2026-07-24 03:16:12
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383 Four Questions
Julian Ashford went down on one knee on the stage of the Grand Meridian and held up a ring.The scream that came out of that ballroom put two waiters against the wall."Ivy Solaris. In front of this whole city. Will you marry me?"Phones went up in every hand in the room. A photographer on the balcony climbed onto a chair."SAY YES! SAY YES! SAY YES!"Ivy stood in the spotlight holding a microphone she hadn't asked for. She understood exactly what had been done to her. He hadn't asked in a restaurant. He'd asked where refusing him would be the only story in the country by morning."Julian. Can we talk about this somewhere private?"Ashford smiled up at her and made sure the room heard him."Sweetheart, I've been very patient with you. Say it.""Can I say something?"The voice came from the floor. It wasn't loud. The people in front of it stepped aside anyway, then the ones behind them, until a lane ran through the middle of the ballroom.Tyler walked up it holding a bread roll.Ashfor
382 Four Questions
Julian Ashford went down on one knee on the stage of the Grand Meridian and held up a ring.The scream that came out of that ballroom put two waiters against the wall."Ivy Solaris. In front of this whole city. Will you marry me?"Phones went up in every hand in the room. A photographer on the balcony climbed onto a chair."SAY YES! SAY YES! SAY YES!"Ivy stood in the spotlight holding a microphone she hadn't asked for. She understood exactly what had been done to her. He hadn't asked in a restaurant. He'd asked where refusing him would be the only story in the country by morning."Julian. Can we talk about this somewhere private?"Ashford smiled up at her and made sure the room heard him."Sweetheart, I've been very patient with you. Say it.""Can I say something?"The voice came from the floor. It wasn't loud. The people in front of it stepped aside anyway, then the ones behind them, until a lane ran through the middle of the ballroom.Tyler walked up it holding a bread roll.Ashfor
381 Bad Weather
Tyler stood up and walked around the table to Camilla's chair."I've heard the problem. Do you want me to solve it?"Camilla raised her eyes to him with the whiskey glass still in her hand, and for a second she wanted to laugh."My dearest. I've seen you fight. I watched you throw a car door through two trucks and fifty men, and I still don't know what you are.""But?""But it isn't a fighting problem."Camilla set the glass down. "Mayor Rourke has called me twice this week. Six of the men who fund my gang came to my office on Thursday. They all said the same sentence.""And what is that?""End the war. They own hotels and shipping lines in this city. My war is costing them money, and they don't care which of us dies as long as somebody stops.""So?""So if Dorian Vex proposes in front of eight hundred witnesses and I spit in his face, I lose all six of them in a night. Then I'm a woman with three hundred men, no money, and an army at the door."Bruno kept his eyes on the floor. He ha
380 Love in the Air
The ballroom heard Ivy's dedication and lost its mind."Ivy Solaris finally found someone? She's been single by choice for years!""Who is the lucky guy?""It has to be another bigtime celebrity.""It's that actor from the billboards. They've been together since spring, it was in the paper.""No. It's the tennis player."Eight hundred people guessed out loud, and every one of them had a famous name in it.They did not look at Tyler Grant, sitting up at Don Camilla's table with a chicken bone in his hand. Nobody in that ballroom knew he existed.Ivy lifted the microphone and sang.Tyler put down his chicken and left it down. It was a slow song, and her voice filled the hall to the ceiling, and the audience went so quiet you could hear the ice melting in the glasses.Annika watched Tyler through the entire song. She was waiting for a smile, a flush, a swallow, anything a man's face does when a woman sings to him in front of a city.She got nothing. Ivy Solaris was singing to the whole c
379 Fried Chicken
Tyler pulled the fried chicken toward him and kept eating, but he ate with his eyes on the doors Camilla had gone through.Her remaining men had noticed her leaving too.Twenty of the goons in dark suits stood up from tables across the front of the room and drifted in until they'd made a loose ring around Tyler, facing outward.Nobody had told them to.A heavy man with a shaved head spoke to the others without turning round."Don Camilla brought him home tonight. Whatever he is to her, nobody gets near him until she's back.""He's more than a guest," said the man beside him. "She walked him in on her arm, and she bolted her door with him behind it last night. Do the math.""I did. That's why my mind is made up."Tyler heard every word and went on eating. Twenty gangsters had decided he was their future boss, and the only thing he wanted from them was that they stayed out of the waiter's path.Across the ballroom, Annika Salvatore was having the worst night of her year.Her grandfather
378 The Apology
Tyler came through the doors of the Grand Meridian ballroom on Don Camilla's arm, and eight hundred of the richest people in Sapphire City stopped talking at once.The room was the size of a football field. Chandeliers as big as cars hung from a gold ceiling, a stage stood ready under a bank of lights at the far end, and waiters moved between the tables with towers of champagne."Who is the handsome hunk with Don Camilla? Her boy toy?""A gangster woman like her probably uses and discards men like tissues."Camilla leaned toward Tyler's ear."My table's at the front. The food's already on it, and I ordered double of everything.""Then why are we standing here?"Before she could take a step, Vivian Anderson came out of the crowd in a white gown, looking stunning. Men's eyes turned towards her just like they did for Camilla.She was heading straight for them.Camilla looked the heiress up and down once, then let go of Tyler's arm. "Don't be long, the food's getting cold."She walked off
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