And then the worst truth rises up, choking. I went because I was hurt. I went because I wanted control. I went because part of me wanted to punish Anthony the way he punished me, without meaning to, without asking.
My throat tightens. I can’t type anything. If I respond right now, I’ll either beg or lash out, and both will give him exactly the wrong version of me.
So I do the only thing that feels remotely survivable.
I text Nicky.
Me:
Are you free tonight? I need your help to shop for a gown.
My hand shakes as I hit send.
Because that gala invite is a spotlight, and I can’t hide from it now.
Because if I don’t show up, I look guilty.
Because if I do show up, I have to face Anthony Voss’s eyes and whatever he thinks he saw in that photo.
Chapter 28
Anthony
The ballroom is all light and illusion.
Crystal chandeliers throw fractured gold across the ceiling; champagne flutes catch it and scatter it again in a thousand tiny sparks. A string quartet plays something elegant enough to make people feel virtuous about their own wealth. Donors and executives drift in loose groups, laughing in that polished way people laugh when they’ve paid to be seen doing good.
I move through it like it belongs to me because it does, in the way everything does when you’ve written the checks and built the scaffolding. My tux fits like armor. My smile is practiced. My handshake is firm, my voice measured, my eyes always scanning.
I haven’t spoken to April Swan in days.
Her silence sits under my ribs like a bruise you can’t stop pressing. No reply to the photo. No call. No text. Just absence. Just the vacuum where her voice used to be.
I told my team to put her name on everything. I told them to prepare her entrance, to have a stylist ready, to have a seat reserved at my table like a vow written in linen and place cards. I did it like a man who thinks spectacle can replace an apology.
Now I keep looking at the entrance as if staring hard enough will conjure her into existence.
“Anthony.”
Joseph Brant materializes at my side with a drink in his hand and a look on his face that says he’s been watching me watch the door. He’s one of the few men in my orbit who can speak to me like a person instead of a title. Fellow board member. Friend. The kind of friend you earn through mutual scars.
“You’re pacing,” he says dryly.
“I’m circulating,” I correct, voice calm. I lift a glass from a passing tray without tasting it. “This is what I’m supposed to do.”
Brant’s gaze flicks toward the podium at the far end of the room where the evening’s speeches will happen. “And Karen is supposed to wait,” he says. “But she won’t.”
My jaw tightens. “No.”
He leans in slightly, shielding his words behind the music and the murmur. “Your security report?”
“Confirmed,” I say. “Aidan Snow’s counsel tied into her legal team. Overlap in calendars. Shared contacts. It’s interference. It’s coordinated.”
“Can you prove coercion didn’t happen?” Brant asks quietly, and there’s no judgment in it—just reality.
The question is a fist closing around my throat. I stare into my champagne like it might offer a better answer than the one I have. “I can prove she agreed,” I say. “I can prove she signed. I can prove the money transferred under legal terms.”
Brant’s eyes narrow. “And in the court of public opinion?”
