The whole gala floor turned up toward me at once, and behind every lifted phone there was a face enjoying itself.
Bramwell Tarr's face had gone old and gray, but his hand was still fast.
Bramwell: You'd spread your legs for a Crowe and call it a fucking miracle?
His fingers clamped down on my arm before I could jerk it away, and his thumb hunted out the sore place and squeezed until the joint felt wrong.
Then he shoved me into the rail, and the whole staircase rang.
Bramwell: Say it again where my lawyer can hear it, and I'll own the mouth that said it.
Lachlan: Let go of her.
His voice came from the stairs behind me, flat and quiet, and the landing went so still I could hear champagne fizzing.
Bramwell let go. Not because he was told. Because he wanted to watch what happened next.
Lachlan came up and stopped one step below me, so we were eye to eye, and he did not look at me once.
He looked at the crowd.
Lachlan: The child is mine. Darcy Kerr is under my protection, starting now.
Somebody down there actually clapped, then thought better of it.
Down at the foot of the stairs, Seraphine Loft had gone very straight in her pink silk, and the sweet look had drained right out of her face.
Seraphine: Darling. Before you adopt a liar, look at this.
She held her phone up high, and her voice carried like she had been trained for rooms exactly this size.
Seraphine: Staff medical form. Signed by Miss Kerr this afternoon. Question four. Are you pregnant? She ticked no.
The screen glowed pale in that dark room, and my stomach dropped all the way through the floor.
Four hundred people made a sound like a wave pulling back off sand.
Seraphine: So there's no baby. There's a broke little bitch from a bindery who fucked my fiancé in a library and needed a story fast.
Seraphine: I'm not even angry. I'm embarrassed for him.
She came up the stairs, heels clicking, and took my chin in her fingers like she was checking fruit for bruises.
Seraphine: Look at her. Nothing in there but a temp badge and a grudge.
Her hand came off my face and came back as a slap, and her ring caught my lip.
My cheek went hot and my mouth went wet, and when I touched it my fingers came away red.
I wanted to say something clever. My mouth just hung open like a broken gate.
They had all heard me lie ten minutes ago. Now they were watching me bleed for it, and nobody moved.
Lachlan stepped between us, and the front of the crowd took a step back without being asked.
Lachlan: Touch her again and my security walks you out by the hair.
Seraphine: You're making a scene over a fake pregnancy.
Lachlan: No. I'm making a scene over my fiancée hitting a woman in my house.
Lachlan: The pregnancy was her lie. I'll carry that one.
Lachlan: But the claim is mine, and the claim is real. She walks out with me tonight.
Lachlan: Darcy. Come here.
Bramwell: Crowe. Her father's signature is mine, and it's still wet.
Bramwell: Walk her out that door and men visit Duncan tonight. Fingers first, then her pretty face.
He smiled, small and patient, and I believed every word.
Lachlan's hand closed around mine and pulled, and I went, because my legs had already voted.
His grip was the first thing all night that didn't hurt.
Lachlan: Keep walking. Don't look at them.
The elevator doors shut and cut the noise off like a knife through a rope.
He hit the button for the garage. Then he turned around, and his face was not calm anymore.
I don't know who moved first. I think it was both of us, and I think it was the wall.
His hands went into my hair and his mouth came down open on mine, and I kissed him back like I had been holding my breath for two years.
I got a fistful of his shirt and dragged him in until his chest was flat against mine. He made a low sound that I felt in my knees.
Lachlan: You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
Darcy: Shut up and keep doing it.
His teeth caught my split lip and it stung, and I pulled him back down anyway.
Then his thumb dragged along my jaw, gentle, and that was somehow worse than the slap had been.
The elevator dinged.
The doors slid open on a concrete garage, a black car, and a man in a dark coat holding the back door.
Lachlan: Get in.
I got in. I still didn't know if he was saving me or just taking me.