Chapter 31 The Room Was Filled With Men Who Thought They Owned The World

• The ballroom had not quieted. The voices still murmured across polished marble. Glasses still clinked against their partners. Soft music still wound its way through the air like silk. But something had changed.
• Ivy felt it. In her chest. In the subtle hush around the edges of the room. In the way people no longer pretended they weren’t watching.
• Victor had kissed her, and not in a way meant to suggest tenderness. It had been a claim, exact and final. A reminder delivered with precision, timed not to wound her, but to wound everyone else.