Chapter 325: Walk Me Out

Lucas looked at the figure coming toward him and stopped.

At first it was only familiarity without a name. He had seen her near the start of the event and filed the face away without fully placing it. Now, as she stepped closer under the hall lights, the recognition landed clean.

Richelle Ryan.

The woman from Lanai Island. The one he had pulled out of trouble when her greedy husband and that useless PA tried to use her as leverage. He had not expected to see her here, not at a TikTok private dinner, and certainly not walking straight toward him with that much open surprise on her face.

She looked different from the chaos of the island, but no less striking. Her dress was polite on paper ~ clean lines, proper length, nothing that tried too hard ~ yet it did nothing to hide her. The fabric followed the full curve of her chest, narrowed at her waist, then rounded over her hips and ass with a weight that drew the eye whether a man meant to look or not. She was not dressed to hunt attention. She simply had the kind of body that made polite clothing look louder than it was. Beauty sat on her with no effort. Even among the carefully selected women in the hall, she pulled focus without raising her voice or showing skin she did not need to show.

She reached him and stretched out her arms.

The first hug was quick, almost polite, the kind people gave in public when emotion got ahead of manners. Then she hugged him again.

This one lasted longer.

Her body came in fully the second time. Soft breasts pressed against his chest through the dress, warm and full, holding there while her arms locked around him a second past what the room required. It was not a calculated seduction. It felt closer to relief, like she needed to confirm he was solid and real before letting go. Lucas felt the pressure of her clearly before she finally eased back.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, still half in disbelief.

Lucas gave a small smile.

"Just catching up with a few things." His eyes moved over her once. "More interesting question is what you’re doing here."

He already knew she was no streamer. That much made her presence stranger.

Richelle exhaled, a little dry amusement in it.

"I needed air," she said. "This event looked useful enough to kill the boredom."

Behind them, Durnik was watching everything.

He had not moved far from where she left him. Phone still in hand. Smile long dead. From his angle it looked simple and unbearable: the same woman who had rejected him flat was now holding onto Lucas like the night had finally produced someone worth her time.

In Durnik’s head the story twisted fast.

His girl.

Leaving him for that bastard.

It did not matter that she had never been his. The rejection was fresh, the embarrassment was fresh, and Lucas was already standing in the middle of too many things that should have belonged to the host. Investors. Attention. Now this.

The anger under Durnik’s skin went hotter.

All evening he had been pushing, smiling, offering access, fishing for numbers. And what had it gotten him? Nothing. Not one clean yes. Not one digit freely given. Every approach had slipped, stalled, or walked away.

And Lucas?

Lucas was collecting the room without asking permission.

Durnik’s jaw tightened as he stared at the two of them. That useless man had walked into his event, sat in his chair, held his investors, and now stood there receiving a welcome Durnik could not buy with traffic promises or chairman polish.

He will regret this.

Richelle studied Lucas for a second longer, still half smiling from the unexpected reunion.

"I didn’t expect to see you in Westhaven," she said. "After everything on Lanai, I thought you’d disappeared into whatever world you actually live in."

There was relief under the words. Since the divorce, the days had stretched. She had poured years into a husband who only knew how to take, and once the legal fighting with him and his family finally burned down, what remained was quieter than she had prepared for. Work filled the hours. Status filled the rooms. None of it fixed the boredom.

Seeing Lucas here felt like the night had finally produced someone worth standing next to.

"Do you still have something to do here?" she asked.

Lucas turned the question over once.

He had come into Durnik’s event with a short list. Shake the room. Make the host uncomfortable. See how far the cracks went. What he got was better than expected. Matthew’s interest. Investors suddenly treating Switch like a serious name. Rebecca’s number. Her favorability climbing fast enough that the system itself had confirmed the shift. He still did not know which of those men were Durnik’s top backers and which were only curious, but it no longer mattered as much. Through the wife, through the room, through the quiet social damage already done, he had gotten enough for one evening.

There was no strong reason left to stay.

"I’m done," Lucas said.

Richelle’s smile deepened a little. "Good. Then walk me out before this place wastes more of my night."

They turned together toward the entrance.

For a few steps it felt easy. Conversation unfinished, pace unhurried, the noise of the hall falling behind them. Up close, Lucas caught the soft movement of her dress with each step, the way her hips filled it, the clean line of her back above the full curve of her ass. She walked like a woman used to rooms noticing her and no longer needing to perform for them.

They almost reached the threshold.

Then the security guards stepped in.

Not aggressively at first. Just firmly enough to make the meaning obvious. One moved slightly left. The other blocked the direct line out. Their eyes were on Lucas more than Richelle, the earlier order still sitting behind their polite posture.

"Sir," one of them said. "We’ll need you to wait a moment."

Lucas stopped.

Richelle’s expression changed at once. The boredom from earlier was gone. What replaced it was sharp attention.

"Wait for what?" she asked.

The guard glanced at her, then back to Lucas. "Instructions from the host. Mr. Gray is to remain inside for now."

Lucas did not raise his voice. He only looked at the man, calm enough to make the order sound smaller than it was meant to be.

"Is that so?"

Richelle’s brows pulled together. "On whose authority exactly? This is a private dinner, not a holding cell."

The second guard shifted, less comfortable now that the woman beside Lucas was no longer just decoration in a dress. Her tone had the clean edge of someone used to being obeyed in rooms far more serious than this one.

From deeper in the hall, Durnik finally saw the delay near the entrance and started moving.