He slowly turned toward the girl, wearing the same confident smile he used in boardrooms when closing enormous deals. But now his eyes looked tense.
“Excuse me?” he said calmly. “Perhaps someone should take the little girl outside.”
Laura felt her stomach sink.
She hurried forward and gently grabbed Mia’s arm, her hands shaking as though she could somehow pull the words back into silence.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she said softly. “My daughter… sometimes she imagines things. She doesn’t understand adult discussions.”
But Mia kept staring at the parchment.
Her heart beat rapidly, each pulse echoing in her ears.
“The accent mark,” she said quietly. “It’s in the wrong place.”
The mood around the table shifted.
Not disbelief exactly.
Something more uneasy—curiosity.
Emir Harrison Blake, who had been quietly sitting at the head of the table, slowly raised his hand.
Laura froze.
“Let her speak,” the emir said.
His voice was calm, not loud, yet it carried an authority that filled the room.
Mia swallowed.
Suddenly every adult gaze felt heavy, pressing down on her.
She remembered her great-grandfather Thomas Whitmore speaking to her once during a rainy afternoon.