THEY THOUGHT I WAS THE PERPETUAL SAFETY NET—UNTIL I TOLD THEM TO CALL EMILY
Damien Rowe did not run.
He walked.
That made it worse.
Every step he took across the marble floor sounded calm, controlled, final. Students backed away without understanding why. Parents in diamonds clutched their champagne glasses tighter. Headmaster Ellison looked as if his bones had turned to water.
Damien stopped beside Maren.
For one second, the dangerous man disappeared.
He dropped to one knee, his black coat spreading across the floor, and reached for her with a gentleness that broke something inside her chest.
“Maren.”
Her lips trembled. “You’re alive.”
His jaw tightened. “I looked for you for seven months.”
Pain ripped through her belly again. She gasped and curled both arms around herself.
Damien’s face changed.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just enough for everyone in the room to understand that something terrible had been awakened.
“Ambulance,” he said.
No one moved.
Damien slowly looked up.
“Now.”
Six of his men moved at once. One called emergency services. Two cleared the room. Another took Chloe’s phone from her shaking hand.
Chloe finally found her voice. “You can’t do that. My father—”
Damien stood.
The ballroom went silent.
“Your father,” he said softly, “is going to wish he had never learned my name.”
Chloe’s confidence cracked.
Headmaster Ellison stepped forward, sweating. “Mr. Rowe, this is a school matter—”
Damien turned his eyes on him.
Ellison stopped speaking.
Maren tried to sit up, but Damien immediately lowered beside her again. “Don’t move.”
“They accused me,” she whispered. “They said I stole a watch.”
Damien looked at the ripped trash bag. Then at Chloe.
“Find the watch.”
One of his men walked to Chloe’s designer clutch and opened it.
Inside, beneath a lipstick and a silver compact, was the rose-gold Cartier.
The room inhaled as one.
Chloe went white.
Damien looked at her with terrifying calm.
“You put a pregnant woman on the floor for a lie.”
Chloe’s mouth opened, but no sound came.
Outside, sirens began to rise.
Damien took Maren’s hand and pressed it against his chest.
