To Le Laurier’s guests, Valerie was just a blur in black and white: the hand that refilled glasses, the voice announcing specials, the body absorbing complaints.
They didn’t see the dark circles hidden beneath cheap concealer. And they certainly didn’t know that three years earlier, Valerie had been a PhD candidate in Comparative Linguistics at the Sorbonne in Paris—one of the brightest in her program.
Until the phone call.
The accident. Her father’s stroke. Medical bills swallowing savings whole. Valerie left Paris overnight. She traded libraries for trays, lecture halls for a noisy dining room—all to keep Thomas Monroe, her father, in a rehabilitation center upstate where he was treated with dignity.
“VIP!” Oliver hissed again. “Table one. Best view. Don’t screw this up.”
Valerie glanced toward the heavy wooden doors as the host—a nervous teenager named Evan—led in a couple.
The man entered first, as if the air parted for him. Tall. Custom navy suit. Gym-sculpted shoulders. Handsome in a magazine way—but cruel in motion. His jaw was tight, his eyes scanning the room, searching for who was watching.
Victor Sterling.