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I feel lower than dog shit.

I leave the stage to another round of applause and make my way back to the table.

Ella turns as I sit. “That was beautiful,” she says.

I almost flinch. “It was a presentation,” I say.

“It was more than that.”

“It was me asking for money.”

She wrinkles her forehead. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Act like nothing matters to you.”

Stanley chuckles from her other side. “Don’t expect too much sentiment from a Vexley, my dear.”

I glare at him.

He suddenly becomes very interested in his wine.

“I think it matters,” Ella says. “Rehabilitation is important. Getting people back on their feet. Helping them live again. That’s…” She pauses a moment, looking down. “My mother has cancer. An aggressive kind.”

The room tilts as guilt surges through me. I had no idea.

I know almost nothing about Ella’s life before Vexley House, other than what’s in her employment file.

Hell, I barely know anything about her life after she was hired.

“She does?” I ask.

Ella nods. “Yes. Treatment helps, but it takes so much from her. Strength. Independence. Pride, sometimes.” She grips the stem of her wineglass. “I suppose I have a soft spot for men who take care of people trying to get back on their feet.”

The guilt is a knife now, twisting in my gut.

Men who take care of people.

Is that what she sees when she looks at me?

A caretaker?

A man building an ark?

God help us both.

If she knew the truth, she’d get up from this table and storm out.

If she knew what VexleyARC will also be used for, what the foundation washes clean, what my family hides, she wouldn’t look at me with such pride and adoration.

She would look at me with disgust. With fear.

But she leans toward me, soft and ravishing in that silver dress.

Ravishing.

The word is dangerous because it is precise.