Chapter 2: The Mask Slips**
Evelyn retreated half a step, the smooth marble nearly betraying her balance. “Julian, don’t be dramatic,” she said, her voice rising an octave to mask the sudden tremor in her hands. “You’re listening to an emotional maid and an overimaginative child. I simply asked him to stay out of sight until the board members left.”
“He was trapped behind a nailed panel, Evelyn!” Julian roared. The mansion’s vaulted ceilings carried his fury down the gallery of dead ancestors, rattling the crystal sconces. “There is no explanation in this world that saves you from what you did tonight.”
Maria slowly rose to her feet, shielding Leo behind her apron. The boy clung to her uniform fabric so tightly his knuckles turned chalk-white. He buried his wet face into the small of Maria’s back, refusing to look at his stepmother.
“Maria,” Julian said, his voice dropping into an uneven whisper as he turned to his son. He knelt, not caring about the plaster dust ruining his handmade trousers. “Leo... look at me, buddy.”
Leo peeked out from behind Maria, trembling. “She said... if I cried, she’d leave me in the dark forever.”
Julian closed his eyes for one agonizing second. When he opened them, the cold businessman who ruled Vance Enterprises was gone, replaced by a father wrecked by guilt. For three months, he had traveled across Europe closing mergers, trusting his glamorous fiancée to care for his motherless child.
“Security!” Julian bellowed, standing tall.
Two burly guards in dark suits rushed from the foyer, halting at the sight of the broken wall.
“Mr. Vance?” one asked, looking between Julian’s furious glare and Evelyn’s pale face.
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“Escort Miss Sterling to the guest suite,” Julian ordered coldly. “Lock the door from the outside. If she steps one foot out before the police arrive, you’ll answer to me personally.”
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