Chapter 4
The man who had proposed over cartons of cold sesame noodles because he couldn’t wait until the restaurant reservation he had made for the following night.
Then his eyes dropped.
He saw my stomach.
The color left his face.
I stopped several feet away.
Dalia followed his stare.
Her expression changed too.
Gabriel remained beside me.
Julian looked at him sharply, then back at me.
“Khloe.”
My name sounded different in his mouth now.
Less like mockery.
More like accusation.
“Julian.”
His gaze dropped again.
“How far—”
He stopped.
Perhaps he realized there were thirty people close enough to hear him.
Perhaps he remembered the reporters.
Perhaps, for once, he understood there were questions he no longer owned.
But Julian had never been good at surrendering ownership.
His jaw tightened.
“Is it his?”
Everything inside me went still.
There are moments when pain arrives loudly.
A slammed door.
A screamed insult.
A phone call in the middle of the night.
And there are moments when pain becomes so old, so familiar, that when someone touches it again, you feel nothing at first.
I looked at the man who had once made me apologize for crying after losing our child.
The man who had watched newspapers call me defective and said nothing.
The man who had assumed, after two years of silence, that he could still demand an explanation from my body.
I held his gaze.
“You lost the right to ask me that a long time ago.”
Dalia’s lips parted.
Julian looked as if I had struck him.
Then the lights dimmed.
A spotlight illuminated the stage.
The emcee stepped toward the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please begin taking your seats.”
The room shifted reluctantly.
Julian didn’t move.
Neither did I.
The emcee smiled.
“It is my great privilege tonight to welcome the principal benefactor of this year’s Allesian Hearts Gala, a man whose foundation has supported education, women’s leadership, medical access, and scholarship programs across three continents.”
Julian’s eyes moved to Gabriel.
Dalia frowned.
I felt Gabriel’s fingers brush mine.
The emcee continued.
“Please welcome Gabriel Lancaster.”
Applause erupted.
“And as many of you know, the Lancaster Foundation also provides the scholarship funding behind the Fontaine National Crown.”
Dalia turned sharply toward Gabriel.
The shock on her face was completely genuine.
“You sponsor my pageant?”
Gabriel’s expression remained calm.
“The scholarship program connected to it.”
Dalia stared at him.