“A little,” I murmured, my gaze hazy as I stared at the crowd around us.
“Maybe I should take you back upstairs and fill you back up. I wouldn’t want my little wife to forget who she belongs to.”
I sucked in a breath and turned my head, forcing him to look at me. “You.” I placed my left hand on his beating chest. “I belong to you.”
“Max.” Mr. Obrien clapped him on the shoulder and then took a step back, not realizing Max and I were having a moment. “Sorry to interrupt. I wanted to introduce you to some of the donors for tonight.”
Max’s eyes flashed possessively at me.
“Go,” I murmured and smiled. “I’m going to sit for a few minutes.”
Catching my chin in his fingers, he held me steady and took my mouth in a long, deep kiss. “I’ll be back soon,” he murmured.
As Max dipped into the crowd, I heard Mr. Obrien remark, “I can see why you keep her to yourself, my friend.”
And Max wanted them to see. He wanted everyone to know I was his, and it was the sweetest feeling in the world.
I walked to the water table a few feet away and took a small glass, finding a chair at a table near the perimeter of the room and sinking into it. We’d been milling around the ballroom for over an hour, but it was only now that I was sitting that I felt the exhaustion start to creep in. That was why I told Max to go with Mr. Obrien alone. The second he realized my energy was flagging, he’d want to leave, and I knew tonight was a big night for him. I wanted him to have it.
“Mrs. Hamilton,” a voice drawled from behind me, its vitriol scratching at my skin, ripping away the glossy sheen Max had put on the night.
No.
My spine stiffened into steel as I turned and looked up at my former almost-in-laws.
“Mrs. McCormick.” Her dark-red lips were pulled into a severe line. “Mr. McCormick.” His lips were hardly visible at all except for how they anchored his expression in a frown. “It’s nice to see you.”
I was polite because I was too panicked to be anything else. My arm instinctively slid over my stomach when Mrs. McCormick’s gaze dropped to it, and I had to remind myself that she couldn’t take my baby. Not now, when Lucy was still inside me.Not ever.
“If you’ll excuse me—” I broke off, sinking back into the chair when Mrs. McCormick moved in front of me, bodily blocking me from standing. Suddenly, the grand ballroom felt as small as a janitor’s closet.
“Absolutely not. We have some things to discuss.”
My hand curled into the tablecloth as I fought to breathe. “I believe I said everything I needed to say to you weeks ago,” I said, my heart thudding faster. “Now, if you could move out of my way. I have to go?—”
“No.”
“My husband?—”
“Is here by the grace of his business,” Mrs. McCormick snapped. “A business which is successful by the grace ofourname.”
Dread curled like a snake in my chest, not only suffocating me but threatening to bite.
“The clients he has, the ones he’s meeting right now, Daisy, would disappear like a dandelion on a breeze with just one word from Senator McCormick. One hint that MaineStems is abusiness non grata.”
I stared at her, unable to believe what I was hearing. She was threatening me.Threatening Max.
“That child is a McCormick, and it will be raised as one. Do you understand?” she demanded, but with a smile on her face. My eyes drifted around us, guests walking by, smiling, drinking, laughing—no one realizing this wasn’t a conversation. No one realizing she was blackmailing me. “You will either hand that child over to us, or you can be responsible for Max’s failure. For his business’s failure.”
My head started to sway. I had to get out of here—get away from her. “Leave me alone.”
“If that’s what you want, Daisy, but then you’ll be responsible for the swift and sudden failure of yourhusband’sbusiness. His ruination,” she clipped. “Then you’ll not only have saddled him with a child that’s not his, but no way to support it or you.” She paused to smile and wave at someone in the distance she knew, as though she wasn’t too busy threatening a pregnant woman to be social. “Is that what you want? I doubt it, judging bythat ring.” She scoffed. “Hardly missing one rich groom before landing yourself another. A veritable Jezebel, Miss Turner…or I guess I should say Mrs. Hamilton.” Disdain didn’t drip from her voice. It suffused it. “I wonder what all of Max’s clients would think about that? What being married to a gold digger will do for his reputation?”
I wanted to scream at her.Liar!And then maybe strangle her. I didn’t want Max for his money. I didn’t want him as a backup because Todd left.
I looked at Mr. McCormick for the first time. He hadn’t said anything to this point, and I wondered if there was any way that meant I could convince him to put an end to this. Whenever Todd needed something—or had done something stupid—it was always his dad he called first. But instead of a possible ally, all I saw was another victim in his gaze.
He looked nervous. Angry. Complicit. But nervous. His stare left mine and darted around the room, as though he was afraid someone was going to make a scene.
