“I didn’t come as your corporate attorney, Arthur,” Julian said, and his voice was quiet, and it carried to every corner of the silent ballroom precisely because it was quiet.

“I came as Jessi’s husband.”

The gasp that went through the room was audible.

Somewhere near the front, Chloe’s champagne glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor, and the sound of it rang out and no one moved to clean it up.

My father’s face drained of all its color, and then he turned his frantic, disbelieving eyes on me.

“Husband?” Arthur stammered, and the arrogant posture he had worn my entire life came apart in front of four hundred people.