Chapter 3 - The Broken Date
When Leo returned to the table, Abigail Preston was checking her gold watch, her perfect smile noticeably strained.
"You were gone a long time, Tommy," she said, her voice laced with a subtle hint of elite disapproval. She looked down at his trousers, her eyes narrowing as she noticed the wet, salty stains on his knees. "And... what on earth happened to your suit? Did you fall?"
Leo sat down, took a long sip of his water, and looked at her. For twenty-six minutes, he had tolerated her. But after standing in the service corridor with a woman who was bleeding from her knuckles just to survive, Abigail’s polished, superficial complaints felt like nails on a chalkboard.
"I was doing chemistry," Leo said flatly.
Abigail blinked, her laugh sounding increasingly hollow. "Right. Well, as I was saying, my father is hosting the annual yacht club auction next weekend, and he’s looking for corporate sponsors. An import-export firm would be a perfect fit. The exposure among the Hamptons crowd is—"
"I'm not interested, Abigail," Leo interrupted, leaning back in his chair.
Abigail froze, her champagne glass hovering inches from her mouth. "Excuse me?"
"The date is over," Leo said, pulling a stack of hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and tossing them onto the table—enough to cover the dinner ten times over. "You're a beautiful woman, but you're exhausting. Tell your father his yacht club can fund itself."
He stood up, leaving Abigail sitting alone in the middle of the crowded restaurant with her mouth wide open.
As Leo walked out the front doors of Laurel, his personal driver, Marcus, immediately opened the back door of the armored black sedan. But Leo didn't get in. He looked toward the side alley of the restaurant, where the night staff left.
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A few minutes later, Clara walked out. She had changed into a faded denim jacket, her damp brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She was walking with a heavy limp, her shoulders hunched against the cold Manhattan wind.
"Marcus," Leo said, his eyes tracking her as she headed toward the subway station. "Find out everything about her. Where she lives, why her hands are burned, and who she's running from. I want a full file on my desk by sunrise."
