“For not realizing sooner,” she said, turning to include Marshall in her gaze, “that someone might try to use me to get close to you.”
Hale’s eyes sharpened. “Come again?”
She met Marshall’s stare. It hurt. Physically hurt. “Marshall works in security,” she said. “High-level. He’s very good at what he does. Sometimes that means... pushing boundaries.”
“Norah,” Marshall said quietly. Warning? Plea? She couldn’t tell.
She pushed past the tremor in her voice. “I had no idea he was going to do this, but I believe you’ll find your phone in his pocket. I’m so sorry, Richard. I would never compromise your privacy or your position.”
Hale’s hand went to his jacket pocket again, slower this time. His fingers brushed the empty space.
His gaze slid to Marshall, and the genial charm he wore like a habit drained a few degrees.
“I see,” he said.
“Richard—” Marshall began.
“I think,” Hale interrupted, smile tightening, “that we should give security the benefit of the doubt and assume there’s been a simple...overstep.” His eyes didn’t leave Marshall’s. “Mr.Kincaid, was it? Perhaps you’d be more comfortable concluding your evening elsewhere.”
Two men in dark suits had appeared as if conjured—event security, not hotel staff. They hovered just far enough not to be obvious, just close enough to move.
Norah’s chest constricted. She’d lit the fuse. She knew it. Marshall knew it.
He didn’t argue. Didn’t bluster. He just held her gaze for one long, searing second—hurt, anger, and something like resignation flickering through the blue.
Then he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, to Hale. “Wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome,” he said.
Hale gestured. Security stepped in with polite hands and low voices. It was an escort designed not to make a scene. “My phone?” He held his hand out and Marshall handed it over before the security guards pulled him aside.
Norah stood rooted as they led Marshall toward the side exit. Every instinct screamed to stop them. To take the words back. To explain.
She didn’t move.
This is what she had chosen. She chose to protect Hale. To protect her career. To protect the tiny sliver of normal that was left.
Marshall paused at the threshold, just for a heartbeat, and looked back.
Their eyes met across the glittering room—chandeliers, champagne, colorful dresses—all of it a blur between them.
You told him to go, something inside her whispered. Again.
He turned and disappeared through the door.
Norah’s lungs burned. The ballroom noise rushed back in, the murmur of the crowd and the clink of glasses suddenly overwhelming.
“Thank you,” Hale said quietly beside her. “For your loyalty.”
She forced a smile that felt like it might crack her face. “Of course,” she said. “I’m on your side.”
She watched the door where Marshall had vanished until the crowd swallowed it from view.
Then she lifted her chin, fixed her expression, and stepped closer to Hale—into the center of the very orbit Marshall had tried to pull her out of.
CHAPTER 21
MARSHALL
Marshall stood,firmly planted to the ballroom floor. The guards were still gently tugging him toward the side exit—“Sir, this way, please, we don’t want a scene,”—when Norah turned back.
