useful in front of cameras and excellent at internal warfare.

But the true control of the company remained where it had always remained.

With me.

Ryan held the embossed invitation like it was a royal decree.

“This is the night,” he said, pacing through the kitchen.

“The Owner’s representative will be there.

Maybe even the Owner, who knows.

If I lock this down, everything changes.”

I looked up from burping one twin and asked, “Everything?”

He smiled like he could already taste it.

“Chairmanship eventually.

Equity package.

Control.

This is how people stop answering to other people.”

I said nothing.

He took my silence for awe.

A week before the gala, I told him I might skip it.

He turned cold immediately.

“You’re coming,” he said.

“You’re my wife.”

Not because he wanted me there.

Because a man like Ryan believed an absent wife created questions.

So I came.

I had a stylist available to me if I wanted one.

A private driver on standby.

A suite upstairs that belonged to me.

A dozen ways to make the night easier.

But by then, some stubborn, grieving part of me wanted to show up exactly as I was.

Not polished.

Not edited.

Not disguised as his version of acceptable.

I wore a black dress that fit before the twins and mostly fit now.

I pinned my hair back.

I put on heels because Ryan once said flat shoes made even beautiful women look defeated.

By the time we reached the gala, I was already lightheaded.

The babies had been restless all day.

My milk came in hard and painfully late.

One of the twins had spit up on the second dress I tried.

I changed in a rush.

I forgot to eat dinner.

The earrings I wore felt too heavy.

The room felt too hot.

Ryan was magnificent, if you liked that kind of thing.

Tailored tuxedo.

White smile.

Perfect posture.

He moved through the crowd like every compliment had been rehearsed in front of a mirror.

I stayed near the perimeter with the twins in their double stroller because he had insisted bringing them for the first hour would make us look like a strong, grounded family.

He forgot that babies are not props.

Mine were fussy within twenty minutes.

A woman from investor relations came by and bent over the stroller.

“They’re beautiful,” she said softly.

I thanked her.

She looked at me more carefully than most people did.

“Are you all right?”

Before I could answer, Ryan appeared beside us.

“She’s fine,” he said brightly.

His smile stayed fixed until the woman drifted away.

Then he looked at me once, really looked, and the revulsion that flashed across his face was so naked that for a moment I could not process it.

That was when he grabbed my arm.

He led me down the corridor beside the catering entrance.

I remember the click of my heels on marble, then concrete.

I remember the music becoming a muffled pulse behind the walls.

I remember the emergency exit door standing cracked open to the alley and the smell of garbage drifting in on the cold.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he hissed.

“I’m dizzy, Ryan,” I said.

“I think I need to sit down.”

“You look like a