another voice slices through the silence.
“Beatrice,” Talia calls sweetly from the next table, her smile as sharp as broken glass. “I didn’t realize the children’s table was over here. Are you lost?”
Beatrice freezes, a flush creeping up her neck.
Declan, who has been stone silent at her side, finally turns to her. His expression is pure ice, his voice quiet but brutal. “Talia’s right. Why don’t you go find your mommy and daddy, since you’re determined to act like a toddler?”
Beatrice pales, her mouth snapping shut. The table doesn’t laugh. It’s worse. They don’t look at her at all, as if she’s already irrelevant.
Beside me, Clara exhales slowly, lifting her wineglass with steady hands. No scene. No shame. Just grace that makes my chest ache with a pride I don’t deserve.
I lean in, my lips brushing her ear. “You handled that better than I would’ve.”
Her mouth curves. She doesn’t look at me when she answers. “That’s why we’re a team.”
And just like that, the ballroom no longer feels like a battlefield. It feels like enemy territory we’re about to own.
At our table, the dance begins. The air hums with money and menace, polished laughter hiding sharpened teeth. A donor leans in too close, the sour edge of scotch on his breath.
“TheChroniclephoto stirred quite a bit of… excitement.” His eyes flick to Clara like she’s a scandal he can purchase.
My jaw tightens, a violent answer coiled behind my teeth, until Clara shifts closer. Her hair brushes my jaw, her lips grazing my ear as she whispers, warm and certain, “Smile, don’t bite.”
So I do. A slow, predator’s grin, just enough teeth to make the man falter. He leans back, clearing his throat.
Across the table, another man takes his shot. “Distractions off the ice, Hale? Can’t say it doesn’t show.” His tone is slick, needling.
I don’t bother answering. Clara’s fingers find my wrist under the white linen, a feather-light tether. A message:we’re steady. Don’t give them the show they want.
The conversation drifts on, but every glance, every touch between us is deliberate. Her hand on the stem of her glass. My knee brushing hers. Two predators working from the same playbook, our chemistry turned weapon. And it’s working.
The real strike comes with the main course. A donor with a jaw like stone commands the silence. “We all know the risk, Hale,” he says, his voice pitched to carry. “Association carries weight. TheChroniclealready painted its picture. The question is—do we punish talent for poor judgment?”
Forks pause. Conversations falter. The air stills.
Clara’s fork stills too, but with intent, not hesitation. She sets it down with surgical precision, folds her hands, and lifts her gaze. Calm. Certain. A scalpel about to cut.
“Punish talent?” Her voice is soft, so soft it forces people to lean in. “That’s not discipline. That’s sabotage.”
The man blinks, wrong-footed.
“You don’t strengthen a program by threatening it,” she continues, her voice steady as steel. “You strengthen it by investing in it.” She doesn’t stop. “Let’s run the numbers. ThatChroniclephoto you’re clutching your pearls over? Engagement up forty percent. Ticket sales surged. Jerseys sold out. That wasn’t damage—it was growth. Optics aren’t about perfection. They’re about momentum.” She tilts her head slightly, a professor guiding a slow student. “And momentum is currency. We don’t punish talent for association. We harness it. Anything else is shortsighted.” She leans in a fraction, her voice dropping to a silken edge. “And in this arena? Shortsighted isn’t just weak. It’s extinct.”
The silence that follows is absolute. Not even the orchestra dares to fill it. In that quiet, my chest swells. Pride. Possession. Desire. She didn’t just defend me; she gutted them. Clean. Surgical. My hand finds her thigh under the table, fingers digging into silk, a silent vow pressed into her skin.Mine. My blade. My equal.
When she finally flicks her gaze to me, her eyes flash, not asking for approval, just daring me to match her fire. I almost smile. She already owns the room.
Of course my father waits until the silence is brittle enough to shatter. He lifts his wineglass like a gavel, his expression carved in granite.
“Or,” he says smoothly, voice carrying over silver and china, “we set standards. We protect the program from unnecessary risk. Distance her, Adrian. Or I pull the funding. One choice protects your career. The other burns it.”
The words drop like a guillotine. The ultimatum hangs in the air, gleaming like a blade. Every head swivels toward me. Ifeel Clara’s hand tense against my arm, but she doesn’t flinch. She sits with her spine straight, her eyes steady on mine. She’s daring me to finally choose.
My own hand, resting on the table, curls into a fist, knuckles going white against the linen. Heat builds in my chest, violent, suffocating. My father watches me like a predator convinced the kill is already his. He thinks I’ll fold, that I’ll bow my head like I’ve done a thousand times before.
Not tonight.
I push back from the table, slow, deliberate. The sound of the chair scraping against marble is a sharp, grating note in the silence. My father’s eyes narrow, his jaw tightening as if he can already feel the leash slipping.
