The soft notes of the grand piano filled the ballroom, but my heart beat louder. Every smile thrown my way was laced with curiosity—or worse, suspicion. I stood near the piano as instructed, swirling champagne I had no intention of drinking, watching for Dominic to return. He didn’t.
Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty.
The old man who whispered in his ear was gone too.
I was tired of pretending to be a mannequin in designer silk.
With a calm, deliberate pace, I stepped away from the piano and made my way down one of the side corridors. The hallway was quieter, lined with oil paintings of Whitmore ancestors and lit with antique sconces that cast long shadows on the floor. A soft murmur of voices drifted through a barely open door at the far end.
I approached it on instinct.
“—she’s a
