Page 201 of Only Fools Rush

Max locked on both of us, surprise quickly masked behind his standard passivity.He didn’t know we were coming.

Max’s eyes flicked back to Chiara at the bar and I followed his vision. I opened my mouth to call out to her but her face morphed into a glare. Her eyes flicked to Max.

What was going on here? Had this been a trap the whole time?

My pulse skyrocketed.No.

I looked back to Chiara. Very intentionally, she lifted her pointer finger to scratch her temple.

I let out a breath and relaxed my death grip on Cas’s hand.

“Princess?”

It took every ounce of control in my body not to smile. Instead, wordlessly and without emotion, I faced the table where Max and the members of the Vero Construction Inc. board waited.

Chiara was on my side.

When we were younger, and we needed help, we’d use that same gesture as a signal. It meantplay along.Basically,follow my lead.

Once, her father had burst into her room while we were together, demanding an explanation for where she’d been the night before. She’d made up a lie on the spot about how she’d been studying with me at my house and lost track of time, so she decided to spend the night.

At the time, I’d almost given away her lie by the confused look on my face, but afterward, we’d decided that whenever one of us made that gesture, we needed to do everything we could to corroborate each other’s stories.

She used it now to let me know that her glare was an act. She wanted me to play along and stay silent. She told me about this meeting; she wanted me here.

“Chiara is here,” Cas mumbled into the comms that connected all of us. “Be prepared to extract her if necessary.”

“I see her in my scope,” Ryuji replied. “I can see the whole table.”

“Oh, Leona!” My attention was pulled to Victor Sterling, one of the VCI board members, and a man I’d known since childhood. As a close friend of my father’s, they’d built the legitimate side of the business. As far as I knew, he’d never been involved in anything criminal; he was a staple on the board. He pulled me into a hug. “It’s been far too long. What brings you here?”

I pulled back with a large smile plastered on my face. “Checking in on my father’s business, of course!”

“Oh, yes, we were devastated to hear the news of his sudden passing.” His mouth turned down in a frown as defensiveness rolled through my back. Sterling had been there the night of my birthday, but I thought he’d left before all the craziness went down. “When Max told us about his heart attack, we could hardly believe it. And on your birthday, too. I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t look athim,but I felt his eyes blazing into the side of my face. Playing the role of demure and grieving daughter, I let the smile fall from my face. “Yes, it’s been so hard. I’ve been lucky to have Max handling the business until I feel better.” Cas held back a snort beside me. I wrapped my arm around his elbow, showing off the ring on my finger. “You remember Caspian, Mr. Sterling. My fiancé. He’s also been an incredible help.”

“Ah, yes?—”

A glass shattered, and both Sterling and I turned to find Max wiping up the sudden mess of water. His jaw clenched.

“Oh, Max, is everything all right?” I asked sweetly.

“Of course,” he responded, standing, and buttoning his jacket. “Leona, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”

Cas’s hand clenched on mine. “No.”

The room was so tense; it felt like the temperature dropped a few degrees.

I shook my head, answering Max with a smile. “Don’t we need to get started?” I pulled out my chair to sit down, but Max cleared his throat. The rest of the board members turned to him. I recognized them,andI recognized how he still held the vast amount of power in this room.

Sterling responded with a wave of his hand. “It’s fine. We can wait a few more minutes. The restaurant will bring our standard appetizers in a moment.”

“No, no,” I began, but Max’s voice split the air.

“Leona.”

I narrowed my eyes.