A Currency of Public Lies

The bridal suite smelled of forced lilies and the sharp, metallic tang of a panic Elena Vance couldn't afford to show. She stood on a velvet pedestal, her fingers digging into the intrusive silk of a gown tailored for her cousin—a woman currently halfway to the coast with the Vance-Thorne merger ledger tucked under her arm.

"The neckline is too low," Julian Thorne remarked. His voice was a flat, polished blade. He didn't look at her face; he looked at the stitching, the drape, the structural integrity of the facade he was paying for.

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