—"He can have as many mistresses as he sees fit."
Basilio chuckled, lips curled in what most would call a smile, but his expression carried a chill, cold aura around him.
Then, suddenly, his hand shot up and yanked his cravat loose, almost like it disgusted him to still be wearing it. This was beneath him. All of it.
He had been in many deals. Even involving in ruthless ones. But never one this... disgracefully amusing.
And the worst part?
He wasn't the one walking with the upper hand.
No this time the joke was on him. And it wore a dress.
Haylen Theodore.
He could still hear her voice through the earpiece. So confident, so deliberately provoking. As if she knows he would hate every damn second and still pressed the blade against his throat with a smile.
A bitter laughed escaped his throat, and he removed the earpiece. Without a word he stood up walking to the floor-to-ceiling glass, looking at the noisy sea of guests. Champagne, fake smiles, chatter, a circus of lame people.
"She's insane... I like it!" Leo, sprawled across the sofa like some spoiled alley cat, burst into laughed as he spoke.
Kicking his legs up like a child who just heard one of his favorite stories. "Basilio," he grinned, pulling his own earpiece out, clearly entertained by the recording conversations between attorney Alfred and Haylen, "you're finally a hubby."
Basilio didn't respond. He's gaze was only at the view out the glass.
Attorney Alfred, still standing nearby with nervous sweat dotting his temple, "I am sorry, sir, I really tried my best to write such a clau–"
"Be quiet, Alfred!" Basilio cut in flatly, "My head aches."
Alfred shut up. He glanced at Basilio. The man didn't look like someone with a headache, he looked perfectly composed to him. But that was the damn thing about Basilio: you never know if he was thinking about a price stock or someone's funeral.
'What was he even staring at?' Still, curiosity reflect on Alfred expression.
He shifted his gaze, briefly locking his eyes with Leo, who was still lounging. The man has a smug grin plastered on his good looking face.
As Leo opened his lips, he mouthed something at Alfred, slow and clear. "Are you also curious?"
Alfred nodded before he could even think.
While Leo lips shaped the silent answer: "He's staring at his wifey."
Alfred face suddenly twisted from disbelief to disgusted.
"Pfft" Leo couldn't help bit on his tongue to stop himself from laughing at the sudden change of expression from Alfred.
To Alfred it was unbelievable to image a man like Basilio who is meticulous, to be gazing at a woman like Haylen. That woman? A woman forced to him thirty minutes ago?
She was just literally a nobody especially to a man like Basilio who turned down models with eyes colder than rejection itself.
Yet, Leo was right. Basilio gaze was fixed on no one but Haylen Theodore, who was smiling ear to ear, walking besides his grandfather like a happy dog wagging it's tails on a leash, pretending not to see the hostile gazes following her.
She really does held her smile longer than he expected. Impressive. He almost smile, but not yet, he wanted to see how far that smile could last and not cracked.
Yet, Basilio felt nothing for the guests contempt. In fact to his eyes, "She deserves everything that comes to her," he murmured.
But even as he thought about it, his gaze lingered a second to long on her smile, that kind of that shouldn't belong to someone being disdainful looking to others.
But that disdain she deserved it.
She was the one that agree to throw herself into his world like a fool thinking it was a pond when it was a pit.
This punishment was barely enough.
His gaze finally shifted from Haylen, and he returned to his seat. That brief spark of haunting interest disappear entirely, replaced by the same cold indifferent.
Leo watching him closely. There is was—that switch. Basilio's eyes now held the same look he give to a bug scurried too long beneath him before it no longer entertained him.
Leo, ever the curious beast, watched him closely, "So what are you planning next?" He asked almost careful.
Basilio ran his finger around the rim of the champagne flute. His smile returned, faintly slow, He's dimples dipped, as he raised an eyebrow to that question.
"Why don't you guess?" He said, lifting the glass to his mouth.
Leo trying to gorge out Basilio mind while staring at that unreadable face that's doesn't look he would find an answer, sighed quietly.
But he knows whatever was running through Basilio's head, it was never good when Basilio smiled like that.
Haylen Theodore.
Leo thought of the woman with the name, he really felt pity for the first time for her. As this might be her last act of a main character in this story. From now on, she would have to live like a dead mouse.
For her own good, that is.
****
"Oh my, you really looking pretty. I can't believe you're the Haylen everyone was talking about!"
Haylen tried to raise the corner of her twitching lips. Every one of the remarkable guests who she meet with Chairman Jaffray, have the same pattern of speech with a smile on her face.
With a sly remark of how they have tried to make Basilio their son-in-law, lucky she is to have a man like Basilio as her husband or how she should be grateful.
But if only what their gazes could hide what it reflects a bit, of how it transpired with filled contempt, even when they are giving out their, oh so best wishes and congratulations.
After all this isn't the first time she's experienced such contempt gaze, so it doesn't really matter.
Perhaps the were even congratulating her for because of the respect for Chairman Jaffray, the old man who laughed at their comments as if it's was nothing but a healthy jokes.
But Haylen knew it was different, a tenacious old man like chairman Jaffray must see all through well the meaning behind their words, but since chairman Jaffray was against this marriage too.
And also knows how he must have wanted to see his grandson on high toes with a remarkable woman, but he wasn't able to do anything to break the marriage agreement and now he has to respectfully shows her around and introduced her to the guests as tho it was normal.
So Haylen kept her expression polite, refusing to let them see how deep the barbs stuck.
It was also to her pure stubbornness.
About how she was incompetent and how their daughters dream man was snatch away from them, saying, "It's a shame, but what can be done, now mistresses is in dear need to stable her home!"
So? What's there to gain about telling her such? To add salt to her wounds? Then what next?
As Haylen inwardly thought that, and felt like rolling her eyes to the woman. She decided to excuse herself, when a man she didn't recognize appeared beside her.
"Madam, It's time to leave."
She blinked, caught off guard. "What?"
"I will take you home!"
Haylen still staring at the man who was steadfast remained on his spot and had spoke again for her own understanding.
She couldn't believe the words, how could a main host leave before the party was even done.
"But—"
Before Haylen could uttered, the man interrupted her. Confidently speaking,
"It's an order from the CEO!" he said.
Then after a beat:
"He said you've had enough insults for one night."