“I didn’t know she was his daughter,” Chloe whispered.
Clarissa looked at her.
“That is not the apology you think it is.”
A ripple of stunned approval passed through the room.
Julian’s phone rang. Then rang again. Then again.
He looked down.
Board Chairman.
General Counsel.
Banking Partner.
His mother.
He ignored all of them.
“Clarissa,” he said, voice breaking now, “I made mistakes. Terrible mistakes. But we can fix this. We’re married.”
She stared at him.
For one sickening second, her heart remembered him differently.
The man who once brought her coffee in bed during a snowstorm. The man who kissed her forehead outside a courthouse and promised, “I don’t need anything but you.” The man she had chosen over her father, over comfort, over inheritance, over everything.
Then she remembered the man downstairs who had said, “You’ll only embarrass me wearing that dress.”
