PART 2
The woman hurrying toward us looked as if she had stepped out of a life I had never been invited into.
Her heels clicked sharply against the polished airport floor, each step crisp and expensive. Her coat swung open as she moved, revealing a diamond pendant at her neck that caught the overhead lights with every breath.
“Desmond!” she called again.
His face had gone completely pale.
Not the pale of embarrassment.
Not even surprise.
It was the look of a man watching two worlds he had kept carefully apart crash into each other.
I adjusted our son higher on my hip, and he pressed his sticky fingers against my cheek while mumbling words only he understood. Beside me, our daughter still held out her half-eaten cracker to Desmond, innocent and smiling, unaware that one tiny offer had just split open the life of a billionaire.
The woman reached us breathless and placed her hand on Desmond’s arm like it belonged there.
“There you are,” she said. “I’ve been calling you. Our boarding group is almost ready.”
Then her eyes landed on me.
Her hand stopped moving.
Slowly, her gaze dropped from my face to the three children around me.
The airport kept roaring around us, but between the four of us, a heavy silence formed.
“Maya,” Desmond said.
But my name came out like a warning.
The woman turned her head toward him.
“You know her?”
I almost laughed, though nothing inside me found it funny.
“Yes,” I said. “He knows me.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked me over, trying to understand where I fit in Desmond’s world and clearly finding no answer she liked.
“I’m Katherine Sterling,” she said, her voice turning cold. “Desmond’s fiancée.”
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