"Don't go downstairs yet, Mr.

The call connected on the second ring.

"Marcus.

It's me." Julian kept his voice low, his back to the dressing room door.

"I need you at the hotel.

Now.

Not in an hour.

Now."

Marcus Webb had been Julian's personal attorney for eleven years.

He was the kind of man who didn't ask unnecessary questions.

"How serious?"

"Serious enough that I need everything documented before anyone walks down any aisle."

A pause.

"I'm twenty minutes out."

"Fifteen would be better."

Julian ended the call.

Teresa was watching him with wide, careful eyes, Leo still asleep against her shoulder.

"Does she know you were in the hallway?" Julian asked.

"No, sir.

The door was already open when I came to find you.

I heard her before I even reached the corridor."

"How much did you hear?"

"Enough." Teresa's voice was steady, but her hands weren't.

"She mentioned a name.

The person she was calling.

She used it once, at the beginning, before she realized the door wasn't fully closed."

Julian went still.

"What name?"

"Garrett."

The name landed like a stone in still water.

Garrett Hale.

Victoria's former business partner.

Julian had met him twice — once at a charity dinner fourteen months ago, once at a gallery opening Victoria had insisted they attend together.

Both times, Victoria had introduced Garrett as an old colleague, someone she'd worked with briefly before they'd gone their separate ways.

Both times, Julian had shaken the man's hand and thought nothing more of it.

He thought plenty now.

"Did she say anything else about him?"

Teresa hesitated.

"She said — and I'm sorry, Mr.

Sterling, I'm telling you exactly what I heard — she said, 'Once it's done, you and I can stop pretending this is just business.'"

Julian turned and looked at the closed door.

From inside, he could hear Victoria humming softly to herself.

The bright, careless sound of a woman who believed everything was going exactly to plan.

He walked to the window at the end of the corridor and stood looking down at the garden.

His mother was in the front row, talking to his cousin Daniel.

The florist was making a last adjustment to the arch.

A waiter was moving between the tables with a tray of water glasses.

A hundred and eighty people who had no idea.

His phone buzzed.

A text from Marcus: *Pulling into the car park.

Side entrance?*

Julian typed back: *Staff corridor.

Third floor.

I'll have someone meet you.*

He turned to Teresa.

"Can you take Leo to the room we reserved for him?

Stay there.

Don't open the door for anyone except me or Marcus."

"Of course." She shifted the baby gently.

"Mr.

Sterling — are you all right?"

He looked at her for a moment.

"I will be."

He wasn't sure that was true yet.

But he needed it to sound true, because the next hour was going to require him to be the clearest-headed he had ever been in his life.

He walked back toward the corridor junction and stopped a passing hotel manager — a young man named Patrick who had been coordinating the event since Thursday.

"Patrick.

I need a favor, and I need it handled quietly."

The manager straightened.

"Of course, Mr.

Sterling."

"I need a recording device — phone, tablet, anything with a voice memo function — placed near the dressing room door on this floor.

I need it running in the next five minutes."

Patrick blinked.

"Sir, I — "

"I'm not asking you to do anything illegal.

I'm asking you to set a phone on a housekeeping cart near that door and press record.

Can you do that?"

A beat.

Patrick nodded once.

"Five minutes."

"Thank you."

Julian straightened his jacket.

Checked his watch.

Eighty-three minutes until the ceremony was scheduled to begin.

He had work to do.

Down in the garden, his mother laughed at something Daniel said, and the sound drifted up through the open window — warm and unguarded and completely unaware that the wedding she had been looking forward to for two years was already over.

Julian just hadn't told anyone yet.

His phone buzzed again.