By the sixth month, Ruby Byron's name wasn't just spoken in the fashion house. It was spoken everywhere.
At charity galas, women who had never once acknowledged her existence now angled for a seat near hers, laughing a half-second too loud at things she hadn't even said to be funny. Men who ran half the city's shipping contracts found reasons to linger near her during intermission, offering compliments dressed up as business.
Even the papers had shifted their language, she was no longer "Max Byron's wife" in the headlines. She was simply Ruby, as though a single name had become enough.
She wore it the way she wore everything now. Effortlessly. Coldly. Like armor tailored so precisely that it no longer looked like armor at all.
"You're glowing tonight," said Delphine Ashworth, wife of a steel magnate, sliding into the seat beside Ruby at the gala with the eager energy of a woman desperate to be seen sitting there. "Whatever you're doing, I want to know your secret."
