Allison looked at him with a calm that made his skin prickle.
"And what exactly," she asked, "would embarrass you?"
Anthony's jaw worked once. "Don't start talking out of turn. Don't mention personal issues. Don't get emotional in front of our guests. Smile, do your part, and get through the evening."
"Our guests," Allison repeated.
"Yes."
She almost pitied him.
Almost.
Because Anthony Morrison still had no idea how badly he had miscalculated the woman standing in front of him.
He still thought tomorrow was an event he would manage.
He still thought Allison was an extension of the décor.
He still thought the stage belonged to him.
It didn't.
Not anymore.
"I'll be there," Allison said.
Anthony exhaled like he had won something.
Idiot.
"But Anthony?"
He looked at her.
She smiled.
A beautiful smile.
One that once would have made him soften.
Now, somehow, it only made his stomach go tight.
"You should worry less about me embarrassing you," she said softly, "and more about who else might."
He stared at her, suspicion rising too late.
Before he could answer, a phone began ringing downstairs.
One of the house lines.
Sharp. Insistent.
Then another.
And another.
Anthony turned toward the sound, brows drawing together.
The estate staff usually managed incoming calls before they ever became noise. Three lines ringing at once meant something had slipped through.
Or something urgent had arrived all at once.
A house manager hurried past the bottom of the stairs, followed by one of the event coordinators clutching a tablet and looking pale.
Anthony looked back at Allison, irritation deepening. "What now?"
Allison's gaze drifted lazily toward the staircase.
"Sounds like your evening is improving."
He shot her a look and stalked toward the stairs.
Allison followed at a much slower pace.
Not because she cared to help.
Because she wanted to watch.
By the time she reached the lower level, the atmosphere in the grand foyer had changed.
Subtly.
Not disaster.
Not panic.
Not yet.
But the still-perfect surface of Morrison control had developed its first cracks.
The event coordinator was speaking in a low, rushed voice to Martha near the entry table. Martha's mouth had gone tight with fury. Mr. Morrison—Richard Morrison—had just entered from his study, reading something on his phone with a deepening frown.
Anthony reached them. "What happened?"
The coordinator swallowed. "A few of tomorrow's confirmed guests have requested changes."
"What kind of changes?"
"Seating changes. Arrival delays. A few… attendance uncertainties."
Martha snapped, "What does that mean?"
The woman's fingers tightened on the tablet. "Three of the smaller institutional partners have withdrawn from the cocktail portion. Two private investors asked for their presentations to be removed from the dinner materials pending 'further review.'"
Richard looked up sharply. "Further review of what?"
The coordinator looked like she regretted being born.
"They didn't specify."
Anthony snatched the tablet from her and scanned the screen.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
But Allison caught it.
That tiny flicker.
Alarm.
Good.
Not enough to collapse anything.
Not enough to cause a public scene.
Just enough to make him feel the floor shift half an inch beneath his feet.
And that was only the beginning.
Because while Anthony had been busy following her and threatening her in stores, Allison had spent her afternoon making one quiet call after another from numbers that were not traced to her.
A floral vendor redirected through a shell company tied to Croft interests.
A logistics check sent to a risk-sensitive partner with just enough documentation attached to raise questions about Morrison scheduling.
A discreet heads-up to one analyst known for advising private clients to step back from unstable leadership transitions.
A whisper placed carefully where it would spread without ever looking like sabotage.
Nothing obvious.
Nothing criminal.
Just friction.
Just doubt.
Just the faintest scent of instability drifting through the polished machinery of Morrison Empire.
Enough to make skittish money hesitate.
And skittish money, Allison knew, never hesitated alone.
Richard Morrison looked up from Anthony's shoulder, expression stony. "Handle it."
"I am handling it," Anthony snapped.
Martha turned sharply. "Then why are people pulling back the night before the most important dinner this family has hosted in years?"
Anthony's face darkened. "No one is pulling back."
The coordinator spoke very carefully. "Sir… one of the Caldwell advisory representatives has also requested updated numbers before tomorrow."
Allison's pulse kicked once.
Caldwell.
There it was again.
Too close.
Too aligned.
Too deliberate to ignore now.
Lucian's calm voice drifted back through her memory.
A dinner. Corporate. Tedious. I'm told attendance would be wise.
Allison felt the pieces shifting into place with sudden, dangerous clarity.
Not Caldwell.
Calloway.
Anthony had either misspoken, misunderstood, or simply didn't know the family well enough to say it correctly in his panic.
But she did now.
Or at least, she suspected.
And if she was right—
If Lucian's "tedious corporate dinner" was this dinner—
then he hadn't just been vague in the car.
He'd been deliberately vague.
The realization sent a strange rush through her.
Part irritation.
Part fascination.
Part something warmer she absolutely did not have time to unpack.
Martha noticed Allison standing near the stairs and turned on her at once.
"Well?" she snapped. "Don't just stand there."
Allison blinked once, all innocence.
"I wasn't aware my presence stabilized investor confidence."
Martha's lips thinned.
Richard, still reading whatever had arrived on his phone, looked up at Allison with open impatience. "Tomorrow must go smoothly. Whatever domestic nonsense is happening between you and Anthony, bury it until after the dinner."
Domestic nonsense.
Allison almost admired the audacity.
Anthony turned slightly, clearly expecting her to protest, defend herself, promise cooperation.
Instead, she gave a small, serene nod.
"Of course."
That unsettled him more than anger would have.
He knew her well enough to know that her calm was no longer compliance.
It was calculation.
And somewhere in the growing noise of rescheduled arrivals, revised numbers, and nervous staff, he finally started to understand that something had already moved against him.
He just didn't know what.
Yet.
Allison turned away before anyone could ask more of her and crossed the foyer toward the main staircase.
Behind her, the voices sharpened.
Martha demanding names.
Richard demanding answers.
Anthony insisting the situation was manageable while sounding less and less sure of it by the second.
Subtle at first.
Exactly as she wanted.
A house like Morrison didn't collapse from one dramatic blow.
It cracked.
It shifted.
It developed fault lines.
Then the right pressure turned those lines into ruin.
Halfway up the stairs, Anthony called after her.
"Allison."
She paused and looked back over her shoulder.
His face was taut now, controlled only by force.
"What?" she asked.
He hesitated.
That alone was worth savoring.
Then he said, quieter so the others wouldn't hear, "Whatever you're doing… stop."
There it was.
Recognition.
Not full understanding.
Not yet.
But enough instinct to know the air smelled wrong.
Allison's smile was soft and unreadable.
"You're giving me far too much credit," she said.
Then she continued upstairs.
The second-floor hall was quieter than before, but it wasn't truly still. Staff moved faster now. Doors opened and closed. Somewhere a phone vibrated against wood. The mansion itself seemed to feel what was coming, even if it didn't yet understand.
Inside the suite, Allison shut the door behind her and leaned against it for one long second.
Then she laughed.
Not loudly.
Just once.
A breath of disbelief and dark satisfaction.
He knew.
Or rather, he knew something.
That was enough for tonight.
She crossed the room, set the emerald clutch on the vanity, and pulled out her phone.
Three unread messages waited.
The first was from an encrypted number.
Initial hesitation achieved. Additional pressure can be applied in stages.
She smiled.
The second was from her father.
Sleep. Let them worry tonight.
That one made her roll her eyes.
The third—
The third stopped her.
Unknown number.
No name.
Just one line.
I hope your evening improved. Mine became predictably complicated.
Allison stared at the screen.
Then laughed again, softer this time.
Lucian.
Of course he wouldn't announce himself normally.
Of course his message would sound like a man discussing weather after almost throwing her fake husband through a display table.
Her thumbs hovered over the screen.
She should not answer.
She knew that.
She was in the middle of a war.
He was somehow tied to tomorrow.
And every instinct she possessed told her he was becoming dangerous in a way heartbreak had not prepared her for.
Still—
She typed back before she could overthink it.
Complicated seems to be the theme lately.
The reply came fast enough to make her blink.
You handle it well.
Heat crept unexpectedly up her throat.
Annoying.
She set the phone down before she said something reckless and moved to the windows overlooking the grounds.
Outside, the mansion glittered with wealth and false serenity. Farther out, beyond the hedges and gates, one of her father's guards shifted under a tree with all the subtlety of a man who had probably once broken bones for a living and was now pretending to admire landscaping.
Allison smiled faintly.
Then her smile faded as she looked at her reflection in the glass.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow Anthony would learn she wasn't his wife.
Tomorrow Sharon would learn the "poor girl with no family" came from a dynasty powerful enough to ruin hers for sport.
Tomorrow Martha would learn exactly what happened when she put her hands on the wrong daughter.
And tomorrow—
Maybe tomorrow she would see Lucian again.
At the dinner.
At her dinner.
At the same event he had mentioned so casually in the car, as if he weren't standing directly in the path of the storm she was about to unleash.
Allison touched the glass lightly with her fingertips.
Then she smiled.
Slow.
Sharp.
Certain.
"Good," she whispered to the dark window.
Let him come.
Let them all come.
Tomorrow night, the Morrisons would finally understand that the woman they had spent so long humiliating had never been beneath them at all.
She had just been quiet long enough to choose the perfect moment to destroy them.
And downstairs, as the phones kept ringing and the first tiny threads of panic tightened around the Morrison name—
that destruction had already begun.