Chapter 4 The Fundraiser

The fundraiser was held in the estate’s own ballroom, smaller than the Meridian but no less grand, marble floors polished to a mirror shine and windows that overlooked the cliffs and the churning ocean below. 

Mira arrived at seven exactly, dressed in sapphire blue this time, her earpiece fitted by the same nervous young staff member from that morning. The young woman’s hands trembled slightly as she adjusted the small device, and Mira wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to work inside a house that held so many careful secrets.

“You will do fine,” the staff member whispered, more to herself than to Mira, before disappearing back down the hallway with the same nervous energy she had arrived with.

“Testing,” Julian’s voice said the moment the earpiece clicked into place.

“I hear you,” Mira murmured, stepping into the ballroom where guests were already gathering, the air thick with perfume and old money.

“You met my mother today.”

It was not a question. Mira’s steps faltered for half a second before she recovered, smiling at a passing waiter as though nothing had happened. “She wanted to speak with me. I did not think that was against the rules.”

“It is not.” A pause, heavy with something unsaid. 

“What did she tell you?”

Mira hesitated, unsure how much to reveal, unsure if honesty would break some rule she did not know existed. “She told me you had a brother. That he died five years ago.”

Silence stretched so long that Mira began to wonder if the connection had dropped entirely. She continued through the ballroom, greeting guests, playing her role, waiting for the voice to return.

When it finally did, it was quieter than she had ever heard it. “She should not have told you that.”

“I am sorry,” Mira said, and meant it. “I did not ask her to.”

“I know.” Another pause. “It is not your fault. It is mine, for letting you get close enough that people think there is something to tell.”

The words stung more than she expected, and she was not entirely sure why. She forced herself to focus on the event, greeting donors, discussing the fundraiser’s cause, an ocean conservation initiative that Julian apparently cared about deeply, based on the passion in the talking points he fed her through the earpiece. She learned, without meaning to, small pieces of the man behind the voice. That he preferred the ocean at dawn over the ocean at sunset, because dawn belonged to no one yet. That he had read every book in the estate library twice, some of them three times, because there was little else to do with the hours he spent hidden away. That he cared, fiercely and specifically, about causes most heirs to a shipping fortune would never bother to notice, coastlines eroding, fish stocks collapsing, a world quietly falling apart while people in ballrooms like this one raised glasses to their own good fortune.

The ballroom filled slowly with donors and their spouses, all of them murmuring about coral reefs and rising tides between sips of wine that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent. Mira moved through the crowd exactly as she had been trained, warm and engaged, asking questions about foundations and grants, letting Julian’s voice guide her toward the right names and the right causes at exactly the right moments.

For a while, the night settled into its usual rhythm, and Mira almost forgot the tension of their earlier exchange.

Then Delphine Reyes walked through the ballroom doors, and everything changed.

“She should not be here,” Julian said sharply. “This is a private event.”

“She must have gotten an invitation somehow,” Mira said, watching Delphine move through the crowd with the confidence of someone who belonged, though nothing about her presence felt right. “Or forged one.”

“Avoid her. I mean it, Mira. Whatever she asks tonight, do not engage.”

Mira nodded, though the instruction was easier given than followed. Delphine had a way of appearing exactly where Mira did not want her, and tonight was no exception. Within twenty minutes, the tabloid writer had cornered her near the dessert table, eyes gleaming with the same hunger Mira remembered from the Meridian gala.

“I did some digging,” Delphine said without preamble. 

“Julian Voss has not been photographed in five years. 

Not one image. Do you find that strange, for a man about to get married?”

“He values his privacy,” Mira said, the same line she had used a dozen times before.

“Or he is hiding something,” Delphine pressed. “A scandal. An illness. Or maybe,” and here her voice dropped, sly and knowing, “there is no Julian Voss at all. Maybe this whole engagement is a performance dreamed up by a family desperate to control their public image after what happened to the older son.”

Mira’s blood ran cold, but she kept her expression neutral through sheer force of will. “That is a serious accusation.”

“I have sources,” Delphine said. “People who worked in this house. People who say strange things happen behind these walls. Cameras everywhere. A son nobody sees. A mother who controls every detail of every story that leaves this estate.” She tilted her head, studying Mira like a puzzle she was close to solving. 

“Have you ever actually seen him, Mira? Face to face? 

Or is he just a voice in your ear, feeding you lines like a puppet?”

The question hit too close to the truth, and for one terrible second, Mira’s composure cracked, just enough for Delphine to notice.

“I thought so,” Delphine said softly, and there was no triumph in her voice, only something that almost sounded like pity. “You do not even know who you are marrying.”

In her ear, Julian’s voice came through low and urgent. 

“Mira. Look at me. Not literally. Just listen. Whatever she says next, do not confirm it. Do not deny it. Walk away.”

But Mira did not move, because Delphine had already turned toward the small crowd gathering nearby, drawn by the tension between the two women, and opened her mouth to say something that would end everything.

“Everyone,” Delphine announced, loud enough to carry. “Would anyone here like to guess how long it has been since a single person has actually seen Julian Voss’s face?”

The room went quiet. Every eye turned toward Mira, waiting for an answer she did not have, and in her ear, Julian’s voice had gone completely silent, as if even he did not know how to save her this time.