“I met Miss Phoebe years ago at a private meeting in Geneva,” he said coldly.

“She was wearing that same ruby necklace. If you say she’s lying, Miss Daley, then you’re calling me a liar too.”

The color drained from Paisley’s face, realizing her own relative was defending me. Another businessman, owner of a hotel chain, looked at Spencer with contempt.

“Boy, you had something priceless in your home and treated it as worthless,” the older man said. “That’s not a lack of information. That’s a lack of class.”

Spencer swallowed hard. I could see his mind racing, and his face no longer showed anger, but panic and calculation.

The truth about my name had changed everything for him. The deal his group had been negotiating with the Harrell Group for months depended on my father, and it was a multi-billion-dollar alliance that he needed to keep the company from collapsing under its debts.