We retreated inside after that small display, and I felt a satisfaction that was sharp and young. For a while, Conley’s attention stayed anchored. He moved through the room with his hand finding mine in public, a small, deliberate tether. Angel noticed. She watched with the kind of calm that presses a thumb over a bruise to check if it’s real. She smiled at us politely, but there was a new calculation in her eyes.
Then the evening began to bend. A minor scandal erupted—an overheard comment from a guest about a pending merger, the wrong name slipping into a toast. Conley excused himself to handle it. I ran interference, smoothing the guest’s offense into a plausible apology. We were a team in those moments—two parts of the same machine. But later, when the staff retreated to the service wi
