Jordan kept talking.
Mariella kept pretending she was listening.
But every nerve in her body was wired toward the other side of the restaurant, where Paul Razon sat with a woman who looked like she belonged in a Cartier ad. He hadn’t approached. He hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t even moved.
Yet Mariella felt him.
She hated that she could sense his presence without looking, the way the air shifted like it was aware of him too. She forced her eyes on Jordan, nodding, but her peripheral vision was a traitor.
Paul was silent gravity.
She refused to orbit.
Jordan casually slid the wine glass closer to her, blocking her view, subtle, protective.
“So,” he said lightly, “you’re turning thirty in what, ten months?”
Mariella blinked. “Nine. Stop rounding up like I’m livestock at an auction.”
Jor
