Ruby
The silence in the apartment was a heavy, suffocating thing, a physical weight that pressed against my chest. Allie had been the one to break it, her voice gentle but firm as she paced the length of my living room, laying out the unavoidable reality of the next seven days. A high-stakes corporate luncheon in Chicago—a mandatory appearance for the Ray legacy that neither of us could escape. If I didn’t go, the whispers of the press would turn into roaring headlines, and the gossip would be louder than the truth. If we went and played separate, it would be a confession of our ruin, a public spectacle of a marriage in freefall.
"I don't want the public to know, Allie," I whispered, staring into my vanity mirror. My ginger hair, usually vibrant, looked dull and lifeless in the low li
