Free Web NovelChapter 190: Chapter 190: Special Weakness
Chapter 190: Special Weakness
Elias glanced at Giselle and nearly laughed.
She was too innocent.
No matter how cold or untouchable she looked on the outside, underneath all that silver-haired ice was a girl who had never even been in love. How was she supposed to handle a beautiful boy shifting around in her lap like he had every right to be there?
One look at her face told him she was enduring it with real effort.
For Giselle, this was not torture.
It was close enough.
Elias badly wanted to say, It is not like I am rubbing against anything that should make you react this much, so why are you acting like this?
Of course, he knew better than to say it out loud.
Knowing where to stop was one of the basic skills in this line of work. He could act shy, squirm in her lap until her composure started to crack, and make her warn him. The moment she did, he behaved.
"Giselle..." Elias murmured.
His voice was barely louder than a breath, but that was the point. He spoke close enough to her ear that the warmth of his breath brushed over her skin.
"Sit properly," Giselle said, her voice low.
Her expression was severe. Her face stayed composed.
Her ears betrayed her.
Both had gone red, the flushed tips half-hidden beneath strands of silver hair. Only a little of that color showed through, pale pink and clean and bright.
It looked delicious.
Elias let himself look for only a second before turning away.
Actually biting her was out of the question for now. Giselle could barely survive him sitting in her lap. Anything beyond that might send her straight out of the story.
For the moment, watching Serena get stimulated onstage would be enough.
Music swelled through the auditorium speakers. The lights that had been scattered across the room dimmed all at once, leaving the stage in a clean wash of brightness.
The anniversary gala had officially begun.
The change finally pulled some of the attention off Elias and Giselle. Students who had been stealing glances at them were forced to look forward.
As it turned out, no matter how expensive the school was or how polished the event looked, anything organized by a university still could not escape speeches.
Introductions. Greetings. Formal thanks. More greetings. Polite applause.
There was always a process. There was always a reason someone had to explain the meaning of the occasion as if the audience had not read the posters outside.
Elias hated this kind of thing.
It was so boring that he did not even bother pretending in front of Giselle. He sat in her lap with a vacant look, his interest visibly draining by the second.
[System Theta: Host...]
Elias answered lazily in his mind. "What?"
[System Theta: Nothing.]
It probably fit into the host’s plan somehow.
Probably.
Finally, a tall figure walked onto the stage.
Even from a distance, Serena Blackwood carried a force that pressed against the whole room. She swept one brief glance over the auditorium, nothing more than a simple look, yet it gave people the illusion that she had looked straight at them.
Serena had finally appeared.
Elias immediately perked up.
Because of their current relationship, he still had to pretend he did not care too much. Unfortunately, the shift was too obvious. One moment, he had been half-dead from boredom. The next, his attention locked onto the stage.
Giselle noticed.
Her eyes cooled.
[System Theta: Host does not seem to have noticed.]
Elias had noticed. He simply did not care.
At this stage, he was openly carrying old feelings for Serena. Giselle could know. What could she do about it?
Serena had not yet reached the main speech. This was only an introduction. She gave the audience a slight nod and sat at her assigned place.
Then, as if she had known where Elias was from the beginning, she looked over.
Maybe she had found him during that first sweep of the hall.
Maybe she had known before she even stepped onstage.
Her face carried a faint public smile, controlled and pleasant. In that sense, she and Yvonne Quinn could probably compare notes. Both knew how to look like perfectly respectable women in public while being completely different behind closed doors.
Then Serena saw Giselle.
The smile stiffened.
Cold anger rose beneath it.
Elias felt Serena’s gaze leave his face and settle on the person beside him. No, not beside him. The person holding him.
Even catching the edge of that look made his scalp tighten. Serena’s smile stayed in place, but the anger inside it had teeth.
Elias immediately let his discomfort show. He tugged lightly at Giselle’s sleeve and tilted his head toward her.
"I’m scared," he whispered.
Giselle, who was already meeting Serena’s stare with an icy one of her own, said coldly, "Don’t be. She can’t do anything to you. She has no right."
Elias lowered his voice even further. "Actually... she does. She’s my ex-girlfriend."
Giselle’s eyes turned murderous.
Elias fought to keep his laughter buried and slowly lowered his head.
A moment later, Giselle said, with the kind of anger that sounded like disappointment, "Shut up."
A stir moved through the seats nearby.
Not one gasp. Several.
Elias, who had already been bored again, lifted his head.
Another figure had stepped onto the stage after Serena.
She was slender, composed, and almost flawless in posture, the kind of woman who looked as if every movement had been measured before she made it. A mild smile rested on her face, warm enough for public viewing and controlled enough to mean nothing.
But the most familiar thing about her was the pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
Yvonne Quinn.
Elias’s eyes brightened.
Westbridge had invited Yvonne too?
The university leadership had finally done something useful.
If he thought about it that way, did this count as the first meeting of four women?
If Liora had not left, and Elias did not believe she would give up such a good view so easily, then there were four of them here.
Serena. Giselle. Liora. Yvonne.
In a single instant, Elias’s mind flashed through more wicked possibilities than System Theta could ever hope to safely record.
There was one thing he had not told the system. He was not this active with these women only because he wanted to finish the mission. He enjoyed parts of the process too. freёwebnoѵel.com
In a way, he was also here for entertainment.
He simply only enjoyed watching these terrible women become the entertainment.
Elias stayed excited for a while, then forced himself to settle down. He could not let Giselle notice too much.
Fortunately, Giselle and Serena were still staring each other down. Their gazes seemed to collide in the air hard enough to spark. Neither of them noticed the silent exchange between Elias and Yvonne.
Elias looked at Yvonne with smiling eyes.
Yvonne only glanced at him once, then calmly looked away. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
Elias’s mouth twitched.
How boring.
He was risking exposure to flirt with her in public, and she would not even play along.
Dead straight woman.
"I wonder if Sera will be invited too," Elias thought.
[System Theta: That should be unlikely.]
It was.
Seraphina Hale did not appear.
Elias was not disappointed. Four women in one room were already enough to keep him busy.
The host’s voice rolled through the speakers.
"Next, please welcome one of Westbridge University’s distinguished alumnae, Dr. Yvonne Quinn."
Elias lifted an eyebrow.
So Yvonne had attended Westbridge too.
That made her his senior alumna.
Nice.
That gave him another thing to call her later.
"Good evening, everyone."
Yvonne’s voice spread through the auditorium with the help of the sound system.
The room, which had still been carrying low murmurs a second earlier, went completely silent.
It was as if every student in the auditorium had been pinned in place.
Even Giselle changed targets and looked toward Yvonne.
Elias’s body went soft.
Good thing he was sitting in Giselle’s lap. Otherwise, he might have slid straight out of his seat.
Damn it.
Since when had Yvonne’s voice become a direct attack against him?
One sentence, and his whole body went numb.
If she ever leaned over him in bed and called him baby in that voice, he might surrender on the spot.
