More Than His Partner, She's Queen

Claudia Sims POV: The panicked, ragged sound of Bianca's breathing amplified through the speakers. The entire banquet hall fell into a bizarre, suffocating silence. Bianca was a high school dropout. She couldn't even pronounce metallurgy, let alone understand it. Lila took a half step forward. The recording pen in her hand looked like a loaded gun pointed directly at Bianca's face. Her eyes held zero mercy. "Well... the ratio..." Bianca stuttered. She spat out a few random, illogical words, her voice cracking. She let out a dry, awkward laugh that made the silence in the room even worse. Ashton reacted instantly. He stepped forward and wrapped his large, warm hand completely over Bianca's trembling fingers on the microphone. He flashed his signature, charming smile at the cameras. "Lila, always the sharpest mind in the room," Ashton said smoothly, using his standard PR deflection. "But those technical details are far too dry for a night of celebration. Tonight is about the emotional resonance of art, not the math behind it." He was doing what he always did. Covering up incompetence with emotional manipulation. In the second row, several senior art critics leaned their heads together. They whispered, their eyes flashing with blatant suspicion. They weren't buying it. I stood behind the curtain, watching Ashton lie to the entire world to protect the woman wearing my wedding dress. The very last trace of my attachment to him died. It didn't fade. It flatlined. I reached up and grabbed the invisible earpiece. I ripped it out of my ear. I threw it onto the cold marble floor. The tiny plastic casing shattered. The noise was swallowed by the murmurs of the crowd, but to me, it sounded like chains snapping. Five years of hiding were over. I took a slow, deep breath. I rolled my shoulders back and straightened my spine. The shrinking, invisible assistant vanished. I reached out and grabbed the edge of the heavy red velvet curtain. I pulled it back with a violent jerk. The blinding spotlight hit me instantly. I wasn't wearing makeup. I was in a plain black suit. But my face was cold, hard, and absolute. Hundreds of heads turned simultaneously. Hundreds of eyes locked onto the woman dressed in black who had just shattered the perfect stage picture. The hall descended into chaos. Ashton turned his head. The moment his eyes landed on me, his perfect smile cracked. His pupils vibrated violently. His fingers went slack, instinctively dropping Bianca's hand. Without his support, Bianca lost her balance in her six-inch heels. She stumbled hard, her hands scrambling to grab the wooden edge of the podium to stop herself from falling. I walked toward the center of the stage. My steps were slow, perfectly measured, and entirely silent. Five years ago, I was the youngest capital queen on Wall Street. This kind of oppressive, focused attention wasn't scary. It was my territory. Two large security guards rushed forward to intercept me. I didn't stop. I simply turned my head and pinned them with a look so cold and authoritative that they froze in their tracks. I walked straight up to Bianca. I looked down at her, staring at the delicate Vera Wang lace she was stretching over her ribs. Bianca shrank back. The sheer force of my presence pushed her away from the podium. Her face turned the color of dead ash. I didn't say a word to her. I reached out and snatched the microphone right out of her shaking hands. A sharp, piercing screech of audio feedback blasted through the hall. Everyone in the room flinched and held their breath. Ashton leaned in close to me. His jaw was locked. "Get off this stage right now," he warned through gritted teeth, his voice so low only the three of us could hear it. I didn't even give him a fraction of a glance. I turned my back to him and faced the sea of reporters. I looked directly into Lila's eyes. My voice rang out, clear, cold, and piercing. "The tin-lead ratio in the late metallurgy process of the Bronze Deer is exactly 73.415 percent copper, 18.203 percent tin, and 8.382 percent lead." The hall fell into a dead, absolute silence. Then, the room exploded. The camera shutters sounded like a machine-gun firing. Flashes blinded the room, brighter and more frantic than before. The senior critics jumped out of their seats, their pens flying across their notebooks as they recorded the highly classified core data I had just exposed. "Ashton's face turned completely ashen. He reached out and grabbed Claudia's wrist like an iron vise."