The ballroom glowed beneath a canopy of crystal chandeliers, every table a portrait of wealth and pride. Cameramen lined the edges, flashes bursting like lightning as the city's elite mingled, their laughter layered over the music of a live quartet.
Samantha stepped into the hall beside Nick, her hand resting lightly on his arm. They looked like the perfect picture—two titans of industry, poised, elegant, untouchable. But beneath the polished façade, history breathed like a ghost between them.
Nick's hand tightened slightly over hers as they entered the crowd. "You make it look easy," he murmured, half-admiring, half-tormented.
Samantha smiled faintly, her voice even. "It is. When you've had enough practice pretending."
He looked at her then, really looked, as if trying to read between her calm and his memories. But Samantha kept her eyes forward, nodding politely to familiar faces, her lips carrying the perfect, practiced smile of a woman who'd mastered masks.
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