scene. Shouting about stolen files. Security had to remove her.”
Celeste looked around with a bright little laugh. “How unsettling.”
Mara kept her voice level. “I am only here to work.”
“Then work quietly,” Celeste said. “This event supports children who need stability. It would be unfortunate to let someone unstable disturb the donors.”
The word struck Mara so sharply she almost lost her grip.
Unstable.
The exact language from the affidavit Celeste had submitted after the accident. The exact word used to keep a mother away from a hospital nursery, a family lawyer, a judge, her own child.
Mara lifted her eyes.
Celeste saw something there and faltered.
Dorian did not. He leaned in, lowering his voice just enough to make the insult intimate.
“I would leave now,” he said. “Before someone checks your name.”
Mara wanted to laugh because he had no idea she had been waiting for exactly that.
Instead, she said, “Do what you need to do.”
Celeste’s face tightened. “Call the catering manager. I want her removed before Nathaniel arrives.”
At the sound of his name, something inside Mara twisted.
Nathaniel.
Her husband had once known the precise silence that meant Mara was holding back tears. He had once woken before dawn to warm Lena’s milk because Mara had fallen asleep beside the crib with a proposal draft on her lap. He had once promised, in a courthouse hallway after their small wedding, that no Arden would ever make her feel small again.
Then the crash happened, and he vanished behind other people’s messages.
Mara had hated him for that. Then missed him. Then hated herself for missing him.
Now, somewhere beyond the bronze doors, he was arriving as chairman of a company that had erased her.
The quartet faltered.
It was only one wrong note, but Mara heard it.
The tall bronze doors at the garden entrance burst open.
A little girl ran through them so fast one of the security guards reached too late and caught only the air behind her. Her cream dress fluttered around her knees. One shoe was missing. Her curls had fallen loose, and tears shone on both cheeks.
“Mama!”
The word split the room.
Every conversation stopped.
Mara’s tray lowered without permission from her mind. Her vision blurred at the edges.
Lena.
Celeste moved first, stepping into the aisle with both arms extended and a smile so bright it looked painful.
“Lena, sweetheart, come here. You had a bad dream.”
But Lena dodged her.
She ran around a senator, past a waiter, through the ring of stunned guests, straight to the woman in the navy catering jacket.
Mara dropped the tray.
Crystal broke across the marble. White wine splashed over Celeste’s satin hem and ran in bright streams between the scattered stems.
Lena hit Mara’s legs with a force that nearly knocked her backward.
“Mama!” she sobbed, grabbing fistfuls of Mara’s jacket. “Don’t let them send me back upstairs. I heard them say you were never coming home.”
Mara fell to her knees.
The stone hurt. She barely felt it.
She wrapped both arms around her daughter and pulled her in so tightly that for one terrifying second she wondered if she was hurting her. Lena clung harder. Her small body shook against Mara’s chest. Her breath came
