Arianna Skye Lopez walks alone, beautiful and closed off.
The red carpet was a field of honour of velvet and camera flashes.
Every step Arianna Skye Lopez took sent another wave of shutters into frenzy.
The car door had marginally closed behind her before the paparazzi surged onward like wolves.
They didn't see a person. They saw a performance.
And she gave them one.
Festooned in a charcoal couture gown that melted into her curves like shadow silk, Arianna walked—head high, expression neutral, eyes unbothered. Her sculpted face, carved by bone and destiny, didn't flinch. Plum lips. Spanish grey eyes. A waist cinched not by corsets but by legacy. 5'11" of embodied elegance. Her skin, untouched by imperfection, caught the golden lights and reflected them back like a myth.
She walked alone.
No escort.
No arm candy.
No pre-approved co-star, just herself.
She made aloneness look like the highest form of power.
The whispers began before she reached the first step.
"Where's her date?"
"She's usually seen with someone."
"Didn't she fire her publicist last month?"
"Maybe she's making a statement."
But Arianna didn't answer them—not with words.
She posed once—body angled, head tilted just so—then turned away from the frenzy. Every movement measured. Every breath media-trained.
Behind her, Vivienne Blake Monroe was already soaking in attention, flashing a smile that was as sharp as it was hollow. Silver sequins clung to her like ambition, and her platinum hair framed a face perfected by procedure.
Vivienne caught Arianna's eye and offered a smirk.
Arianna didn't blink. She never gave Vivienne the satisfaction. Not in a world where perception was everything.
The gala entrance loomed ahead, flanked by pillars and velvet rope. As Arianna stepped forward, the crowd surged again.
Still—she walked alone.
Not because she was unloved.
Not because she was forgotten.
But because being loved meant being known. And Arianna Skye Lopez didn't let herself be known.
Not anymore.
The crowd hushed for a moment—not out of reverence, but recognition.
This was not a woman.
This was an idea.
Crafted. Composed. Cruelly distant.
"Miss Lopez!"
"Over the shoulder!"
"Arianna, look here—just one more!"
She gave them one glance—just one—and that was enough to set Twitter on fire.
She hadn't brought anyone. Not a co-star. Not a designer. Not a man.
And so the vultures began circling. The serenity of her silence was louder than any vice.
Inside the Gala's inner circle, undeeneath the chandeliers strung like upside-down nebula, the voices sharpened.
Vivienne Blake Monroe, ever-tactical in frost-colored Versace, had arrived just minutes before. She stood by the gold press wall, casually letting the cameras soak her in—an industry darling with teeth behind the dimples.
As Arianna stepped into the ballroom, her heels kissed the floor like punctuation. And Vivienne noticed. Of course, she noticed.
"She's really doing the icy queen thing again?" Urghh
"She always walks alone now. Like she's above it all."
"I bet she staged it for press."
Vivienne approached with the sweetness of poison wrapped in silk.
"Sweetheart," she purred, lifting a champagne glass as if it were a microphone, "your entrance? Impeccable. So… monochrome. Was it heartbreak or strategy?"
Arianna's eyes flicked across her, indifferent. "Was your filler supposed to settle already, or…?"
The air between them calm yet troubled. Vivienne's smile wavers for a fragment of a second before snapping back in place. "I suppose Spain taught you elegance. But this is Hollywood, querida. They prefer queens who speak in English and headlines."
Arianna tilted her head. "Funny. I didn't know desperation had a mother tongue."
The moment fractured with a click—a single photo from a too-curious blogger's phone, capturing the simmer between the two icons.
It would be online in seconds. Captioned wildly in minutes. Trending in hours.
Back in the powderroom, Arianna tikted on the marble basin, staring at not only herself but her inner reflection.
Her reflection was the same: flawless.
But her pulse was racing.
She pulled out her phone. Her thumb hovered over a contact saved only as A.
Alessia, her mother.
A call she couldn't bring herself to make.
A silence she hadn't broken in months.
"You don't belong there," her mother had once told her.
"They don't want you. They want what you pretend to be." Arianna's jaw tensed.
She set the phone down. Smoothed her dress. And walked out of the restroom as if nothing had fractured inside.
But outside, the media storm had already begun.
#VivVsArianna
#TwoQueensOneCarpet
"Red Carpet Rivalry Heats Up Between Hollywood's Reigning Icons"
Even Emily, ever-efficient and underpaid, was struggling to manage the PR spin. She met Arianna near the bar, looking pale under the glam lights.
"Damage control, ma'am?" Emily asked, already typing.
Arianna took the champagne flute and whispered, "Let them talk."
August arrived a moment later, unamused. "You couldn't just keep it chill for one damn night?"
"She came for me first," Arianna replied, sipping like a queen in her court.
"Everything's a war to you," he muttered.
"No," she corrected, "everything is a stage. I just refuse to be the chorus."
By midnight, she was in the back of her SUV again—shoes off with Emily by her side, lashes half peeled, a headache blooming behind her temples. She stared at the city lights passing by in streaks.
Out there, the world adored her.
In here, it was quiet.
And yet, the weight pressed heavier than ever.
She pulled up her phone again.
Still no messages.
Still no peace.
And somewhere far away, unseen by her tonight, a man named Raven Steele stepped off a plane into Los Angeles, last time they unaware that his path was about to collide with a woman who walked alone—by design.
But for now, she didn't know him.
And he didn't know her.
All she knew was this:
To be Arianna Skye Lopez meant to shine.
Even if it scorched her alive.
The four wheel lurked inaudibly into the underground parkade of her Beverly Hills estate, the concrete lit with blue-tinted lamps that shimmered across the sleek body of the vehicle
Arianna sat still for a moment, her face shadowed in the backseat, makeup perfect, but spirit unravelling at the edges. Emily, her assistant, unbuckled her own seatbelt quietly, careful not to speak until Arianna moved. They exited together.
The elevator pinged. Gold-trimmed, mirror-walled, and private—only accessible with Arianna's biometric scan. Where luxury met loneliness.
As they rose, Emily glanced at Arianna through the reflection. "You want anything before I leave? Tea? A sleep mask? I left your detox water in the fridge already…"
Arianna barely turned. "Just rest. I'll see you at noon."
Emily gave a faint nod and walked her all the way to the penthouse door like a bodyguard guarding a ghost. Then she left with a quiet click—like sealing the lid on something sacred. Arianna turned the lock.
The minute she was alone, the muzzle swaddled itself around her like a second ornament—heavier than the first.
Her heels kissed against marble as she moved deeper inside.
Her home was a work of art—open floor plan, glass walls revealing the sprawling sprawl of Los Angeles, and custom-designed everything. Cream, silver, and shadowy grey made up the palette. It's not a picture frame out of place. Not a wrinkle in the plush L-shaped couch. The city glittered below like a carpet of stars at her feet. But none of it touched her.
She trotted into her bedroom, letting the dress slip off gently while kissing her shoulders in one graceful shrug. Underneath it, her skin was flawless—ivory satin under golden light. She undid her earrings, her hairpins, and her image. One fragment at a time.
She phased into the shower drizzle, hot steam curling up like fingers of silent ghosts. The water flowed hot and sharp down her spine, dragging remnants of perfume and pretence away. She stood there longer than she should've, letting it burn away the tension behind her temples.
When she finally stepped out, she was wrapped in white. A robe. A towel for her hair. And silence.
She walked barefoot through the heated floors and crumbled into the bed—her bed. Wide as a runway, with Egyptian cotton sheets and a mattress that seemed to sigh when she did.
Arianna softens, goggling at the ceiling.
Above her, a skylight revealed nothing but stars. Beautiful. Distant. Cold.
Her defined face softened only barely in the quiet. Her lips divorced, as if to speak—but there was no one to pay attention.
Somewhere in the apartment, her phone buzzed once. She didn't reach for it.
Instead, she closed her cat-grey eyes and whispered into the emptiness:
"Red carpet. Cold heart."
And then—nothing.
The city hummed on below.
And above, the stars blinked. Watching. Waiting. Silent.