From inside his glass office, Chad's head snapped up.
"Liam!" Chad scrambled out from behind his desk, relief flooding his face like a drowning man spotting shore. "Liam, man—thank God you're here—"
Liam walked past him like he was furniture.
He stopped in front of April, his attention dropping to her left hand.
"Killian has always had excellent taste in acquisitions." Then he gave her a sidelong glance. April wasn’t sure how sure how but she knew he knew it was all completely fake.
Behind them, Chad called out, voice climbing. "Liam! Killian's gone crazy! He thinks they're engaged!"
Liam's attention didn't waver from April's face.
"Tell them she's mine!" Chad's voice cracked. "She was at family dinner last week—I didn't make it, but she told me she went—you were there, you saw—"
Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.
Chad's eyes cut to April with the same desperate expectation he'd shown at lunch when Mateo handed him kale.
She was looking at Liam, listening to Liam, her attention completely elsewhere without even a glance in Chad's direction.
"As you know," Liam said mildly, "I'm on the board at the Sterling Gala tonight. It's the most exclusive event in the city."
Chad popped up on that sentence like it was a life raft. "Yeah. And don't even think about trying to get on the list," he snapped at April. "I've been on the waiting list five years. It's very exclusive." His eyes darted to Liam, waiting for backup.
Liam's eyebrow quirked at April. A small, deliberate invitation.
A serve.
April kept her face neutral. Inside, the decision clicked. Agency wasn’t as hard to claim as she’d expected.
Time to volley.
"Put me on the list," she said simply.
Chad made a strangled sound and snapped his head toward Liam. He looked lost, like a man who'd shown up to the match late, still searching for his racket.
Liam’s gaze stayed on April.
“Come as my guest,” he said.
Point.
April didn't look at Chad. She didn't have to. She could feel it shift behind her. The silence, the slack-jawed realization. The game was happening around him. He wasn’t benched. He was never even invited.
Liam pulled a gold-edged invitation from his pocket. When April reached for it, his knuckles grazed the back of her hand. Liam went still — not frozen, not dramatic, just a brief absence of motion, like a man who'd been mid-sentence and lost the word. His fingers curled once against his palm.
Chad surged forward, face tight with anger he couldn't afford to show too loudly. “You’ve made your point,” Chad snapped, forcing calm. “Now let’s end this before it gets worse.”
He looked at Liam. Waited. Liam adjusted his cuffs.
A courier in a company polo stepped into the edge of the bullpen, bouquet in hand.
"Delivery for April Feuller?"
Heads lifted. Phones paused mid-scroll. Even Jessica from Finance stopped pretending to read.
The courier glanced down at the card. "From… Killian Blackwood."
