Roselle Dessin had never dropped a glass in her life, and she had no plan to start at the Sarre summit.
Roselle: Arlo. Where did she go?
Arlo: Over there. With the brats.
Roselle crossed the marble floor with her camera smile, and the crowd parted.
Roselle: Brenna, sweetheart. I hope you didn't sign anything you can't live up to.
Brenna: If you came to wish me luck, do it from farther away.
Arlo Bell pressed his palm flat on her black folder and pushed it into her ribs.
Arlo: You're one contract away from a gutter, bitch.
Arlo: Sign the wrong paper and nobody finds the pieces.
Remy shoved past Arlo's arm and stood in front of his mother with both shoes flat on the marble.
Remy: Get away from her.
He lifted his chin, and his little face pulled into a frown that belonged to a grown man.
Roselle looked at the boy's face, and her stomach dropped.
The dark brows. The flat, certain mouth. The gray eyes that judged the room and found it small.
She had seen that exact frown across a boardroom table twelve minutes ago.
Her fingers went cold, and the champagne flute slipped from her hand.
The glass shattered on the marble, and every head in the lounge turned.
Roselle stood in a puddle of gold with her mouth open while someone laughed.
He frowns like Evren. The thought was cold water down her back.
Two years at Evren's side, and she had never seen him look at a child.
If the boy was his, everything she had built here was finished.
A dark suit filled the edge of her vision, and the noise in the lounge dropped to a hush.
Evren: Is someone hurt?
Evren Sarre looked at the broken glass, then at the small boy in front of Brenna.
Remy did not look away, and neither did Evren.
Something passed between them, quiet and plain, like a door opening in a room nobody had entered in years.
Roselle: Evren, darling, it's only a spilled drink.
Her fingers curled around his arm, but what she held felt like carved wood.
Roselle: The boy is staring at you.
Evren: Brenna.
His voice was low, and her name in it made the guests lean closer.
Evren: Who is the boy's father?
Brenna felt the floor tilt, the way a boat tilts before the water shows.
Six years ago he had pushed her hair back and said her name like that.
Her hand found Remy's shoulder, and her fingers stayed steady because his did.
Brenna: That's none of your business, Mr. Sarre.
Evren: I asked you a question.
He moved a step nearer, close enough for his cuff to graze her arm, and her heart kicked hard.
When she turned to go, he caught her elbow, not hard enough to bruise but hard enough to stop.
Evren: Tell me his name.
Brenna: Let go of me.
Roselle watched from the broken glass, and her hands would not stop shaking.
Roselle: Evren. People are watching.
Two years as the woman on his arm, and now he was holding another woman's arm in front of the whole summit.
Brenna pulled her elbow free and gathered her children with one look.
Brenna: Come on, babies. We're done here.
June took her hand. Sage took the other. Remy walked in front like a small guard.
Evren watched until the glass doors closed behind a yellow raincoat.
The boy's frown stayed with him, printed on the inside of his eyes.
Roselle: She's nobody, Evren. Hired help with three children and no husband.
Evren turned his head, and Roselle felt her smile die in her mouth.
Evren: Nobody has a son who frowns like me.
He pulled his arm free and walked toward the elevators, and the crowd parted like water.
Roselle stood alone in the broken glass, and her breath came short.
She had built two years of safety on Evren never seeing that face.
Now he had seen it, and everything she borrowed was one question from gone.
At the elevator, Evren looked back once at the empty glass doors.
The boy's frown was still there, printed behind his eyes, small and exact.
He had never wanted a family. Now he wondered if one had been kept from him.