Clara tugged Vivian through the Imperial Hotel's hidden corridor - a passage lined with bamboo screens and jade carvings that muffled the outside world. They slipped into the private dining room, its walls draped in crimson silk that absorbed the light like spilled wine.
Vivian slumped into a chair, burying her face in napkins embroidered with golden phoenixes. "If TMZ gets those photos," she groaned, "I'll have to fake my death and move to Saskatchewan."
Clara produced a tortoiseshell comb from her bag. "Hold still, drama queen." She worked through the snarls in Vivian's hair as the actress winced. "Why engage with Selena? Her barbs bounce off me like rubber bullets."
Vivian snatched a decorative hand mirror, gasping at her reflection. One eye smudged with mascara, lip gloss bleeding into a faint bruise. "Because when she spits on you, it feels like acid on my skin!" Her voice cracked. "I've got a plan though - seduce Sebastian Hartwell! Rub their faces in it!"
Clara froze mid-comb stroke. "On what merits? My ability to whimper 'mercy' in three octaves?" A full-body shudder racked her. "Last time, I genuinely feared for my spleen."
Vivian's gaze dropped to the bandage peeking above Clara's collar. "That's... strategically placed." She tapped the injury. "Bruce will notice. He notices everything about you."
"Your brother knows I date," Clara deflected, arranging chrysanthemum petals in a tea cup. "Just not that it's his business rival who treats me like human stress ball."
The door slid open silently.
Bruce Sterling stood framed in moonlight streaming through rice paper screens. Two years abroad had honed his features - the gentle scholar now carried a CEO's sharp edges beneath his bespoke charcoal suit. Yet when his eyes found Clara, they warmed like cognac catching fire.
"Clara." Her name sounded like a rediscovered sonnet. "You've grown even more radiant."
Vivian fake-gagged into her water glass. "So clara's the only one who exists in your world?"
Bruce's gaze swept his sister's battle damage. "Vivian. Did you lose a fight to a weed whacker?"
"Selena Vance attacked me!" Vivian jabbed a shrimp fork for emphasis. "She started it! Called Clara gutter trash again!"
Bruce's knuckles whitened around the doorframe. "Is this true?" he asked Clara, his voice dangerously soft.
Clara placed a soothing hand on Vivian's arm. "A minor scuffle. Not worth your attention."
"Minor?" Vivian squawked. "She kneed me right in the lady bits!"
Bruce's smile didn't reach his eyes - a glacier with razor edges. "Noted. Shall we eat?"
Steam rose from bamboo baskets as Clara navigated crab claws with surgical precision. Vivian watched enviously as Clara deposited a mountain of sweet meat into a porcelain shell, drizzled with black vinegar.
"Your emotional support crustacean, madam."
Vivian beamed. "Marry me? I'll buy you that island you liked on Zillow."
Bruce silently amassed a battalion of peeled shrimp, sliding the bowl toward Clara. "Your favorite. Chili-lime infused."
"Seriously?" Vivian's chopsticks clattered. "Twenty-six years my brother, and you've never passed me so much as a salt shaker!"
"You possess functional limbs," Bruce deadpanned.
"Clara has hands too!"
"They're busy salvaging your dignity." Bruce nodded at Clara's crab demolition project.
Clara accepted the shrimp with a blush. "Thank you, Bruce. You always remember."
Vivian mimed vomiting into her soup.
Across the restaurant, in the obsidian-walled VIP room known as "The Opium Den," Sebastian Hartwell swirled a 1982 Pétrus. Julian Lorimer sniffed the bouquet with theatrical reverence.
"Notes of arrogance and unearned privilege," Julian declared as Alexander Han entered, grinning like a cheshire cat.
"Share the joke?" Julian pressed. "Or just find a sugar baby in the coat check?"
Alexander extended his empty glass. "Witnessed theater superior to your mediocre operas. Selena Vance versus Vivian Sterling - hair-pulling, face-scratching, canapé artillery..."
Julian reluctantly poured. "Do tell."
"Selena insulted Clara Morgan. Vivian transformed into a feral honey badger."
Sebastian's glass halted mid-sip. "Clara was there?"
"Currently dining with Bruce Sterling." Alexander watched satisfaction bloom as Sebastian's grip cracked the stemware. "Quite cozy in their private room. Crab sharing. Intimate laughter."
Julian choked. "Clara Morgan knows the Sterling siblings? Since when do secretaries run with A-listers?"
But Sebastian wasn't listening. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he imagined Clara's smile directed at another man - that rare, unguarded radiance usually reserved for moonlit bedrooms.
Alexander leaned in, poison-dripping. "Vivian screamed something poignant about 'defending Clara's honor.' Touching, really."
Sebastian's phone vibrated. A security feed screenshot: Clara feeding Vivian a crab morsel, Bruce watching them with tender amusement.
The Pétrus turned to ash on his tongue.