Free Web NovelChapter 105: Chapter 105 Rowena wins again
_Author’s POV_
Virella walked over with the confidence of someone who had planned this entrance and was pleased with how it landed.
Her smile was wide and bright and she directed it at Rowena like a spotlight.
Rowena looked at her and then she looked away.
Just like that. Back to her drink, back to the table, expression unchanged.
The smile on Virella’s face flickered. Just for a second. She had expected something, surprise or discomfort or at least the satisfaction of watching Rowena’s composure crack slightly at the edges. But she got nothing. Rowena’s face was exactly the same as it had been before she walked in.
Virella recovered and pulled out the chair across from Rowena and sat down without being invited.
“Small world,” she said.
“Hello, Virella,” Rowena replied.
“You know,” Virella said, tilting her head, “I never took you for the type to come to a place like this. You always seemed more like the stay home and count your money type.”
Rowena glanced at her. “A club is open to everyone. Except minors.” She picked up her glass. “Last time I checked I was a full grown adult.”
Virella laughed softly. “Of course. I just meant I was surprised. That’s all.”
“You don’t need to be,” Rowena said.
Virella leaned forward slightly. “I suppose you have more time for things like this now. Before, you were so busy. Managing a falling household, keeping a pack running that wasn’t even yours.” She sighed, almost sympathetically. “That must have been exhausting. But now that all of that is behind you, you can finally live a little.” She smiled again. “I’ll make sure you have a good night tonight. Let me take care of it.”
Rowena put her glass down and looked at Virella.
Not a long look though.
“I don’t need you to take care of anything,” she said. Her voice was calm but the edge under it was real. “And don’t bring up the past like it’s something amusing. It isn’t.” She held Virella’s gaze. “As for enjoying tonight, I was doing that perfectly fine before you sat down. The only real VIP experience here is getting a personal host and a private table arrangement.” She glanced around the club. “I don’t think that’s something you have the authority to arrange.”
Virella smiled slowly.
She reached up and flipped her hair over her shoulder with the deliberate ease of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
“Funny you mention that,” she said. “Because actually, this club belongs to the Moonreign Pack.” She paused, enjoying the moment. “Kaelen owns it.”
Silence filled the table.
Not a long. Maybe three seconds. But it was a full three seconds.
Rowena’s expression didn’t collapse but something behind her eyes shifted and recalibrated. Pierre straightened slightly. Kasper, who had come back from the dance floor the moment he clocked Virella walking in, went very still. Even Ezekiel, who had been in the middle of reaching for his drink, stopped.
Kaelen owned this?
The same Kaelen whose family had been drowning in debt since Rowena left. The same pack that had been struggling to cover basic expenses. The same man who had shown up at a selection banquet to beg the woman who held his family together to return to him all because of money?
The same man who borrowed money from Rowena to plan his marriage to his second wife?
Nobody said any of that out loud though, but they were all thinking it. Including Rowena.
Virella let the silence sit for a moment and then she reached into her bag and produced a small cheque book. She flipped it open with ease.
“While I’m here,” she said, “I might as well handle something overdue. The money Kaelen borrowed from you. For the wedding. I’d like to return it.” She clicked her pen. “How much was it again?”
She was smiling the whole time she said it.
She wrote something, tore the cheque out, and placed it on the table in front of Rowena. free𝑤ebnovel.com
She sat back and folded her hands and waited.
Rowena looked at the cheque on the table with a poker face. Then she smiled.
It was a slow quiet smile. The kind that didn’t show teeth and didn’t reach loud. It just settled on her face and stayed there and it was somehow the most unsettling thing that had happened at the table all evening.
Virella’s confidence shifted. She held the smile on her own face but something behind her eyes moved. She had dealt with Rowena before. She knew what loud anger looked like from her. She knew what cold dismissal looked like. She did not know what this quiet smile meant and not knowing made her nervous in a way she didn’t want to show.
Rowena opened her mouth.
“You know what......” Ezekiel said.
Everyone turned to look at him as he spoke up before Rowena could.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at Virella with a bored expression. “I’m going to be honest with you. This club is fine. The lighting is decent, the service is good, I’ll give it that.” He waved his hand slightly. “But my little sister’s club in the capital makes this place look like a waiting room.” He shrugged. “So the whole presentation just now didn’t land the way you were hoping.”
Virella’s eye twitched.
It was small. Very small. But Pierre saw it and Kasper saw it. Rowena definitely saw it too.
Virella looked at Ezekiel properly for the first time since she sat down and recognition moved through her face. She knew exactly who he was. His face had been on magazine covers and news channels and the kind of society pages that people like Virella read everyday.
One of the wealthiest and most talked about young men in the country. Royal bloodline. Known for being impossible to impress and completely unbothered about being impossible to impress.
And he was sitting at Rowena’s table. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
She swallowed it.
“I didn’t realize you were here,” she said to him carefully. “You could have gone anywhere tonight.”
“I came for Rowena,” Ezekiel said simply.
Rowena said nothing. It was not true. She knew it wasn’t true and Ezekiel knew she knew. But she picked up her glass and sipped it, letting it stand.
Ezekiel looked at Virella pleasantly. “You don’t have to perform the whole thing for us. The cheque, the club reveal, all of it.” He tilted his head. “If I felt like it, I could buy this place tonight. Write the check right now, hand it to whoever needs to receive it, and Kaelen wouldn’t do a thing about it.” He smiled. “So maybe dial it back a little.”
Virella froze in place, embarrassment burned on her face so hard that she couldn’t move.
Again, she’d been defeated by Rowena.
