Chapter 2: The Ring on the Tablecloth
PART 2
I didn't lower my voice.
I pulled my wrist free from Marcus's grip and took one slow step back.
"You want me to be quiet," I said, "because your colleagues are watching.
Not because I'm wrong."
His jaw tightened.
"This is not the time."
"You knew about these rules before today.
You sat across from me at dinner last week and said nothing.
You let me walk into this reception thinking I was marrying a partner."
Marcus glanced toward the nearby tables.
A man in a dark suit had stood up.
"Valeria, I'm warning you—"
"Warning me?" I looked down at the ring on my finger.
Then I looked back at him.
"Marcus.
Did you marry me, or did your mother?"
The table went completely silent.
I slipped the ring off.
Placed it on the white tablecloth in front of Beatrice.
"Keep it," I said quietly.
"It came with conditions I never agreed to."
That was the moment I noticed my father, Arthur, rising from his seat across the room — and Marcus's boss, Richard Calloway, walking directly toward him with his hand already extended.
They knew each other.
Marcus had gone pale.
Beatrice's confident smile had disappeared entirely.
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What Valeria's father said to Richard Calloway in the next sixty seconds changed everything Marcus thought he had.
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