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The treacherous part of me that remembers what we did together wakes under my skin and flames.

I hate it so much I could claw myself apart for letting it happen because he’s already brushed me off, taken Eilish on his arm, and still, there’s a second where the nearness of him makes me want to surrender.

I draw my shoulders back.

“You’d never eat in Ríoga,” Fionn says, eyes holding mine. “Leave it to someone who’d appreciate it.”

The woman clutches her pearls, and the ballroom drops away so suddenly I have to lock my knees.

“You’re done here, Sera,” he says. “Go home.”

The music keeps playing around us. Champagne corks pop. Men laugh near the stage as if the world hasn’t just narrowed to Fionn’s face and the horrible, public embarrassment of him humiliating me.

A hot and fiery rage rises behind my ribs, and for once I don’t try to kill it. I let it reach my throat and sharpen in my mouth. I give it the power to hold me upright.

Then I reach past Fionn and pick up the pen beside the bid card.

Mara goes still.

Alasdair watches me.

Fionn’s gaze drops to my hand, and for the first time tonight, a flicker tightens at the edge of his expression before he buries it.

The current bid for the Harrington dinner sits at twelve thousand euros, written beneath a name I don’t recognize.

I write twenty thousand on the next line. The number is reckless, but it’s for a good cause, and I’m feeling really fucking generous.

I sign beneath the number and hand it to the volunteer collecting final bids.

“Thank you, Miss Tallon,” she says, checking the name.

I step back, putting space between me and Fionn. Mara moves with me, her fake smile fixed so there’s no sign of how the Harrington’s tried to bully me into a retreat.

Eilish walks over from the stage and reaches us as we pass the first row of dinner tables.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

Her eyes flick to Fionn, then to Alasdair. “That didn’t look like nothing.”

“I bid on dinner.”

Her eyebrows lift. “At Ríoga?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I can.”

She leaves my side and joins the Harrington-Kinnane table while I sit opposite them with a bunch of strangers.

The boring speeches begin, and I find myself staring over at Fionn. He looks exactly as he did before I thought he was a different man.

Charming. Unbothered. Hatefully beautiful.

The auction results are announced by the man at the microphone with silver hair, a red face, and a pleased expression.