Professor Williams’s name carried weight all over the world. Yet in person, he looked nothing like the austere legend the media made him out to be. He was tall and lean, maybe in his early forties, with intelligent eyes behind rimless glasses and calm confidence that made people instinctively lower their voices around him. His mother’s Latino roots softened his sharp features, giving him that dangerously handsome, mixed-heritage look—the kind that drew eyes without even trying.
When he said, “Come sit here,” his tone was mild, but it hit the crowd like thunder.
For a moment, everything froze.
Emma’s perfectly painted smile faltered. Her expression wavered, shock first, then disbelief, and finally, jealousy that burned through the cracks in her composure. All her careful networking, her
