“Keep that file secured on three separate servers, Chief,” Dean Bradley said chillingly. “Do not approach them yet. Where are they seated?”
“Box Tier A, Row 1, Seats 1 through 3. The Chancellor’s Private Box.”
“Splendid,” Dean Bradley murmured, a grim smile touching the corners of his mouth. “They wanted front-row seats to high society. It would be a tragedy to deny them the view.”
He turned back to me. “Clara, your garment bag survived the fall. The plastic held up. Miss Vance from the chancellor’s press team is here to do your hair and dry your gown. In ten minutes, the grand procession begins. Do you still want to give this address?”
I looked down at the gold signet ring on my right hand—a ring that had belonged to my late mother, who had died of leukemia in an underfunded county ward when I was ten years old. My father had married Evelyn six months after my mother’s funeral. For fourteen years, they had made me feel small, invisible, like a ghost haunting the corners of their perfect, gilded life.
I looked up at Dean Bradley. All the hesitation, all the cold water, all the old childhood pain burned away, leaving behind pure, unadulterated steel.
“I’m delivering the address, Dean Bradley,” I said clearly. “Every single word.”
Meanwhile, three floors above the backstage corridor, in Box Tier A, Richard Hensley was expanding his chest, leaning over the velvet-lined mahogany railing of the Chancellor’s Box.
“Look at this vantage point, Evelyn,” Richard whispered loudly, taking care that the wealthy donors seated in the adjacent box could hear his voice. “Magnificent acoustics. Only the top benefactors and high-level medical executives get seated here. I told you bringing Haley was the right move.”
Haley was busy angling her smartphone toward the grand proscenium arch, taking a burst of selfies with her golden VIP pass strategically placed across her clavicle.
“Dad, tag the hospital foundation on my post,” Haley whispered, tapping furiously on her screen. “The lighting in this box is incredible. My followers are already asking if I’m related to the university president. Someone commented that my lavender dress matches the doctoral banners.”
“Just don’t mention Clara,” Evelyn murmured, adjusting her pearl necklace with a smug smirk. “If people find out her sister is a mop-pusher down in the basement, it ruins the entire aesthetic. Richard, did you make sure she didn’t follow us in?”
Richard snorted, sipping the complimentary vintage champagne. “She’s probably halfway home on the bus by now, soaking wet and feeling sorry for herself. The girl has no drive, no poise, no ambition. She’ll spend her entire life emptying bedpans and complaining about her feet.”
