Pregnant, poised, descending in midnight blue silk that moved like water over steel. Diamonds lit up across her body with every shift of the light. The sapphire at her throat looked like a captured ocean. Her chin was high. Her face was calm. She looked neither angry nor triumphant. She looked inevitable.
Preston felt something primal and humiliating happen inside him.
For the first time in years, he felt small.
She descended slowly, each step deliberate. At the bottom of the staircase, four security guards fell into discreet formation around her. To her right stood Benedict Ashford, immaculate, silver-haired, composed. To her left, forensic accountant Marcus Henderson held a leather folio like a surgeon approaching the operating table. Just behind them stood Special Agent Sarah Crawford from the FBI’s financial crimes division, expression unreadable.
Tiffany whispered, “Why does she look like your wife but… not like your wife?”
Grant Holloway, a hedge fund rival Preston despised because the man possessed actual achievements, heard her and murmured without sympathy, “Because that is his wife.”
Vivien accepted the microphone.