Camille’s POV

I’ve got exactly one rule tonight. Don’t think about the number.

Two point three million euros. That’s what Laurent Ateliers owes the bank, due in six weeks, and my father still hasn’t told the staff. I know because I found the letter myself, folded into quarters and pushed to the back of his desk drawer, under a box of buttons nobody’s used in decades.

The mask itches against my temple.The wine in my hand has gone warm. I’m holding onto both like they are the only things keeping me steady,because somewhere across this ballroom my father is discussing with men who could save our company or bury it, and I am supposed to be smiling at his side instead of hiding by a window like a coward in gold jewelry.

The room sparkles. Gold masks. Black masks. Feathers and lace that cost more than most people’s rent. Laurent Ateliers dressed half this room tonight,my grandmother’s stitching still holding up gowns two generations later. There is a sewing machine still sitting in my father’s office, the actual one she used and I keep picturing some stranger’s assistant wrapping it in bubble wrap for auction. That’s the number, when I let myself feel it properly. Not the debt. The sewing machine.

Don’t think about the number.

I pour the wine into my mouth and someone speaks behind me.

“You’re the only person in this room who’s not smiling.”

His voice is low and measured, the kind that expects an answer.

I turn around.

He’s tall, black on black, a plain silver mask covering the top half of his face. The parts I can see are sharp and striking. A hard jaw, a mouth that seems unfamiliar with kindness often. Grey eyes that catch the chandelier lights and holding it like he owns the fixture too.

“I am smiling,” I say to him. “You’re just standing too far away to see it.”

“I am standing exactly where I meant to.”

Something about the way he says it makes my heart race for a second.

“And where is that?”

“Next to the only person standing here looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.”

I should walk away. I know I should. Instead I say, “That’s a very specific read on a stranger.”

“I notice things.”

“Dangerous hobby.”

“Only for those who don’t want to be noticed.”

I laugh before I can stop it, surprised by the sound of it, light and real in a room built entirely for performance. He watches me laugh like it’s something rare..

“You still haven’t told me your name.”

“No.”

“Is that a game?”

“It’s a mask”, he says. “Tonight it doesn’t come with a name attached.”

I should find that unsettling. Instead something reckless stirs deep within my chest, a feeling I had almost almost forgotten existed. It has been sleeping inside me for years, ever since my father became consumed by worries over numbers, debts and problems he never wanted me to know about.

“Then I won’t tell you mine either.”

His mouth curves at one corner. “Good. I’d rather not know who to blame in the morning.”

“Blame for what?”

He moves closer. Cedar or something darker underneath it, clean and expensive and entirely unlike the cologne every other man in this room seems to have agreed on.

“For whatever happens next,” he says quietly.

The music changes to a slower rhythm. Couples around us start moving across the floor, their gold and black clothes and jewels shimmering beneath the chandelier lights as they turn in slow circles. He holds out his hand like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.

I put mine in it..

His fingers wrap around mine, warm and firm, and when he pulls me in, everything else begins to disappear. The numbers, the banks, and the memory of my father’s tired eyes slowly drift out of my mind for the first time in months.

“You dance like you’re angry at someone.”

“I dance like I’ve had one glass too many.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I look up. Behind the mask his eyes are studying me too closely, like he can see straight through gold thread to whatever’s actually keeping me up at night.

“Everyone here’s angry at someone,” I say. “That’s what masks are for.”

“Is that why you are wearing yours?”

“My grandmother designed it.”

“It is beautiful.”

“She’d have been pleased to hear you say that.”

“I wasn’t talking about the mask.”

His words settle deep in my stomach. The song turns through its last measure and he doesn’t let go when it ends.

“Come outside with me,” he says.

“I do not know you.”

“You’re not supposed to. That’s the entire point of tonight.”

I glance across the room. My father’s shoulders are wound tight the way they’ve been for months, and nobody’s looking for me. Not yet.

“Just one drink,” I say. “We’ll have it on the terrace, and that’s it.”

Something flickers behind his mask, amusement maybe. Challenge. I can’t tell which.

“We’ll see,” he says.

The terrace is calm and cool, with small strings of lights hanging above us. Stone railings surround us, looking out over rooftops that have turned silver beneath the night sky. He hands me another glass of wine before leaning against the railing, watching the city for once instead of me.

“Tell me one true thing,” I say. “Since neither of us has a name to hide behind.”

He thinks about it. “I don’t like parties like this.”

“Then why come?”

“Obligation. Family. The usual reasons people do things they hate.”

“That is very honest for a masked man.”

“Your turn.”

I look out at the rooftops instead of him.

“I’m afraid I’m going to lose something that isn’t mine to lose,” I say quietly.

I don’t know why I tell him that. Maybe because the mask hides most of my face. Maybe because in an hour, we will both be strangers again, and the words between us will mean nothing.

He goes quiet for a long moment.

“You won’t lose it,” he says finally. “Not if you’re as stubborn as you dance.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he agrees. “But I am rarely wrong.”

“Arrogant.”

“Observant.”

I laugh again, and this time he smiles back,brief and startled looking like it surprised him too.

After that, we do not speak about names, companies, or fathers. We talk about unimportant things,and somehow it becomes the most important conversation I’ve had in months. When he finally reaches up to brush a strand of hair off my face, his fingers barely touching my skin, I don’t pull away.

“I should go back inside,” I whisper, without moving.

“You should,” he agrees, without moving either.

We stay exactly where we are.

His hand stays at my jaw a moment longer than it needs to, thumb tracing once along my cheekbone like he’s deciding something, and neither of us says the thing we’re both clearly thinking. The band starts a new song inside. Neither of us turns toward it. He leans in slow enough that I have the whole length of that song to change my mind, and I don’t, and when he finally kisses me it isn’t rushed at all, it’s the kind of unhurried that makes my knees actually go, one hand still holding my glass like an idiot until he gently takes it from me and sets it somewhere I don’t see, because apparently he’s the kind of man who thinks of things like that even now.

“Say yes,” he murmurs against my temple, not really a question.

“To what?”

“You know what.”

I do. I say it anyway, quietly, and let him lead me back through the doors, past the dancing, down a hallway I couldn’t find again in daylight, into a room with the lights already low.

What happens after that I won’t put into words even in my own head, not clearly. I only know that somewhere between the terrace and that room, the mask stops mattering and his hands don’t feel like a stranger’s hands at all. I know that when he tells me my name isn’t important tonight, I believe him completely, and I mean to disappear before he wakes, exactly the way we both quietly agreed to without saying so out loud.

I leave before the sun rises, the morning sky still painted grey. My dress is gathered in my hands, and my mask hangs loosely from my fingers. I refuse to look back at the door. I tell myself that I will forget about this before I reach the street.

I am wrong about that, though not for the reason I expect.

A car idles at the curb, engine running, and I step past it a flash goes off, once, sharp and white, gone before I can turn my head toward it. By the time I do, there’s nobody there. Just the car pulling away, unhurried, taillights shrinking down the empty street like whoever held that camera had all the time in the world to use what they just took.