Chapter 269: Tearing the Mask Off

Watching the shock settle across Giselle Frost’s face, Serena Blackwood almost lost control of her smile.

So this was how it felt.

Back then, when Giselle had managed to steal one thin thread of Elias’s feeling from right under Serena’s nose, this was the taste Serena had been forced to swallow. Not defeat, not exactly. Something smaller and uglier. A private humiliation dressed up as restraint.

How did Giselle like it now?

It had to hurt.

Serena glanced at Giselle again, then lifted her glass and drained the dark red wine in one smooth motion. The wine left a stain on her lips, rich and clean as blood under the chandelier light. She set the empty glass aside and reached out, patting Elias lightly between the shoulder blades.

Then she lowered her head and spoke beside his ear.

"All right. Go wait in the back."

The impatience on Elias’s face vanished so fast it looked rehearsed.

Bright relief rushed in to replace it. His eyes lit up, and he did not bother lowering his voice. If anything, he sounded like he wanted Giselle to hear every word.

"So I don’t have to deal with this pathetic simp anymore?"

Giselle heard him.

Of course she heard him.

But she had already taken too much tonight. One more insult barely changed the shape of the wound. Her expression stayed almost blank. Only her eyes remained fixed on Serena, cold enough that any normal person might have stepped away.

Serena was not normal.

Neither was Giselle.

And Elias, standing between them with that spoiled little flash of impatience on his face, was the worst of all.

Serena finally laughed.

It came out light and pretty, the kind of laugh that belonged in private lounges and charity galas, not in a hallway where one woman had just been cut open in front of another. Still, she put on a faintly stern look for Elias, as if his manners were the problem.

Elias did not fear her at all.

He stuck out the tip of his tongue at her, pink and quick, a deliberately bratty gesture that made him look careless enough to be harmless. Then he turned and slipped behind her, leaving Giselle where she stood.

Only after Elias moved away did Serena truly look at Giselle.

The faint curve at the corner of her mouth sharpened. She started toward Giselle step by step, the sheer black of her stockings catching the light with every slow movement. She did not hurry. Victory did not hurry. Her posture carried the smooth arrogance of someone returning from a battle already decided, with the other woman’s pride dragged behind her like a trophy.

And Giselle, naturally, was the loser who had been forced to watch.

Serena flicked a glance at one of the bodyguards.

The woman understood at once. She moved toward Elias with trained discretion, close enough to make sure he would not hear what came next, far enough that it looked like nothing more than ordinary security adjusting position.

The rich were fond of privacy.

The truly powerful made privacy look casual.

Serena stopped in front of Giselle. She waited until Elias had gone far enough, then let the mockery show properly.

"What’s wrong, Miss Frost?"

Giselle’s restraint finally cracked.

She stepped forward sharply, her voice low and cold.

"What did you do to Elias?"

Giselle came at her with force, but Serena had no reason to retreat. That single step only brought them closer. Serena leaned forward a little, not enough to touch her, only enough to force the younger woman to feel the difference between them.

Giselle had to step back.

The disgust on her mixed, beautiful face was immediate.

Serena folded her arms beneath her chest. Her legs settled in a relaxed, confident stance, all adult power and practiced ease, the kind of posture that said she was used to being obeyed without raising her voice. She looked at Giselle as if she were watching a child try to play rival in clothes borrowed from her mother.

The smile on Serena’s face stayed light.

She had never truly placed Giselle on equal footing.

"So much time has passed," Serena said, studying her. "And you still haven’t grown much. That’s disappointing."

Giselle’s expression did not change.

Even the cold question she had thrown out a second ago had only revealed anger in her eyes. Her face remained still. No trembling mouth, no visible panic, no easy crack for Serena to press her thumb into. She had learned to keep her emotions from spilling across her features.

Watching her now, Serena felt a real flicker of surprise.

Her red lips curved a little higher.

"All right," she said. "I’ll take that back. You have grown a little. You’re starting to resemble that untouchable mother of yours."

At the mention of Victoria Frost, Giselle still did not react.

She only repeated, "What did you do to Elias? He doesn’t recognize me."

Serena was never going to answer that.

Not here. Not to Giselle. Not when the answer was one of the few things still completely in her hand.

She only said lightly, "He forgot an ordinary friend. What’s the big deal?"

Giselle had been pressing her anger down since the moment she walked in. That sentence finally made the surface split.

Her voice turned colder.

"I’m not his ordinary friend. I’m his Bestie."

She said it with such grave certainty that for a moment, the words became difficult to judge. Paired with her serious face, it was impossible to tell whether Giselle understood what she sounded like, or whether she was holding on to the only label Elias had ever given her because it was the last piece of him she could still claim.

Even Serena went still for half a second.

The surprise passed quickly. Her lashes lowered, her dark eyes curving, and then she smiled in a way that would have looked charming if it had belonged to anyone kinder.

"So all this time," Serena said, "I’ve been treating someone like you as an imaginary rival."

Someone who could not even tell the difference between affection, attachment, and desire.

Or maybe she could.

Maybe Giselle knew very well and had chosen to act innocent because innocence was safer. Because calling herself his Bestie let her stay near him without admitting the thing Serena could see on her face now. That was almost more irritating than ignorance.

Serena suddenly lost interest in talking to her.

She lifted a hand and waved Giselle off, casual and dismissive, the way she might send away staff who had lingered too long after finishing a task.

"Leave. You know you can’t take Elias from me."

For Victoria Frost’s sake, Serena was still willing to let Giselle leave intact.

That was the truth of it. The reason Giselle could stand in front of her again and again was never only Giselle herself. It was Victoria Frost behind her, the weight of that family, the mother whose name could still make rooms adjust their breathing. Without Victoria, Giselle alone was not enough to enter Serena Blackwood’s eyes.

The bodyguard at the staircase was already preparing to move forward.

Before she could take more than a step, Giselle spoke.

"Serena Blackwood," she said, calm and clear, "how long are you planning to keep treating him like Lucien Hart?"

The name landed between them.

Serena, who had been about to turn away, snapped her gaze back to Giselle.

For one instant, her eyes sharpened like a hawk’s. Her gaze narrowed slowly, beautiful and lethal, as if she were looking at prey that had finally made a mistake worth killing for.

Both of them knew Lucien Hart.

Because of that, from the first time they had crossed paths over Elias, they had both understood what he meant to the other. The resemblance. The ache. The insult of wanting the wrong man for the right reason, or the right man for a reason neither of them wanted to name.

Even so, neither of them had ever brought Lucien into the open.

That silence had been a special kind of agreement. Not trust. Never trust. More like two women keeping one hand around the same blade and pretending neither felt the edge. It was the one secret they both knew better than to say first.

So Serena truly had not expected Giselle to dare say Lucien Hart’s name aloud.

She was desperate.

That was the only explanation.

In the next instant, Serena smoothed herself back into calm. The sharpness vanished behind that faint, polished smile, as if the threat had never surfaced.

"Cornered dogs bite," Serena said. "But this won’t threaten me. And it isn’t your place to bring it up. Giselle, why do you think you got close to him in the first place? Did you really believe I didn’t know?"

This was not a weapon Giselle could use alone.

It was their shared handle. Their shared stain. Their shared reason for circling Elias while pretending the shape of his face, the cadence of his gentleness, the way he could be dressed into another man’s shadow, had nothing to do with the hunger in the room.

Neither of them could use Lucien as the final move.

Both of them would bleed.

The battle between them had started with polite mockery and hidden blades. Now it had reached real knives. Perhaps both women had expected this day to come eventually. Perhaps neither had expected it to arrive so quickly, or so abruptly, with Elias still close enough that one wrong word could ruin more than pride.

If this had happened before, Giselle would already have attacked Serena.

She did not.

Not because she was afraid of Serena’s bodyguards. Giselle Frost had never lacked the nerve for physical violence when cornered. She stayed still because her mind had actually grown steadier. She had learned that striking first was not always the same as winning.

So she only looked at Serena for a long moment.

Then, at some point, her gaze shifted.

Past Serena’s shoulder.

Serena’s first thought was that Giselle meant to distract her and then move. She immediately pulled a little distance between them, alert now, before turning to look.

Elias had come out again.

Neither of them had noticed when he returned.

Serena’s heart gave one hard jolt.

For a second, every polished piece of her expression threatened to slip. Then she forced herself calm again. Elias’s face held impatience, not suspicion. His gaze was clear, almost bored. From the look of him, he should not have heard the conversation between her and Giselle.

That was enough.

For now, it had to be enough.

Before Serena could speak, Elias opened his mouth first.

"Serena..." His voice started soft, almost coaxing. Then he noticed Giselle had not left, and his brows pulled together. "Huh? Why are you still here?"

He looked straight at Giselle.

Among men his age, Giselle Frost was publicly recognized as the kind of woman people watched from a distance. Untouchable, rich, cold, beautiful enough to make ordinary students careful with their eyes. On campus, her name carried its own weather. A single glance from her could make rumors move.

But in Elias’s eyes now, there was nothing.

No attraction.

No familiarity.

No old warmth hidden under irritation.

Only annoyance.

Whatever he had originally come out to say to Serena disappeared. He pressed his lips together and went silent, as if Giselle’s continued presence had ruined his mood.

Giselle stared at him.

The hallway did not change, yet something in it tightened. The bodyguards remained where they were. The lights stayed warm. The wineglass Serena had emptied still sat nearby, red staining the inside of the bowl. Everything looked expensive and controlled, and that made Elias’s blank gaze feel more brutal, not less.

Serena watched Giselle watch him.

There it was.

The cleanest cruelty in the world was not shouting. It was being forgotten by someone whose smallest habit you had once treasured.

Elias shifted closer to Serena without seeming to think about it. The movement was slight, but Giselle saw it. Serena knew she saw it. In this world, proximity was never innocent when one woman had power, money, security, and the confidence to stand between a man and everyone else who thought they still had a claim.

Serena’s hand lowered near Elias’s back, not quite touching.

She did not need to touch him.

The room already understood.

Elias gave Giselle another impatient look. "Are you done?"

The question was casual, almost lazy.

Giselle’s fingers moved once at her side, then stilled.

Serena’s smile returned, softer this time because Elias could see her again. She let the tenderness sit on her face like a mask warmed by body heat.

"Elias," she said, "don’t be rude."

He glanced at her, clearly unafraid of the reprimand. "She’s the one who won’t leave."

It was childish. Spoiled. A little mean.

It was also perfectly timed.

Serena almost wanted to laugh again, but she held it back. She could not look too pleased. Not while Elias was watching. Not while his current state still needed care, management, and the right amount of indulgence.

Giselle seemed to understand that too.

Her eyes moved from Serena to Elias, then back again. Something in her gaze sharpened, not rage this time, but decision. She had lost the right to be recognized. She had lost the easy route of anger. If she lunged now, Serena’s bodyguards would stop her, and Elias would only hate her more.

So she chose the only thing she had left.

Her voice, when it came, was very soft.

"Eli," Giselle said. "We’re Besties, remember?"