The waiter placed a plate of sea scallops in front of Bethel. The aroma of butter and garlic wafted up, but her stomach churned violently. She picked up her fork, her movements mechanical, like a robot programmed to mimic human dining.

Across the table, Baron was cutting into a steak. His knife scraped against the porcelain plate with a screeching sound that made Bethel wince. He was doing it on purpose. Every slice was deliberate, aggressive.

"So, Bethel," Clarissa Melendez said. Her voice was light, sugary, but her eyes were sharp. She had noticed the tension. She had noticed the way Baron was ignoring everything else in the room to stare at his steak. "Chynna tells me you're a lawyer."

Bethel looked up, startled. "Yes."

"Still doing that... what do you call it? Aid work?" Clarissa asked, tilting her head.

"Legal aid," Bethel corrected softly. "I work for a non-profit center downtown. We help people who can't afford representation."

Clarissa let out a small, tinkling laugh. She covered her mouth with a hand that sported a diamond ring the size of a grape. "Oh, that's so noble. And so... quaint. I suppose it doesn't pay very well, though, does it?"

Bethel tightened her grip on her fork. "It pays enough."

Baron took a sip of his red wine. He didn't look at Bethel, but the corner of his mouth quirked up. It wasn't a smile. It was a grimace of amusement.

"Some people just love to play the saint," Clarissa said, turning her body toward Baron, effectively cutting Bethel out of the visual circle. "But deep down, everyone loves a checkbook."

The table went quiet. The insult was thinly veiled, a jagged rock wrapped in silk.

Bethel bit her lower lip so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood. She looked at Baron. He was the only one who could stop this. He was the host's guest of honor. One word from him would shut Clarissa up.

Baron finally looked up. His gray eyes swept over Bethel's pale face, taking in her distress.

He didn't speak. He didn't defend her. He just picked up his wine glass again and took a slow, deliberate swallow, watching her over the rim.

He was enjoying it. He wanted to see her squirm. He wanted to see her humiliated.

"Anyway," Chynna interjected, sensing the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure. "The wedding colors are going to be blush and gold. Bethel is going to be my maid of honor."

"Hopefully she can afford the dress," Clarissa muttered, loud enough for half the table to hear. "Though I suppose that one is a classic. Isn't that from Balenciaga's collection five years ago? It's brave to wear vintage to a place like this." The insult was sharper now, a perfectly aimed dart recognizing the dress's former glory to highlight its current owner's fall from grace.

Clarissa leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that carried perfectly in the quiet room. "A real gold digger, from what people say."

Bethel dropped her fork. It clattered against the china, the sound echoing like a gunshot.

She looked at Clarissa. For a second, a spark of defiance flared in her chest. She wanted to scream that she was the opposite of a gold digger, that she was drowning in debt because she refused to take anyone's money.

She looked at Baron again. He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes narrowed, waiting. He was waiting for her to fight back. He was waiting for the girl who used to debate him for hours to show up.

But she couldn't. If she defended herself, she risked unraveling the lie she had told him five years ago. She had to be the villain. She had to be the gold digger.

Bethel swallowed the bile in her throat. She lowered her eyes and said nothing.

Baron's expression shifted. The anticipation in his eyes died, replaced by a profound, withering disappointment. He looked at her with pure disgust.

He turned his shoulder to her, engaging the man on his right in a conversation about propulsion systems. The dismissal was absolute. It hurt more than Clarissa's words ever could.

The main course arrived, but Bethel couldn't breathe. The air in the room was too thick, too hot.

"Excuse me," she murmured, pushing her chair back.

She stood up on shaky legs and walked toward the door. She could feel Baron's gaze burning into her back, a physical weight dragging her down.

She pushed through the doors and practically ran to the restrooms. She burst into the ladies' room, gripping the edge of the marble sink. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her skin was gray, her eyes rimmed with red. She dry-heaved over the basin, nothing coming up but acid and misery.

The door opened behind her.

Bethel straightened up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Clarissa walked in. She didn't look at Bethel. She walked to the mirror and began reapplying her lipstick.

"Stay away from him," Clarissa said to the mirror.

Bethel watched her reflection. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Clarissa snapped her clutch shut. She turned, her eyes cold. "I saw the way he looked at you. And I saw the way you looked at him. He's mine, Bethel. And a washed-up little charity lawyer like you doesn't stand a chance against me."

Clarissa smiled, checking her teeth in the mirror one last time. "Don't make this ugly. You can't afford ugly."

She turned and walked out, leaving the scent of expensive roses and threat in the air.

When Bethel returned to the table, the dinner plates had been cleared. In their place sat a bottle of tequila and a shot glass. A spinning bottle lay in the center of the table.

"Truth or Dare!" someone shouted. "To liven up this wake!"

Bethel tried to sit, intending to grab her purse and leave, but Preston caught her hand. "Come on, Bethel! Don't be a spoil-sport. Just one round."

She was trapped again.

Baron sat across from her. He had undone the top button of his shirt, exposing the hollow of his throat. He looked relaxed, but his fingers were drumming a rhythmic, agitated beat on the tablecloth.

The bottle spun. It whirred against the wood, blurring.

It slowed down. Tick. Tick. Tick.

It stopped. The neck of the bottle pointed directly at Bethel.

A cheer went up around the table.

"I'll ask," Clarissa said immediately. Her eyes gleamed with malice. "Truth or Dare, Bethel?"

"Truth," Bethel said. She wasn't going to perform like a circus animal for these people.

Clarissa leaned her chin on her hand. "Okay. Truth. Chynna mentioned you have a bit of a history. Is the rumor true? Did you really dump some poor guy five years ago because a better offer came along?"

The room went silent. The air was sucked out of the space.

Bethel's heart hammered against her ribs. Clarissa didn't know the ex was Baron. She thought Baron was just a spectator. But the question was a direct arrow aimed at him.

Baron stopped drumming his fingers. He slowly lifted his eyes. The storm in them was raging now. He was staring at her with an intensity that made her skin burn.

He was waiting. He was waiting for her to say she made a mistake. He was waiting for a crack in the armor.

If she said she regretted it, Baron would ask why. He would dig. And if he dug, he would find the federal indictment against her father. He would find the blackmail. He would find out she did it for him.

And then he would lose his security clearance. He would lose his career. He would lose his family's respect.

Bethel dug her fingernails into her thigh until she felt the skin break through the fabric of her dress. She had to kill the hope in his eyes. She had to finish what she started five years ago.

She lifted her chin and looked Baron dead in the eye.

"No," she said, her voice steady and cold. "No regrets."

Baron flinched. It was small, a micro-spasm in his jaw, but she saw it. It was the look of a man who had just been stabbed in the chest by someone he trusted.

The people around the table murmured, scandalized by her callousness.

Baron let out a short, terrifying laugh. It sounded like glass breaking.

He reached out and grabbed the shot glass of tequila that was meant for the loser of the game. It wasn't his turn. It wasn't his penalty.

He threw his head back and downed the burning liquid in one swallow. His Adam's apple bobbed.

He slammed the heavy glass down on the table. The sound was violent, cracking the delicate stem of a nearby wine glass.

Baron stood up so abruptly his chair screeched backward, toppling over onto the carpet. He didn't pick it up. He didn't look at Clarissa. He didn't look at Preston.

He looked at the wall, his chest heaving.

"I'm done," he growled.

He turned and stormed toward the door. He shoved the heavy mahogany panels open with such force they banged against the wall.

He was gone.

The room was left in a stunned silence. Bethel sat frozen, her heart bleeding out in her chest. She had done it. She had protected him.

And it felt like dying.

The party dissolved quickly after Baron's exit. Bethel murmured an excuse about a migraine and grabbed her purse.

She was halfway down the hall when Chynna came running out, her face flushed and her steps unsteady.

"Bethel! Wait!"

Chynna grabbed Bethel's arm, swaying slightly. "God, can you believe him? So moody. Genius types, right?"

Bethel tried to pull away. "I really need to go, Chynna."

"No, listen," Chynna whispered, leaning in too close. Her breath smelled of expensive Chardonnay. "You don't get it. You have to forgive him. Do you know who his family is?"

Bethel's pulse skipped a beat. "I don't keep up with D.C. gossip."

"His grandfather was a four-star General," Chynna said, widening her eyes. "His dad chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. Baron isn't just an engineer. He's... he's handling stuff that doesn't exist yet. NASA and DoD joint projects."

Chynna giggled, a hiccup escaping her. "Preston said the background check to even date a Lowery is insane. Like, if you stole a candy bar in third grade, the FBI knows. If your family has any dirt... poof. You're gone."

The blood drained from Bethel's face. It wasn't surprise that chilled her, but a sickening wave of confirmation. The words weren't new information; they were the very bars of the cage she had locked herself in five years ago, now being described to her by an oblivious jailer. The weight of that knowledge, a burden she carried alone, pressed down on her, stealing the air from her lungs.

"Imagine," Chynna continued, oblivious to Bethel's terror. "If you had a criminal in the family? Baron would be stripped of his clearance before the first date was over. He's here to clean up a mess in the Houston program. He's ruthless."

Bethel felt sick. Her father was currently sitting in a federal penitentiary for federal fraud tied to a suspected treason case. If she had stayed with Baron, his career would be ash.

"I have to go," Bethel choked out.

"Okay, okay! Come to the bachelorette party! Promise!"

Bethel nodded blindly and turned toward the elevators. The display showed the car was stuck on the top floor. She couldn't wait. She couldn't risk seeing anyone else.

She pushed open the heavy door to the stairwell.

The concrete space was cool and dimly lit. Her heels clicked loudly on the metal steps, the sound echoing in the vertical shaft. She needed this quiet. She needed this escape.

She descended one flight, clutching the railing.

Then she smelled it.

Cedar and expensive tobacco.

She stopped. Her hand froze on the cold metal rail.

Below her, on the landing between floors, a tall shadow was leaning against the wall. The orange cherry of a cigarette glowed in the darkness, illuminating the sharp line of a jaw.

Baron was waiting.

He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the smoke curling up from his fingers. He hadn't been gone for more than ten minutes, yet he was here, perfectly positioned in her only escape route. He hadn't fled in anger; he had set a trap.

"Taking the stairs?" his voice rumbled up to her, low and vibrating against the concrete walls.

Bethel's breath hitched. She turned to run back up, but the heavy door above her clicked shut.

Baron dropped the cigarette and crushed it under the heel of his shoe. He looked up. His eyes were dark voids in the dim light.

"Running away again, Bethel?"