Before you could answer, the energy in the atrium shifted. It moved first through the crowd like a breeze through silk. Heads turned. Security personnel in black suits appeared from the far entrance with the speed and precision of men clearing a runway for importance. The mall manager hurried forward, nearly jogging, his expression transformed into polished devotion. Conversations dimmed. Phones lifted. Something or someone significant had arrived.
Valeria straightened at once, smoothing her hair.
“Who is that?” she whispered.
A woman in an ivory pantsuit stepped through the parted line of guards. She was in her late fifties, elegant in the dangerous way certain women are, with silver threaded through her dark hair and the kind of gaze that made rich men stand straighter without knowing why. Diamond earrings glinted when she moved. No one had to announce her. The mall manager’s body language did that for him.
You recognized her after a stunned beat. Renata Álvarez.
Founder of the Álvarez Group. Luxury hotels, commercial real estate, private retail ventures. A woman whose name did not circulate in business pages so much as hang over them. You had spent months trying to find an opening into her network. Tonight’s event upstairs was supposed to get you closer to people who answered to people who answered to her.
And now she was here.
She walked past the boutique entrance.
Past the gawking shoppers.
Past you.
