The guests laughed. The tension thinned slightly, replaced with polite amusement. But Winn didn’t laugh.
He narrowed his eyes at Sharona, and the look he gave her could have stripped paint.
Around them, the conversation flowed on—men discussing Commissioned’s dancers, half-joking, half-praising the allure of the place.
Winn bent slightly toward Ivy. "Who is he?" he murmured, barely moving his lips.
Ivy swallowed hard, her throat bobbing as she leaned closer, her words ghosting against his ear. "He’s in charge of the dancers’ costumes at Commissioned," she whispered. "He knows me."
He nodded once. His protective instincts surged. Whatever Sharona thought she was doing—it ended now.
"Excuse me for a minute, sweetie." Winn’s tone softened as he brushed a kiss to Ivy’s forehead, lingering there just long enough to reassure her. His lips were warm, grounding. "You’re okay," he murmured before straightening.
Then he turned toward Sharona, his eyes no longer gentle. "Come with me," he said quietly.
Sharona hesitated, glancing at Tom briefly. She huffed softly, feigning indifference, and followed Winn.
The moment they stepped away from earshot of the guests, Winn turned abruptly, his hand snapping around her arm. "Are you crazy?"
"Excuse me?" Sharona lifted one brow.
"What were you trying to do there? Announce to the guests that my fiancée works at Commissioned?"
There was a tight, performative pause. Sharona’s smile was all glare and teeth. "So you know?" she tossed back.
"Of course I know. What gives you the right to butt into my private business?"
"I don’t know. I thought you and I shared something. And then you announce to my face that you are marrying that slut!"
"Call her names one more time. I dare you."
"You’re really going to marry her knowing what you know?" Sharona pushed, the venom laid bare. She had expected to wound. She had expected a crack.
"What I know is none of your business. And if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I will end you in this city."
Sharona’s eyes flared. "I liked you, you know. I thought—" she whispered, as if confession could retake the stage. It was a practiced vulnerability, the lift of a lower lip, a staged wobble.
"Stop liking me," Winn said. He stepped closer. "We had a night. One night. It gives you no right because it most definitely didn’t mean anything to me. All I did was scratch an itch; so did you." The cruelty of the phrase was a scalpel. He matched Sharona’s theatrics with blunt reality—he refused to romanticize it.
"And I don’t know how you got that information," he continued, "but if you even breathe down my fiancée’s neck in the future, it is not going to be a conversation as pretty as this." He let the threat hang there. "Now get the fuck off this premises."
Sharona pivoted on her heels and made a small exit.
Winn went back to Ivy and the expression on his face changed. He threaded a hand around her waist and drew her close. His mouth brushed the shell of her ear. "No one hurts you."
The conversation had changed now thankfully from Commissioned to a promising merger opportunity; another asked Winn about his latest project.
Towards late evening, the soft buzz of the engagement celebration melted into a quieter hum. Guests lingered only long enough for another glass of champagne, another round of compliments. Then, one by one, they began to disperse.
Joey clapped Winn hard on the back, his grin wide and brotherly. Diane hovered a few feet away, scrolling absently through her phone. "Well," Joey said, "the man of the hour finally gets a moment to breathe." Google seaʀᴄh 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭⟡𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦⟡𝘯𝘦𝘵
"House of Kane is up to you this week," Winn said.
"You’re going for a week? Dude, it’s not yet a honeymoon!" His laugh came out rich, teasing. "You just got engaged, not married!"
"I need to protect Ivy from the press," Winn replied simply. "Within a week, their interest in her will reduce."
"Alright then. I’ll report to you at the end of every workday." He extended a hand, but Winn ignored it, pulling him into a rare, genuine hug. Joey laughed softly into his shoulder. "Don’t go soft on me now."
"Shut up," Winn muttered. "And I hope you know it goes without saying that you’ll be my best man."
"Of course," Joey said, stepping back, straightening his jacket with exaggerated pride. "And I hope to be as much delight as you were during my wedding."
"What?" Winn raised a brow, one side of his mouth twitching.
"Dude," Joey said, "you made the chief bridesmaid cry. You were cranky during the entire event. I swear, if Diane hadn’t stopped me, I’d have thrown cake at you."
"First of all," Winn began, rolling his sleeves up, "the so called chief bridesmaid was trying to get my attention by being too obvious. It was desperate. Second, you’re my sister’s ex. She expects me to be in her corner."
"So you decided to glower through my vows?" Joey chuckled, shaking his head.
"Was I supposed to hire a band and dance the salsa?" Winn asked dryly, one brow arching.
"No explanations needed, man. Tit for tat." Joey clapped him on the back before strolling away toward his wife, laughing as if life owed him no worries.
"Hey, I take it back," he called out. "I’ll find someone else!"
Joey twisted around mid-step. "No one likes you!" he shouted, grinning wide before disappearing into his car with his wife.
Winn chuckled as he turned back toward the house. He stepped through the hallway and found his mother and Ivy in a quiet corner of the sitting room, whispering in conspiratorial tones. Ivy stood beside her, her cheeks pink.
"Everything okay in here?" Winn asked, raising a brow. He caught only the last part of their hushed conversation. Something about raising her legs for ten minutes before getting up. And with Ivy’s flushed face and the way Anna avoided his eyes, he didn’t need divine wisdom to figure out what the conversation had been about.