Chapter 2
Gabriel’s gaze dropped briefly toward my hand.
“Everything okay?”
“He moved.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
It always did.
Not dramatically.
He never turned the pregnancy into a performance.
But something softened around his eyes every time I told him the baby had moved.
“He?”
“I still think it’s a he.”
“The doctor gave us no evidence supporting your position.”
“I’m his mother. I’m allowed to be irrational.”
“You’re the least irrational person I know.”
“That might be the most insulting thing you’ve ever said to me.”
His mouth twitched.
Then the car slowed.
Outside, camera flashes lit the entrance to the Allesian Hearts Gala.
My stomach tightened.
Gabriel noticed.
He reached for my hand, but stopped before touching me.
“Khloe.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t owe anyone in there bravery.”
Something painful moved through my chest.
Julian used to tell me to be strong.
Gabriel told me I was allowed not to be.
There was a difference I had spent years learning.
“I’m not going in there to be brave,” I said.
“Why are you going?”
I looked toward the entrance.
Because I had spent two years arranging flights, dinners, invitations, and entire cities around the possibility of running into the man who had abandoned me at the worst moment of my life.
Because I had become very good at pretending avoidance was peace.
Because every photograph of Julian beside another younger, brighter woman had somehow been turned into evidence that I had lost.
Because the same newspapers that once called me a “visionary strategist” had later reduced me to one sentence:
Julian Duval’s former wife, whose struggle to conceive reportedly strained their marriage.
As if my body had broken a contract.
As if grief had been my scandal.
As if Julian had simply survived me.
I looked at Gabriel.
“Because I’m tired of disappearing.”
He nodded once.
“Then we go in.”
The door opened.
Noise hit first.
Reporters shouting.
Cameras firing.
Names being called.
Gabriel stepped out before me.
That changed the sound immediately.
“Gabriel!”
“Mr. Lancaster!”
“Gabriel, over here!”
“Is Lancaster Capital expanding its medical portfolio?”
“Gabriel, who are you here with?”
He turned.
Reached into the car.
And offered me his hand.
I placed mine in it.
Then I stepped onto the carpet.
For half a second, no one understood what they were seeing.
I knew the exact moment they did.
The shouting changed.
“Khloe?”
“Khloe Duval?”