Rage, bright and blinding, consumed her fear. He thought she was a gold digger. He thought she'd been paid off.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she hissed, taking a step closer, her fists clenched at her sides.
"I never received a cent from you or your family. I tried to find you. I called the number you gave me and it was disconnected.
I went to the address, it was a fake. You vanished."
For the first time, a crack appeared in his icy facade. A flicker of uncertainty. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by a deeper, more dangerous coldness.
"A compelling revision of history. But it changes nothing. State your business. Now."
She saw the calculations happening behind his eyes, the mental math, the cold, hard assessment of risk and probability. He was not reacting as a man who'd just been told he had a family.
He was reacting as a CEO whose company was under a hostile takeover.
"That's a very serious allegation," he said, his tone glacial. "Backed by what evidence?"
"Look at me!" she urged, desperation clawing at her throat.
"Do you think I would be here, in this room, risking this kind of humiliation, if it wasn't true? His name is Leo. I named him after the man I thought you were. And he has your eyes. Your exact eyes."
Something raw and unidentifiable flashed in his silver gaze then. It was there and gone so fast she thought she'd imagined it. A spark of something that wasn't ice. A spark of… pain?
He closed the small distance between them in one fluid, predatory step. He was so close she could smell the clean, spicy scent of his cologne, and feel the heat radiating from his body.
The proximity was overwhelming, a confusing mix of threat and a deeply buried, traitorous attraction.
"You will listen to me very carefully, Evelyn," he murmured, his voice a low, intimate threat that brushed against her ear, a grotesque parody of a lover's whisper. "You will stop talking. Right now."
He placed a hand on her lower back, a gesture that would look like a charming dance-floor intimacy to anyone watching. But his grip was like iron, steering her firmly, inexorably, away from the main crowd and towards a secluded alcove veiled by a cascading fern.
Once they were shrouded in relative privacy, he released her as if her skin had burned him. He pulled out his phone, typed a single, terse command, and put it to his ear.
"Sebastian. I have a situation in the Grand Ballroom. The west alcove. Now." He listened for a beat, his eyes never leaving hers, pinning her in place. "No. Just you."
He ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket. The silence between them was thick and suffocating.
"Who is Sebastian?" Evie asked, her voice trembling despite her best efforts.
"The man who is going to determine whether you leave this hotel in a limousine or in a police car," Lysander replied flatly.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through her. A police car? He couldn't be serious. But looking at his face, she knew he was. This man was capable of anything.
Less than a minute later, a man who could only be Sebastian appeared. He was tall and built with a lean, athletic power, his hair cropped short, his eyes missing nothing.
He wore a tuxedo, but on him, it looked like a uniform. He assessed the scene in a single, sweeping glance Lysander's controlled fury, Evie's pale, terrified face.
"Sir," he said, his voice a calm, neutral baritone.
"Sebastian, this is Evelyn Reed," Lysander said, the name dripping with disdain. "She is making a fantastical claim. She requires… verification."
Sebastian's gaze shifted to Evie. It wasn't unkind, but it was deeply, profoundly analytical. He was peeling her apart layer by layer, assessing her threat level.
"What is the nature of the claim, Mr. Crowe?" Sebastian asked, though Evie had a feeling he already knew.
Lysander's jaw tightened. He looked from Sebastian back to Evie, his eyes narrowed to slits. When he spoke, the words were laced with a venom that stole the air from her lungs.
"She claims," he said, his voice dropping to a murderous whisper, "that I have somehow fathered her… brats."
The word brats was a deliberate, cruel blow. It was meant to dehumanize them, to reduce her children to a problem, an inconvenience. It shattered the last of her composure.
The tears she had been fighting for weeks finally spilled over, tracing hot paths down her cheeks. She wasn't crying from fear now, but from a heartbreak so profound it felt like her soul was cracking.
She saw Sebastian's eyes flicker to her tears, then back to his employer. A minuscule shift occurred in his posture.
"I see," Sebastian said, his tone still neutral. "And how would you like to proceed, sir?"
Lysander stared at Evie, at the tears she was desperately trying to wipe away. For a long, suspended moment, he said nothing.
The battle within him was visible on his face: the ruthless billionaire who saw a threat, and the ghost of a man who had just been called a father.
Finally, he spoke, his decision was made.
"Take her to the penthouse suite. Keep her there. She doesn't leave your sight." He turned his terrifying, beautiful face fully towards Evie, his eyes promising a storm.
"You will provide a DNA sample. Tonight. If you are lying, Evelyn, you will spend the next decade wishing you had never heard my name."
He turned on his heel and walked away, melting back into the glittering crowd without a backward glance, leaving her standing there, shattered and alone with a stone-faced stranger.
Sebastian gestured towards a discreet private elevator, its doors already open. "Ms. Reed," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
As the elevator doors closed, sealing her in a silent, opulent box with this formidable man, Evie leaned against the wall, her legs giving way. She had done it. She had told him.
And she had just unleashed a monster.
The elevator began its swift, silent ascent. Sebastian stood impassively, watching the floor numbers light up.
Then, he spoke, his voice so quiet she almost missed it.
"For what it's worth, Ms. Reed," he said, not looking at her, "he has never reacted that way to a gold digger before. They usually get a check and a restraining order. Not an invitation to the penthouse."
The words offered no real comfort, only a deeper, more terrifying mystery. The elevator pinged, arriving at the top floor. The doors slid open to reveal a private foyer leading to a single, imposing door.
The lion's den had just become her gilded cage.