Lucas's gaze dropped from her face to her feet, lingering for a second on her practical, worn athletic shoes. They were out of place in this manicured world of grief and wealth.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was a low, rough sound, like gravel scraping against stone. "Who are you? How did you get in?"
Corey ignored the questions. Her eyes were fixed on his left hand, which rested on the arm of his wheelchair. Next to it sat a small, silver flask. The faint, sharp scent of whiskey hung in the salty air.
"A daughter visiting her mother," she answered, her tone even. "How I got in is my business."
The directness of her reply seemed to startle him. A flicker of something-annoyance? surprise?-crossed his face before the mask of apathy fell back into place. He was a man accustomed to immediate obedience, not defiance.
One of his bodyguards took a half-step forward, but Lucas silenced him with a barely perceptible shake of his head.
"You knew Corinna Emerson?" he asked, his eyes searching her face.
"She was my mother."
The words landed between them, simple and heavy. A complex emotion swirled in the depths of his eyes, there and gone in an instant. He didn't offer condolences. He just stared.
The silence stretched again, but this time, Corey broke it. Her gaze shifted deliberately, pointedly, to his legs, covered by a thick cashmere blanket.
"The alcohol you're using to numb the nerve pain," she said, her voice taking on the clinical, detached tone of a doctor, "is only accelerating your muscle atrophy."
Lucas went rigid. His entire body stiffened, and the air around him crackled with a sudden, dangerous energy. No one spoke to him about his legs. Ever.
"What do you know about it?" he snarled, the emptiness in his eyes replaced by a flash of raw fury.
Corey didn't back down. She held his gaze. "More than you think. Your condition... it's not irreversible."
The statement was a grenade tossed into the dead quiet of his life. For five years, the world's best specialists had all delivered the same verdict. No hope. A life sentence in this chair.
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped his lips. "Are you a doctor? Another miracle worker looking for a payout from the cripple?"
"I'm not a doctor," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Not the kind you're thinking of. I'm just telling you a fact."
There was an absolute certainty in her voice, a professional confidence that was impossible to fake. It chipped away at the wall of his cynicism. For the first time in a long time, a seed of doubt was planted.
He studied her again, really looked at her. The plain clothes, the young face. She looked like a college student. But her eyes held a wisdom and a stillness that were ancient.
Corey saw the shift in his expression. She had accomplished her goal. She had his attention. She had become a question he needed to answer.
It was time to go. She had revealed enough for one day.
She gave a small, respectful bow toward her mother's grave. "I should go."
She turned and started to walk away, her steps even and unhurried.
"Wait."
The word was a command, sharp and desperate. It stopped her in her tracks. She paused, but didn't turn around.
"What's your name?" he asked, his voice strained.
Corey hesitated for a beat. "Corey."
She didn't offer a last name. She didn't need to. He would find it.
Then she was gone, disappearing down the winding path, leaving Lucas Fitzgerald alone with the ghost of her mother and the echo of an impossible promise.
He stared at the spot where she had vanished, his hand tightening around the silver flask. He brought it to his lips, then stopped.
Her fearlessness in the face of his anger. Her detached, clinical way of speaking about his own incurable condition. Her presence in a graveyard.
He had it all wrong. She wasn't a con artist.
