237 Test of Strength (9)

Once all the preparations were done, Iris carefully sat down in a fancy car with a driver. She had to make sure her dress didn't get rumpled, her hair didn't fall out of the style the hairstylist had put it in, not to break her nail or something on which she had spent another hour, or lose any jewelry that matched her clothes. All in all, she felt like a dressed up doll.

Kyro took her hand and smiled at her. "It's gonna be fine, no need to be nervous. You look a dream."

"Thanks." Iris tried to squeeze out a smile, but it didn't work. Her lip corner only twitched slightly. To distract herself, she asked, "Since when do you have a driver?"

"Dioscuri hires a few, but I prefer to drive myself unless the occasion demands."

They soon arrived at the spot, and a long red carpet stretched before them to the door. "Ready?" Kyro asked.

Iris' eyes fell on the hundreds of reporters on both sides of the path, and she took a steadying breath. She wasn't ready, but it wouldn't change in a million years, so she nodded. If she was going to stumble on her first step, might as well do it faster and get it over with sooner.

Kyro stepped out first once the driver opened the door, and Iris came out after him. The flash of dozens of cameras blinded her, but she soon felt a hand taking hers. "Smile," Kyro whispered in her ear, then pulled away to lead her down the carpet.

Taking strength from his closeness, Iris forced a smile on her face and raised her head. This was really important to Kyro, so she couldn't let him down. Not now, not when she was entering his world for the first time.

Once they passed through the door, Iris thought to heave a sigh of relief, but it got stuck in her throat. Inside, the large room was filled with mingling stars, many of whom turned to stare at them upon their arrival.

Soon, they turned away, but Iris could see them leaning to each other to whisper something. And even though she couldn't hear them, it wasn't hard to imagine what they were talking about. After all, Kyro was one of the organizers of the event, and lately he was always on the news, for the scandals or his company's situation.

"Relax, they're not going to eat you," Kyro whispered to her while nodding at a few people.

"What about you?" she whispered back, trying to unwound her stiff muscles. Although she'd worked hard to prepare for this, nothing could make her ready for the real thing.

The room was extremely vast. There were tables with snacks by the walls and a large area for people to just mingle, as everyone was doing. In the distance, she could see a large open door behind which there were many tables and a podium.

Before she could take in anything more, they were approached by a waiter who offered them glasses of champagne. Kyro picked two, then passed one to Iris. While he did that, a group of people approached them.

None of them were familiar to Iris, but from her studying the day before, she knew they were in the oil business and had little to nothing to do with Dioscuri.

"So this is the rumored lady to have captured your heart?" a man in his late twenties asked, not even bothering with a greeting. He looked at Iris with a smile, but his eyes were cold, like those of a dead fish.

"Hello, Mark," Kyro said in a voice that didn't even bother with fake politeness. "I don't remember sending you an invitation."

"And yet I'm here every year," the man said with a shrug that said he couldn't care less. "But I heard there might not be any gala next year. You planning to roll over?"

"Only after you," Kyro said, to what the other man grinned, his eyes brightening up for a second from their previous dead-looking state. "Now if you excuse me, I'm going to interact with people I actually can tolerate."

Once he pulled Iris away, she asked quietly, "He's a friend?" She hadn't found anything online, but it wasn't like every single detail of people's private lives had been leaked. Maybe there was some sort of hidden story here.

"More like a rival. We were in the same class in high school, and we always loved competing for first place. But my surname was higher than his alphabetically, so whenever we both got top scores, I would always be at the top."

Iris chuckled at the pride in Kyro's voice, then turned to look back at the man they had just talked with. He was back to being silent among his group, looking bored beyond belief. "You think he could have joined in your problems?"

There wasn't the least bit of hesitation in Kyro's shake of the head. "Not his style. What would he do without me around? I'm still half expecting him to come over to suggest helping me out just to make sure I'm around for him to compete against."

After that, they greeted the many other guests, and Iris soon lost track of how many times she was introduced. Everyone acted like model people around them, showing interest, but not too much, congratulating Kyro on finding someone, but not saying a word more, or asking about their relationship.

It was all so shallow and fake, Iris felt sick. Two hours later, before the main event of the auction was to start, she excused herself to go the bathroom. There, she thought to wash her face with cold water to refresh herself, but then saw the image in the mirror.

There was no way she could even touch her face without destroying all the make up. The stylist had said she was gonna give Iris a natural look, and it was such, but there was nothing natural about it. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had to sit in that chair for over thirty minutes.

'Yet is this really me?'

Iris closed her eyes before pulling away and taking an overall look at the person in the mirror. She was dressed immaculately, the champagne dress hugging her in all the right places. Her nails were trimmed and painted dark, matching the brown bracelets. Her hair was pulled to one side, revealing a heavy earring that glistened with reflected light.

High-class, luxurious, affluent—these were the words Iris could attribute to the person she saw, but there was nothing of her in it. Not even a shadow.

'Shush, you're not a child. Everyone wears masks. There wasn't a single real person you've met here anyway.' As she walked out of the bathroom, feeling a little drained, she passed by a corner table.

Five women sat around it. They all wore short dresses with their chests almost bursting out, and many a man were staring their way. Not caring much for them, Iris thought to just go past, but a familiar description caught her attention.

"Have you seen that champagne-dressed gold digger? How she clings to him all the time? It's disgusting, I tell you."

"It's like she can't take a step without her man, truly pathetic," another added.

"Yeah, yeah," the third echoed, laughing. "No wonder she didn't show her face for so long. Probably fears her hold isn't strong enough and once others see how incapable she is her man will get stolen."

"Ha! As if anyone would even need to steal him. I bet he'll leave her in a week at most by himself."

As the women talked, Iris had stopped involuntarily, stunned by the venomous words aimed her way. She had no idea what she had done to deserve that.

Yet before she could escape, leaving the women to thrash her for having nothing better to do, she noticed that others surrounding them were staring at her. Clearly, unlike the women at the table engrossed in their conversation, other guests had noticed Iris' presence.

If she escaped now, it would be seen as running away. There was no way to pretend that she hadn't heard the slander.

It wasn't in Iris' blood to raise a storm over a someone being unable to keep their mouth shut, but she didn't want to be seen as weak. It was obvious that weakness would not be tolerated in this environment, only abused.

Her hands shook at the prospect of a public confrontation, but she collected herself into a tight ball and crossed her arms over her chest to hide their trembling.

"Anything else to add?" she then asked loudly, her voice cutting through the din of conversations in the area around her. Everyone turned her way, and so did the group of women at the table.

Anxiety surrounded Iris, but she willed strength from the depths of her soul. Taking a step forward, she looked down her nose at the women staring at her with startled expressions.

They hadn't thought to make a spectacle, thinking they've chosen a deserted enough corner for their jealous bashing. It had never crossed their minds that the target of their slander would ever call them out on their words, and in such a grand manner too. The gala had just started, and she was already making a scene.

"So? I'm waiting. Anything else you wanted to say?"