Public Proof

The air in the Sterling Hotel Grand Ballroom was thick with the scent of lilies and the metallic tang of high-stakes ambition. Mara Vale stood at the epicenter of the room, her spine a rigid line of controlled defiance, though her skin felt raw beneath the weight of a hundred collective, predatory stares.

"Smile, Mara," Adrian Kade murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against the shell of her ear. He didn't look at her; his gaze scanned the room with the ease of a man who owned the very floorboards they stood upon. "The vultures are hungry. If you look like a victim, they’ll tear you apart before the first course is served."

"I’m not a victim, Adrian," she hissed, keeping her expression fixed in a polite, hollow mask. "I’m a convenience. Let’s not pretend this is anything else."

"A convenience that keeps your son’s home from being auctioned to the highest bidder," he countered, his tone devoid of heat but sharp with the reminder of her vulnerability.

Before she could retort, a group of reporters surged forward, their camera flashes blooming like s

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