Page 54 of Her Filthy Cold Billionaire Boss

And still, I could feel Gareth’s eyes burning holes in my back.

He prowled the perimeter of the room, arms folded, face so tight it looked carved. He didn’t say a word, not at first. He just watched as I nudged a napkin by half a millimeter, then adjusted it back. The silence was knife-sharp. As I hovered, paralyzed, he snapped.

“Do you want to start over?” His voice was low, but there was a quiet anger in it I’d never heard before.

I flinched. “It’s fine. The alignment’s just-”

He cut me off. “No. It isn’t. And if you keep fussing with it, you’ll just make it worse.”

I wanted to throw the napkin in his face. I wanted to flip the entire table in his face. He went from making love to me, to icing me out, to criticizing my every move? What the actual heck was wrong with him? Instead, I stepped back, knuckles whitening as I tucked them behind myself.

He moved closer, not quite in my space but close enough that I could feel the charge off his body. “Go to the kitchen,” he said. “Check on the wine. I’ll handle the rest.”

It was a dismissal, plain and simple. I left the ballroom, marching down the service corridor like he’d insulted and embarrassed me. He had. My feet were numb. My hands tingled. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. But all I did was walk until I pushed through the stainless steel kitchen door.

Inside, the caterers were already in overdrive. Butter sizzling, pans clanging, the scent of browning onions making my mouth water but my nervous stomach turn. Maribel was at the helm of it all, wielding a wooden spoon like she might hit anyone who didn’t listen to her orders.

She saw me and raised an eyebrow. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just the boss,” I said, voice flat. “He wants a wine status.”

Maribel snorted. “He wants a lot of things. Most of them involve you being miserable lately.”

I tried to laugh. It didn’t come out right. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

She lowered her voice. “You okay, hon?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say it so badly that my chest hurt. But my lips wouldn’t form the word. I just shrugged, then gestured at the stockroom. “Can I…?”

“Go,” she said, waving me off. “I’ll keep the wolves at bay.”

I didn’t doubt she could.

The walk-in wine cellar was colder than usual. I closed the door behind me and leaned my forehead against the metal shelf, letting the chill soak through my skin. For a minute, I just breathed. In, out. In, out. The cold should have helped. It didn’t.

I replayed the last week in my mind, moment by moment. The avoidance, the clipped instructions, the way Gareth’s entire demeanor had reset to Factory Default: Arctic Bastard. I’d barelyseen him outside of the work zones. When I did, it was always in passing, always with that same blank stare. He didn’t ask for my help, didn’t look my way, didn’t even acknowledge the dance in the ballroom or what had happened after. It was as if I’d imagined the whole thing.

Or, worse, as if he’d regretted it.

I pretended to check the inventory and then stood in the darkness for another full minute, savoring the quiet. I didn’t want to go back out there. I didn’t want to see his face, or his family’s faces, or anyone’s face ever again. But I was paid to be here, and there were only so many corners of this house to hide in.

By nine, the guests started to trickle in.

The foyer was a murder scene of luxury that I watched from afar. Fur coats, hand-stitched shoes, cologne that cost more per ounce than my entire wardrobe. The air was thick with the scent of rivalry and old money, and the conversations were already sharp enough to make my teeth hurt.

Gareth stood at the foot of the stairs, flanked by his mother, a vision in white silk and diamonds, and his father, who looked bored to the edge of death. His sister, Victoria’s loud voice resounded through the space so sickeningly sweet I hated her from the jump, and someone I didn’t know wore a velvet blazer and permanent smirk.

I stayed at the edge of the action, taking notes and fixing minor disasters before they erupted. No one spoke to me unless they had to. Most of them didn’t even see me. I was staff, invisible, a part of the house as much as the marble floor or the antique umbrella stand.

Except Gareth. He watched me. Not openly, but always. Every time I glanced his way, his eyes snapped to mine, then away again, like I’d caught him at something.

It was infuriating. It was intoxicating. It made me want to set something on fire.

The meal was a blur, endless courses, endless toasts, endless thinly veiled insults traded across the expanse of crystal and gold. I could feel the tension winding tighter with every minute, the room heating up until it felt like an oven. Gareth said little, drank less, but his jaw was clenched so hard I wondered if he might shatter teeth.

Halfway through, things began to fall apart.

The velvet blazer, already drunk, raised a glass and slurred, “To the next generation, may we at least pretend to get along.”