Chapter 16: Gala Gal
The silence between them in the wake of Eric’s words was a fragile thing. Leona could feel the weight of it in his palm, pressed against Vil’s skin. The simple touch was a circuit left open, humming with unspoken voltage. Around them, the gala glittered and churned, a masquerade they were both choreographing in real time.
Vil was the one who broke the contact, withdrawing his hand to adjust the diamond choker at his throat. The movement was smooth, practiced. A reset. “We should circulate,” he said, his voice polished porcelain again. “The photos of us alone in a corner would lack… narrative.”
Leona let his empty hand fall to his side, the ghost of Vil’s touch lingering. “Right. Narrative.”
They moved deeper into the crowd, a united front. Vil exchanged air-kisses with fellow actors and directors, his laugh a calibrated instrument of charm. Leona shook hands with diplomats and business magnates, his alpha presence a silent, brooding anchor at Vil’s side. The performance was seamless.
It was during a conversation with a consortium of tech investors that Leona felt the first shift. A man in his fifties, his gaze lingering on Vil’s neckline a beat too long, leaned in while discussing brand synergy. “Your aesthetic is unparalleled, Schoenheit. It’s a brand in itself. We should discuss a collaborative venture. Privately, of course.” His hand came up, not to touch, but to gesture too close to Vil’s waist.
Vil didn’t flinch. He took a half-step back, a subtle shift that brought his shoulder against Leona’s arm. “My schedule is quite full, I’m afraid. And my boyfriend,” he said, the word landing with deliberate, soft precision, “is notoriously possessive of my time.” He tilted his head up at Leona, a fond, teasing glance.
The investor’s eyes flicked to Leona, taking in his size, the uncivilized cut of his jaw, the unblinking stare. He chuckled, a nervous sound. “Of course, of course. No offense meant, Your Highness.”
“None taken,” Leona said, his voice a low rumble. He hadn’t moved, but his posture had shifted minutely, a predator identifying a threat in his territory. The man excused himself quickly.
The next incident was more direct. A younger alpha, a foreign dignitary’s son flushed with champagne and arrogance, intercepted Vil near the bar while Leona was momentarily waylaid by a councilman. Leona watched from ten feet away, his conversation fading to static.
“—admired your work for years,” the man was saying, his smile too wide. He placed a hand on Vil’s bare arm, just above the elbow. A claiming gesture.
Vil’s smile stayed in place, but it cooled, sharpening at the edges. He looked down at the hand on his arm, then back up at the man’s face. He didn’t pull away. He simply said, clear and cold enough to cut through the party din, “You’ll want to remove your hand.”
The alpha blinked, emboldened by drink. “I’m just being friendly.”
“My boyfriend,” Vil said, nodding toward Leona, whose gaze was now a direct, green laser, “is right there. And he’s significantly less friendly than I am. I suggest you reconsider.”
Leona was already moving, cutting through the crowd with a singular focus. He arrived just as the man, finally sensing real danger, snatched his hand back. Leona didn’t touch him. He just inserted himself into the space between them, his back to the alpha, blocking him out entirely. He looked down at Vil. “Everything okay?”
“Perfect,” Vil said, his eyes molten with a gratitude that had nothing to do with acting. He slid his hand into Leona’s. “Just a misunderstanding.”
As they walked away, Leona leaned in, his mouth at Vil’s temple. “Notoriously possessive, am I?”
“You played the part perfectly,” Vil murmured, but his fingers tightened around Leona’s.
“Wasn’t playing.”
The words hung there. Vil didn’t reply.
They found Falena again near the ice sculpture, talking with an older couple. Falena’s face lit up at their approach. “Ah! The happy couple returns.” He threw an arm around Leona’s shoulders, a gesture of fraternal affection that felt, for once, unburdened by agenda. His smile was wide, genuine. “I’ve been watching you two. It’s… it’s really something, Leo.”
Leona stiffened slightly. “What is?”
“The way you look at him.” Falena’s voice was quiet, almost wistful. He nodded toward Vil, who was gracefully accepting a compliment from the older woman. “I haven’t seen you so… present. Ever. Not since we were kids.” He squeezed Leona’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you. Truly. Mom will be thrilled.”
The sincerity was a knife to the ribs. This wasn’t a king assessing a useful alliance. This was his brother, seeing a ghost of a feeling and mistaking it for the real thing. Leona’s usual arsenal of deflections—sarcasm, disinterest, anger—failed him. He just stared at Falena, caught in the brutal headlights of his own deception.
Vil rejoined them, picking up on the tense stillness. “Everything alright?”
“Perfect,” Falena boomed, releasing Leona. “Just giving my little brother a hard time. As usual.” He winked at Vil. “You’re good for him.”
The rest of the gala passed in a blur of similar encounters. Each time someone overstepped, Vil’s “my boyfriend” was a shield. Each time Leona loomed or intervened, the possessiveness felt less like a strategy and more like a fundamental truth. The line in the sand was gone, washed away by a tide they hadn’t seen coming.
By the time the dessert speech began, the pressure inside Leona was a living thing, coiled tight. The crystal, the laughter, the constant performance—it was suffocating. He needed air. He needed out.
He leaned close to Vil during a round of applause, his lips brushing the shell of his ear. “I’m leaving. Now.”
Vil didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes on the speaker, his applause polite. “The speech isn’t over.”
“I don’t care.”
Vil was silent for a beat. Then, “The press will say we fought.”
“Let them.”
Another beat. Vil’s hand found Leona’s wrist beneath the tablecloth, his grip firm. “Alright.” He rose with him, seamlessly collecting his small clutch. To the table at large, he offered a regretful smile. “A sudden migraine, apologies. Please, enjoy the rest of your evening.”
They made their way out through a service entrance Leona knew from royal events, avoiding the main gauntlet of cameras. The cool night air hit them like a physical relief. Leona’s town car was waiting, idling in the dimly lit loading bay.
They slid into the backseat. The door thunked shut, sealing them in quiet, plush darkness. The driver, well-trained, didn’t speak, just pulled away.
For several blocks, neither did they. The city lights streaked past the tinted windows, painting Vil’s profile in streaks of gold and shadow.
“Your brother thinks it’s real,” Vil said finally, his voice flat. He wasn’t looking at Leona.
“I know.”
“My father thinks I’m happy.”
“Are you?”
Vil turned his head slowly. In the intermittent light, his expression was unreadable. “I don’t know what that word means in this context. I was performing. Professionally, it was a successful night. No scandals. Several advantageous connections made. The narrative is secure.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Then what are you asking, Leona?” Vil’s voice sharpened. “You held my hand. You glared at anyone who looked at me wrong. You played your part. We both did. The contract is being fulfilled. What more do you want?”
The car slowed at a red light. The silence stretched, taut and thin.
Leona looked at him—really looked. At the flawless makeup that hid the exhaustion, at the elegant dress that was just another costume, at the man who had blushed for him in a hallway over a simple, stupid compliment.
“I don’t know,” Leona said, the truth of it grinding out of him, raw and inconvenient. “But it’s not that. Not just that.”
Not just that.” The admission hung in the darkened car, stark and unfinished. Leona turned from the window, the city lights no longer streaks but isolated blurs in his peripheral vision. His focus narrowed to Vil’s face, half-lit by a passing streetlamp, all sharp angles and guarded violet eyes. “Back there. With those men.”
Vil’s posture was a study in controlled elegance even now, spine not touching the leather. “What about them?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral, a diplomat’s filter clicking into place.
“It happened a lot,” Leona stated, his voice low. The engine’s hum filled the pause. “The handsy investor. The drunk kid with the entitled grip. The others, with their eyes.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the formal suit suddenly constricting. “How often does that happen when I’m not there?”
The question landed with the weight of a stone dropped in a still pond. Vil blinked, the polished mask slipping for a single, unguarded moment of pure surprise. He hadn’t expected this line of inquiry. “Leona, it’s…” He let out a short breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “It’s part of the industry. Part of existing in these spaces. It’s just noise.”
“Noise doesn’t put its hands on you.” Leona’s words were sharp, edged with a roughness that had nothing to do with volume. “Noise doesn’t make you have to say ‘my boyfriend’ like a shield just to get a drink in peace.” He was angry, he realized. A slow, simmering heat in his chest that wasn’t jealousy over a possession. It was something hotter, more fundamental. It was outrage on Vil’s behalf. “You were uncomfortable. Every time. I could see it in your shoulders. And they kept pushing anyway.”
Vil stared at him. The car turned a corner, throwing his face into shadow. When he spoke, his voice was softer, stripped of its performative layers. “Of course I was uncomfortable. But yes. It happens. Often. You learn the dance. The polite deflection, the cold stare, the strategic retreat. You develop a very specific skill set.” A brittle smile touched his lips. “Honestly, your scowling presence was… remarkably efficient. A mentioned boyfriend, especially a princely one, tends to simplify the calculus for them.”
Leona processed that, the bald reality of it. The idea of Vil, alone at countless events, navigating a minefield of casual predation with nothing but wit and a cold stare as defense. The heat in his chest flared, bright and acidic. “They shouldn’t get to make you calculate,” he growled, the sound almost subvocal. “Their behavior shouldn’t be your problem to solve.”
“But it is.” Vil’s answer was swift, final. He looked out his own window, his reflection ghostly in the glass. “That’s the reality. So, this arrangement… it has its practical benefits for me, too. A named partner, particularly one with your… stature… is a deterrent. I wasn’t lying about that when we started.”
Silence settled again, thicker now. Leona felt the truth of it, a grim, ugly weight. His fake relationship was a functional tool for Vil, a cloak of convenient authority. He should be pleased it was working as designed. Instead, it tasted like ash.
“I hate that,” Leona said finally, the words simple and blunt. “I hate that it’s like that. That you need a… a prop.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “To get basic respect.”
Vil looked back at him, his expression unreadable. “It’s not your hate to carry.”
“Isn’t it?” Leona met his gaze, holding it in the dim light. The car was slowing, approaching Vil’s building. “If I’m playing the part, then the part gets to be pissed off for you. Anyway.” He shook his head, a rough, frustrated motion. “I’m glad. That it helped. Even if the reason it has to sucks.”
The car came to a smooth stop under the canopy of Vil’s apartment building. The engine idled. For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Vil smiled. It wasn’t the radiant, camera-ready smile from the gala. It was smaller, quieter, a slight curve of his lips that didn’t reach his tired eyes but somehow held more warmth. It was a smile of genuine, startled tenderness. “You’re being very sweet,” he said, the words leaving him as if surprised by their own existence.
The observation hung between them, fragile and disarming. Leona had no defense for it. He hadn’t been trying to be sweet. He’d been stating a fact as he saw it, furious at a world that required such performances for safety.
Vil’s hand moved then, not towards the door handle, but to rest briefly on Leona’s wrist where it lay on the seat between them. The touch was light, a ghost of pressure through his suit jacket. “Thank you for the escort home,” he said, his voice regaining some of its usual composure, but the softness around the edges remained.
Then he was gone, slipping out of the car with fluid grace, the black lace of his dress disappearing into the building’s lobby lights without a backward glance.
Leona stared at the empty space where he’d been. The ghost of Vil’s touch on his wrist burned. The quiet sincerity of his smile echoed. He replayed the conversation, the anger, the unexpected turn into a vulnerability he hadn’t planned to expose.
“Home,” he told the driver, his own voice sounding strange to his ears.
As the car pulled away, he leaned his head back against the seat. He could still smell Vil’s perfume mixed with the faint, clean scent of his sweat. The gala was over, the performance done for the night. But the role, he was beginning to fear, was starting to graft onto his skin. And the worst part was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to scrub it off.
Upstairs, Vil closed his apartment door and leaned against it, the solid wood cool against his back. He let out a long, slow breath, feeling the scaffolding of the evening’s performance finally collapse. His feet hurt. His cheeks ached from smiling.
His wrist tingled where he had touched Leona.
He pushed away from the door, shedding the diamond choker first, then stepping out of the punishing heels. In the silent, dark sanctuary of his home, the echo of Leona’s voice was deafening. I hate that it’s like that. That you need a prop.
No one had ever gotten angry for him before. Annoyed on his behalf, perhaps. Protective of his image, certainly. But that raw, undirected fury at the mere injustice of it? That was new. It wasn’t scripted. It wasn’t part of any contract clause concerning public perception.
It was just Leona, seeing him.
Vil walked to the dark window, looking down at the empty street where the town car had been. A strange, dangerous warmth bloomed behind his ribs, tender and terrifying. He had built an empire on control, on the meticulous management of perception. Yet here he was, undone by a single moment of unvarnished, gruff kindness from the most infuriating man he knew.
He was falling for him. Really, truly falling. And the contract, the gala, the entire beautifully orchestrated charade, now felt like a flimsy stage set around a truth that was growing too solid to ignore.
The silence of his apartment after the gala’s noise felt heavier than usual. Vil stood at the window for a long time, watching the city’s endless light. He finally peeled off the Ciel Noir dress, dropping the exquisite lace into a heap on the floor—a small, private rebellion against perfection. A shower washed away the makeup and the scent of other people’s champagne, but not the memory of a green-eyed stare in a dark car, or the rough sincerity in a low voice saying, I hate that it’s like that.
Sleep was a fractured thing. He dreamed of crowded rooms where every hand reaching for him wore Leona’s signet ring.
A sharp, impatient buzzing from his intercom jerked him awake. Sunlight streamed through the gaps in his blackout curtains, painting stripes across the rumpled silk sheets. He fumbled for the bedside panel, his voice gravel. “Yes?”
“Delivery for you, Mr. Schoenheit,” the doorman’s cheerful tone filtered through.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“It’s… a person. Prince Leona is here.”
Vil’s heart did a stupid, traitorous flip. He pushed the button. “Send him up.”
He scrambled out of bed, pulling on a robe of deep burgundy silk. He ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair and decided against fixing it. Let him see the mess. A perverse part of him wanted Leona to see the cracks.
When the door opened, Leona stood there. He wasn’t in a suit. He wore dark jeans and a simple black tee that stretched across his shoulders, a worn canvas bag slung over one arm. He looked rumpled, real, and entirely out of place in the sleek hallway.
“Morning,” Leona said, his voice a low rumble.
“It’s barely nine,” Vil replied, leaning against the doorframe. He kept his tone flat, but his eyes tracked the lines of Leona’s frame. “Did you get lost? Your palace is in the other direction.”
“Funny.” Leona hefted the bag. “I brought pancake mix. The decent kind, not the boxed garbage. Thought I could make you breakfast.” He shifted his weight, his gaze skirting past Vil into the apartment. “Also wanted to check on you. Make sure no paparazzi were camped out. Or other men.”
Vil’s stern facade cracked. A soft, surprised laugh escaped him. It wasn’t the polished sound from the gala. It was quieter, warmer, and held a genuine fondness that he didn’t bother to mask. “Pancakes.” He stepped back, gesturing him inside. “I do like pancakes. And we’re in the clear. No besieging hordes, I’m afraid.”
Leona walked in, his presence immediately domineering the minimalist space. He headed straight for the kitchen as if he owned it, dumping the bag on the marble countertop. Vil followed, wrapping his robe tighter around himself, watching as Leona began pulling out ingredients: the mix, eggs, a small carton of buttermilk he’d brought, a battered bowl he found in a cupboard.
The domesticity of it was staggering. Leona Kingscholar, second prince of the Afterglow Savanna, cracking eggs into a bowl with a fierce concentration usually reserved for state treaties. He mixed the batter with rough, efficient strokes, the muscles in his forearms flexing.
Vil leaned against the refrigerator, observing the careful, deliberate movements. He watched Leona’s brow furrow as he tested the heat of the pan with a drop of water. It sizzled. The tension from the car, from the gala, from the entire fragile facade between them, was still here in the room. But it had transformed, settled into the quiet clatter of a whisk against glass.
“That really upset you, huh,” Vil said softly. It wasn’t really a question.
Leona poured the first pancake into the pan. It hissed, filling the kitchen with a sweet, buttery scent. “Of course it did,” he said, his eyes on the bubbling surface. “Watching that? Anyone would be pissed.” He flipped the pancake with a precise flick of his wrist. “Look. Even when this arrangement is over.” He paused, as if the words tasted strange. “If you need to get rid of someone who takes things too far, you call me. I’ll find a way to handle it. Doesn’t matter where I am, or what we are.”
The promise was too large for the sunny kitchen. It stretched beyond the limits of any contract, any fake dating scheme. It was a vow offered in the simple language of batter and a hot pan.
Vil was silent, his throat tight. He watched Leona slide a perfectly golden pancake onto a plate. Then another.
Leona turned off the burner. He turned to Vil, wiping his hands on a towel. The green of his eyes was less cynical here, in the morning light. It was just clear, and focused, and on him. He closed the distance between them in two slow steps.
He didn’t kiss his mouth. He leaned in, his lips brushing Vil’s temple with a tenderness that felt like a physical shock. The touch was fleeting, warmer than the sunlight on the floor. “You deserve better than having to calculate your way through a room,” Leona murmured against his skin, the words a rough caress. “You just do.”
Then he pulled back, as if he’d surprised himself. He grabbed the plate of pancakes and thrust it toward Vil. “Eat. They’re best hot.”
Vil took the plate, his fingers brushing Leona’s. The world had narrowed to this point of contact, to the scent of sugar and spice, to the lingering warmth on his temple where Leona’s lips had been. He looked down at the perfect, golden-brown circles, a simple offering made by royal hands.
He was supposed to say something clever. Something deflecting. Something that reinforced the walls and re-established the game.
“Thank you,” was all he managed, the words fragile and true.
He carried the plate to the dining table, his back to Leona so the prince wouldn’t see the helpless, overwhelming thing that must be written on his face. The truth wasn’t just solid anymore. It was a living, breathing entity sitting at his kitchen table, waiting for him to join it.