Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 226

Chapter 226: Circle of Desires

"Charlotte, darling!" Margaret pulled her daughter into a hug, but her eyes weren’t on Charlotte. They kept snapping back to me like she was trying to memorize the brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa before security dragged her out. "You didn’t tell me your business partner was so... impressive."

Translation: why the fuck didn’t you warn me this man looks like sin invented a tuxedo?

Charlotte’s professional mask cracked just enough to reveal a grin. She was enjoying this. "Mom, this is also Madison Torres—Eros’s fiancée."

Madison glided forward like she owned both the runway and the trademark on poise itself. "Mrs. Thompson, it’s a pleasure to meet you."

"Torres," Margaret repeated, her inner Wall Street shark surfacing. "As in Torres Developments?"

"My family’s company, yes."

Margaret’s eyebrows flicked up. That was Miami code for royalty. "Well then, you’re practically royalty here." Margaret’s attention shifted between Madison and me with obvious curiosity mixed with something that looked suspiciously like hunger. "How fortunate for you both to have found each other."

But her eyes were back on me before the sentence even landed. The wheels were already turning— Margaret Thompson had navigated more social battlefields than the Kardashians had divorces.

She knew exactly what an engagement in this world could mean: strategy, leverage, alliances. Only that it wasn’t as she’d guessed.

Which also meant she was doing the mental math on how available I might be for... extracurriculars. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Margaret," I said, letting her name roll off my tongue like a velvet threat, "would you mind showing us around? I’d love to meet some of your friends."

The way she looked at me when I said her name—like I’d just whispered the cheat code to life—told me everything I needed to know about her: hungry for a D, starved, one Botox injection away from total implosion.

"I’d be delighted," she breathed, looping her arm through mine with the kind of casual intimacy that screamed I’ve already picked out the hotel suite for this affair.

As we moved through the party, the atmosphere bent around me. I wasn’t blending in—I was gravity itself.

Every woman’s eyes slid to me and stuck there like I was trending harder than a Bieber mugshot. Husbands clenched their jaws, shifted closer, tried to stake claims they couldn’t possibly enforce. It was adorable, like watching toy poodles bark at a panther.

Margaret paraded me through her social circle—Vivienne, Anastasia, Gabrielle—women who looked like they’d been sculpted in private Beverly Hills clinics and exported to Miami as luxury goods.

Vivienne, fiery red hair and emerald eyes, divorced from some tech exec whose biggest achievement was probably crying during layoffs, gasped the moment she laid eyes on me. "My God," she whispered, voice drenched in hunger. "You’re absolutely magnificent."

Her boldness made the surrounding men stiffen, but I just smiled like I’d been expecting the applause. I took her hand, kissed her knuckles, locked eyes.

The sound that slipped out of her—a soft, breathy gasp, halfway between a sigh and a moan—was pure symphony. Her ex-husband would have burned a data center to get that reaction.

And here I was, pulling it out of her with a hello.

Translation: the guy’s out selling boner pills but doesn’t bother giving his wife one.

The men? They were the opposite. Each one shrinking, restless, their body language screaming I should’ve taken her to Cabo this year instead of buying that boat. Comfortable husbands suddenly remembered what it felt like to be in competition. Spoiler: they hated it.

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