Page 8 of Dragon Chaos Around

Warm.

Not the ambient warmth of a man who’d walked through the heat. A warmth that radiated from his palm like a banked furnace—steady, controlled, and several degrees above what any human hand should register. His grip was exactly what she’d feared: firm, precise, calibrated to communicate authority without aggression. The silver cufflinks winked at his wrist. His fingers closed around hers and the static charge on her forearms intensified and her villain-print blouse was suddenly inadequate insulation against the absurd, inconvenient, catastrophic awareness that ripped through her body from the point of contact.

The handshake lasted three seconds. She counted. Three seconds during which her brain—her competent, accomplished, convention-directing brain—short-circuited into a string of observations that belonged in a villain character analysis, not a professional introduction: jawline carved from entitlement and centuries of practice, collarbones visible at the open collar suggesting he knows exactly what that glimpse of skin does, and the HANDS, the hands are worse up close, they are warm and sure and holding mine with a control that implies he could crush a diamond or cradle a soap bubble with equal precision and⁠—

She released his hand.

He released hers.

The air between them hummed.

“The convention center belongs to the Javits Corporation,” he said. “I lease it. A distinction that matters when we discuss the modifications your proposal outlined.”

And there it was. Fourteen words in and the battle lines were drawn.

Alani’s smile didn’t waver. “The modifications that will make this the most attended Silverscale Convention in history.”

“Attendance is one metric among many. Not the metric I prioritize.”

“Which metric do you prioritize?”

A pause. His silver eyes held hers. The gold flicker didn’t return, but the intensity behind the silver was enough—a depth that suggested he was performing calculations she couldn’t see, running scenarios through a processor refined by centuries of strategic thinking.

“Legacy,” he said.

The word landed in the empty hall like a foundation stone. He had been building legacies since before the convention industry existed. Since before conventions existed. Since before the printing press put stories into the hands of the masses and created the culture that his empire now served.

Oh, Alani thought, staring up at the Dragon King of England in the diamond-patterned sunlight of the Javits Center while her hand still tingled from the warmth of his grip and her heart hammered against her ribs with the specific, terrible rhythm of a woman recognizing that she was in unprecedented trouble.

This is going to be a problem.

Behind her, Crystal’s phone camera clicked. Once. Twice.

In front of her, Chaos Silverscale stood in the cathedral of his convention with silver cufflinks and silver eyes and hands that burned, and waited for her next move. Eight centuries. He had all the time in the world.

Alani straightened her blazer. Lifted her chin. Channeled every ounce of the Nores stubbornness that had carried her father from a scholarship in San Juan to the top of Wall Street and her mother from Manila society to the boards of three major foundations and her brother to an Oscar nomination before thirty-five.

“Well, then,” she said, and her voice carried across the empty hall—warm, sure, the voice of a woman who had spent her entire life refusing to be less than she was. “Let me show you what your legacy looks like when it evolves.”

She turned toward the east hall. Didn’t wait for him to follow. Her heels clicked against the concrete—a rhythm that filled the space the way her laughter had filled it minutes before, bright and precise and unapologetic.

She heard him follow. One beat. Two. The quiet, measured footsteps of a predator deciding whether to engage.

He engaged.

Doomed, the practical part of her brain confirmed. Absolutely, spectacularly doomed.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it. But later, when she checked, the group chat had already updated:

GISELLE: he looked at her like she was a first edition he didn’t know existed

CRYSTAL:

GISELLE: I’m updating the risk management spreadsheet

THREE

ALANI