The Wrath Of Adrian Morgan

Chapter 9: Perfect Timing

The moment the manager stepped out, the room seemed to exhale and close back in around Brenna like water finding its level again. A cluster of guests drifted toward her almost immediately, champagne flutes tilted at flattering angles, expressions arranged into the particular warmth people reserve for someone who might, possibly, be useful to know.

"Brenna, darling, this is remarkable," said a woman in emerald silk, gripping her hand with both of hers. "A Ramirez cooperation. Do you have any idea how many people have tried and failed to get even a meeting?"

"Truly extraordinary," someone else added, angling closer. "You'll have to introduce us properly sometime — to the family, I mean."

Brenna let it wash over her, chin lifted, cheeks warm with something that had nothing to do with the champagne. This was the version of herself she'd been chasing for years — admired, sought after, the center of a room full of people who wanted something from her instead of the other way around. It was a feeling Adrian had never once given her, not in eight years, not with all his quiet competence and his home-cooked dinners and his patient, forgettable devotion.

"And who's this ?" asked a sharp-eyed man near the back, nodding at Cole. "You two seem rather close for a business associate."

The question landed at exactly the wrong moment, and Brenna felt the smile falter for half a second while her mind ran its calculations. The listing was two weeks out. Investors liked stability, liked founders who looked settled, not founders mid-scandal trading husbands in front of cameras. But then she looked at Cole — at the ease of him, the confidence, the sheer capability radiating off a man who'd apparently opened doors she'd spent a year trying to force — and the calculation solved itself.

"Adrian and I are divorced," she said, letting the words out crisp and clean, no hesitation left in them now. She slid her arm through Cole's, tilting her head against his shoulder just slightly. "Cole's actually my boyfriend. And, as most of you have probably guessed by now, he's the reason I have a relationship with the Ramirez family at all."

The pause that followed had a texture to it, something not quite comfortable, a few glances exchanged sideways — but then someone started clapping, softly at first, and it caught, spreading through pockets of the room until it became something closer to genuine applause.

"Honestly, good for you," the woman in emerald said, raising her glass. "Life's too short to stay tied to someone so — ordinary."

"She should have left him years ago," someone murmured to their neighbor, not quite quietly enough. "The way I heard it, he just stayed home the whole marriage doing nothing."

Brenna felt each comment land like a small warm coin dropped into her chest, and she basked in it, unbothered by how thin the ice under the applause actually was.

That was when the doors at the far end of the hall swung open, and five people walked in trailing equipment bags and press badges, the unmistakable posture of media arriving somewhere they expected to be the most important thing in the room that night.

"We got word there's a major announcement happening here," one of them said, already lifting a camera. "Ramirez cooperation, is that right? We'll want to cover this properly."

A ripple of excitement moved through the crowd, genuine this time, and Brenna felt her pulse quicken in a way that had nothing to do with nerves. She'd arranged this herself two days ago, back when everything had still felt certain, back when Cole's confidence had felt like proof instead of performance. She smoothed the front of her dress, rolled her shoulders back, and stepped toward the small raised platform near the string quartet like she'd been born standing on it.

"Thank you all so much for being here tonight," she began, voice pitched to carry, warm and polished in the way she'd practiced in the mirror that morning before any of this had gone sideways. "It means the world to celebrate this moment with people who've supported me from the very beginning. The partnership between my company and the Ramirez family represents—"

The doors opened again.

This time it wasn't press. It was the manager, and the moment Brenna's eyes landed on him her rehearsed sentence died somewhere in her throat, because the man walking toward her now bore almost no resemblance to the smiling, champagne-swirling figure from twenty minutes earlier. His face had gone the gray-white of old paper, jaw set hard enough that a muscle jumped visibly along it, and he was moving with the flat, deliberate pace of someone who'd already decided exactly what he was about to say and simply needed his legs to catch up.

"Oh — perfect timing," Brenna said, recovering fast, gesturing him up toward the platform with a bright, generous smile, already imagining the photo this would make. "Everyone, this is the gentleman representing the Ramirez family himself. Please, come say a few words."

The manager stopped a few feet short of her, closer to the cameras than to Brenna, and didn't return the smile at all.

"I'll say a few words," he said, voice flat, carrying easily through a room that had gone suddenly, uncomfortably quiet. He didn't look at the cameras. He looked directly at Brenna, and something in his expression made the warmth drain visibly out of her face before he'd even finished the sentence.

"I'd enjoy this a little less if I were you," he said. "The cooperation between the Ramirez family and your company has been canceled."