"You're kidding me—what is she doing in his arms?" Finch hissed as the ballroom froze. Crystal chandeliers glittered over linen and roses. Waiters held trays like fragile weapons. A string quartet sputtered to a stop. Riley's toast hovered on her lips—she had a whole speech practiced, three paragraphs, a joke about shared spreadsheets—and then Sophie Lane fell into Ethan Bennett's chest like she'd been dropped there. Gasps spread. Phones lifted. Someone laughed, too high and brittle. Ethan's smile stayed perfect. He set Sophie up with a hand at the small of her back as if she were a prop and not the rupture everyone was seeing. "Sophie, you can't—" he started, immediately shading it into a social script. "She's—she's fine. Too much champagne. Old friend, totally random." "Old friend," Sophie echoed, breathless, eyes enormous. She clung to him in a way that read like ownership. The photographer across the room angled his lens. Riley watched the liars line up—Ethan's posture; Sophie's fingers at the seam of his jacket; the way his jaw tightened for a second and then relaxed for the public. Riley's hand tightened around her champagne flute until the glass clicked against her wedding band. The band felt like a coin at the end of a rope—something everyone expected her to hand over. "Control," she murmured to herself, and then spoke loud enough to carry. "We'll give Sophie a minute