Chapter 22: Dance with meThe tension in the air grew thick. Lara held her breath. Sophia's eyes darted back and forth between the two men. Ansel's gaze remained fixed on Paul. His voice finally cut through the silence, soft, smooth, but deceptively dangerous. "Not really..." The words fell like a shard of ice in the heart of the opulent ballroom. A couple of reporters fumbled their cameras. Several investors suddenly seemed deeply absorbed in the floral arrangements. Paul Bryant's smile finally cracked. Not enough to disappear completely, but just enough for everyone to know that the blow had landed. Lara's stomach twisted. Ansel always got calm when he was angry; that was how he made it so much worse. If he had shouted, if he had railed and bellowed, they could have argued back. If he grew silent, that meant they were suffering. Paul stared at him for a long moment. Then, a short laugh, utterly humorless, burst from his throat. "Still blunt, I see." Ansel said nothing in res

Lara's breath hitched because she was expecting a response. There was none. The man who'd loved her enough to spend a whole year hoping she'd come back.Her lips parted and then closed.There was no response. Paul was watching her and in the silence...He understood, and across the ballroom, Ansel Yorke looked up. His gaze fell immediately on Lara and then on Paul.Then the silence between them. A shadow crossed his eyes because even at this distance.He could feel that whatever had just happened...It mattered.The ballroom pretended to be perfection cast in architecture; a gilded cage. Chandeliers suspended like frozen galaxies, gold filigree pillars that reflected the muted candlelit gleam, and guests clad in muted silk, navigating the flow of conversation which sounded like laughter, but never quite reached their eyes. Every aspect whispered of comfort and affluence and control.But Sophia had started to detect something else lurking beneath the surface of this illusion.Anxiety.

Sophia hadn't moved an inch since Ansel had left her, as if her body had already forgotten how to respond while her mind continued to burn away all that it had just experienced. The ballroom around her gradually slipped back into its faux rhythms: the music's lulling tenderness, the discreet peals of laughter that still fell in careful bits, the clinking of glasses once again. Still, nothing seemed to shift into place in Sophia's mind; as if that one tiny crack had already split through the facade of the entire evening and nothing would ever hold it together again.Her eyes never strayed from the receding figure of Ansel even as he melted into the departing crowd, and the weight of that figure moving further away without even a single look back at her carried an irritating, unyielding burden on her chest. He hadn't denied it; not at all, not really, not in the way she’d needed him to. He had simply given that one nod, precise and economical and completely devoid of hesitation and emot

The morning light filtering through the dining room windows was gentle and almost disarming, as though the world outside hadn't already taken a sharp turn without any of them noticing. Lara stepped into the dining room quietly, the soft sound of her heels on the hardwood announcing her arrival before she said a word. Her family was already seated at the breakfast table, the collection of plates, cups, and the morning's routine forming an ironic illusion of normality in light of the previous night's events. She stood in the doorway for a moment, observing them without interrupting, then let out a small breath. "Good morning, mom, dad" she said softly, "good morning Grandma" her voice tinged with the weariness that had not allowed for proper sleep.Her father looked up first, followed by her mother, and then her grandmother, their gazes holding that same inherent sense that something about Lara wasn't quite settled. Jeremiah, lounged easily in his chair, an advantage that always see

"Mr. Yorke!" Lara blurted out the words before she could stop them. The construction workers paused, the drilling and hammering seemed to momentarily die down at the sound of her sudden outburst. Ansel had stopped walking. For a second, that was all that happened. He just stood there with his back still to her and offered neither a sign that he knew she was there nor bothered to look around. He reached one hand casually into the pocket of his slate-grey trousers, the other hand fell limply to his side. Morning sunbeams cut long shadows through the half-finished floors of the headquarters building entrance. Lara hurried after him, the sharp clicking of her heels against concrete amplifying as she followed him into the building. The instant she was through the doorway, her stomach dropped. The room felt… off. The lobby she had known her whole life was completely gone; the marble reception desk where she had greeting guests after school had vanished. Even the huge Cree Corporation log