The ballroom went completely quiet.

Even the servers at the back of the room stopped clearing the salad plates.

Lila’s hand went to her throat, her fingers pressing into her pearl necklace.

“That is a legitimate marketing contract,” Lila stammered.

Her voice was thin and high without a microphone, but it carried in the silent room.

“We did the brand strategy,” she said, looking toward the investors.

“We designed the logo.”

“Six million dollars for a logo, Lila?” I asked.

“For a website that is currently running on a twenty-dollar template?”

Grant’s face had gone from red to a pale, waxy gray under the stage lights.

He looked at the journalists from the local papers sitting near the front.

Their fingers were already flying across their phones.

“This is a coordinated smear campaign,” Grant said, his voice rising to a shout.

“My wife is upset about our pending divorce.”

“She is trying to destroy a project that will house hundreds of seniors.”

He pointed a finger at Diane Cho.

“Turn those screens off right now,” he ordered.

Diane did not move.

She simply opened a third document.