...
❝He was the poison I was dying to taste on my lips.❞
...
I was a coward.
The coward who wanted to leave behind the wreckage of her life for the man who had tormented her for as long as she could remember. The boy who had spit venom at me gro...
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"GOOD EVENING, Mr Vanderbildt and Ms Jalal," the museum staff greeted, welcoming us in.
Ishwarya smiled her usual warm smile, eyes twinkling and face glowing like the sky during the sunset. "Thank you for having us."
"It's our pleasure." The woman beckoned us in further, leading us through the ground floor. We walked side by side behind her as she pointed out the art they were planning to sell on the day of the gala, in addition to pieces to be auctioned. "What do you think?"
"It's perfect."
I nodded in agreement. "You've captured our vision exactly."
She smiled before turning to gesture to another member of staff and calling her over. "This is Tanya. She was in charge of seating arrangements, catering and all the important stuff so if you follow her up, she'll talk you through everything and you can change anything you see fit."
Tanya shot me a quick glance, looking away when I caught her, face heating up. I walked by her in amusement, knowing Ishwarya hadn't caught on yet. But she would. She always did.
Tanya cleared her throat when we stopped at the wide expanse of the hall. "This is the main floor of the museum since you guys came in through the back entrance on the ground floor, so if everyone comes through the main entrance then they'll directly enter the ballroom slash reception area and can come further in to sit down."
"Do you think we could display some of the pieces we're selling here as well, since people can look around as they're seated?" Ishwarya asked.
"Sure, we can definitely do that," Tanya agreed before grabbing a laminated sheet and spreading it out on a table. "This is how the seating looks so far."
Pretty much the entire town had RSVP'd to attend, so every table had every seat occupied, not leaving much space to manoeuvre things around. But there wasn't a chance of me spending the evening with both my parents, so I swapped my seat out with one of Dad's business partners, adding one more chair for his wife.
One by one, Ishwarya and I changed the seats to have a few better-suited people together, coincidentally ending up with a smaller table of seven of just us and our friends. But Tanya had placed the two of us at opposite ends, with Ishu next to Alistair and that simply wasn't going to work out.
But my Ribbon would throw a tantrum if I decided to change anything, claiming I was too controlling, so I needed to follow her route to get her to bend.
"Is that all we're changing?"
I smiled at her with a nod. "That's all. Thank you."
Once again, she glanced away, more visibly flustered as her face grew bright red. She cleared her throat, eyes returning to my face as she regained her composure. "Would you like to have a look at the menu, Mr Vanderbildt?"
