The announcement came like a knife slid across porcelain—quiet, deliberate, impossible to ignore.
“We’ll host dinner tomorrow night.” Nate didn’t even look at me when he said it. He just folded the newspaper with neat, sharp movements, as if the creases mattered more than my reaction.
My hand froze halfway to my mouth, toast hovering. “Dinner?”
“Business partners.” His tone was casual, but his eyes flicked up briefly, catching the way my shoulders stiffened. “Investors. The usual.”
The knife slipped from my fingers and clattered against the plate, the sound too loud in the cavernous kitchen. “Here? In the penthouse?”
“Where else?” he asked, one brow lifting as though I’d asked whether the sky was blue.
I swallowed hard. My throat felt dry as chalk. All I could picture were the faces,
