My father did not take her hand.
“I doubt that.”
Her smile froze.
Around them, conversations thinned. People pretended not to listen while listening with their entire bodies.
Julian lowered his voice.
“Perhaps we should speak privately.”
“We are speaking privately enough,” my father replied. “You seemed comfortable discussing my daughter publicly earlier.”
The blood drained from Julian’s face.
For the first time that night, Chloe looked genuinely confused.
“Your… daughter?”
My father turned his head toward her.
“Clarissa.”
The name struck the circle like glass breaking.
Chloe’s mouth parted.
Julian’s jaw clenched.
The senator blinked, then looked sharply at Julian.
“Clarissa Cross is your daughter?” the Apex chairman asked Arthur.
“My only child,” my father said.
The silence that followed was almost elegant.
It settled slowly, layer by layer, over every person who had laughed at Julian’s jokes, admired Chloe’s necklace, and accepted the fiction that his wife was someone unimportant.
