Clara
The press conference had been assembled with the kind of efficiency only a genuine crisis could inspire, a small stage erected in the Ashford Enterprises atrium within four hours of William Kingsley's call, rows of folding chairs filled with reporters from every major financial outlet in the city, cameras already trained on the podium before any of us had even arrived.
I stood backstage with Sebastian, both of us dressed in the careful, unimpeachable professionalism we'd perfected over a year of performing a marriage neither of us actually had, while a communications consultant reviewed the prepared statement one final time.
"Confidence and unity," the consultant said, more to herself than to us, straightening a stray page of notes. "Nothing defensive, nothing that acknowledges th
