“The TED Talk guy?”
“Yeah,” I said, tapping his name. I didn’t know him super well, since he was closer to my parents’ age than mine, but he was a regular on the gala circuit. “The one who built himself up from nothing and never shuts up about it, so I’m thinking he’ll probably want to help other people build themselves up from nothing, right?”
“Hopefully.”
“Oh, and Denise Ryan.”
“The divorcée?”
“She hates being called that,” I said. No matter how accurate it was, considering she’d inherited her massive fortune when her ex-husband, a tech mogul, divorced her for, surprisingly, an older woman. Dude subverting expectations over here. “She made that public vow to give away all her money. If she’s giving it away, I’ll take it.”
Vienna smirked. “Sounds like a good bet.”
“And there’s Jack Wohl.” He’d founded the hedge fund my parents and the family business invested in. He had an interest in keeping them invested in his company, and hopefully he’d assume one way of keeping them happy was investing in their daughter.“Though he has those connections to Greystone, right?” I grimaced. Greystone Inc. was the most malevolent entity in the corporate finance world, which was full of malevolent entities—over the years they’d been called out for burning enormous stretches of rainforest, using child slave labor in its cobalt mines, causing the extinction of multiple species of panda, and more.
Vienna stared down at the tablet. “He’s not part of them, though, right? Just associated with them?”
“No, but I’m not sure how much that matters.” Vienna’s crowd would never accept me if they found out I was taking money from a place like Greystone. They’d probably love it if I was—they could continue staring down their noses and shaking their heads at me. And the amount of good I’d be doing for the kids would be offset by the amount of harm I’d be doing elsewhere. “I’ll have to verify that—”
The door to the kitchen swung open, cutting me off as I swiveled to see who was there. Maybe Ellie or Sage, two of my workers who knew I delighted in being called in when jerks asked to see the manager so that I could dramatically puff myself up like one of those really fluffy pigeons and tell them to go stuff themselves becauseIwas the manager.
But no, it was Gabe. My lips broke automatically into a smile upon seeing that familiar swoop of black hair, the defined cheekbones dusted with stubble, the smoldering dark glare. Though his eyes weren’t smoldering now. Or glaring, the way they’d been when I first turned up on his doorstep (to be fair, I started out as a terrible roommate). They’d brightened as soon as they’d seen me, even though I wasn’t wearing any makeup and my hair was up in a quick actually-messy-not-artfully-messy bun and there was flour all over my yoga pants.
“Hey,” he said, and it was truly amazing how one measly word had the power to make me feel so warm inside. “I was told something about sweet rolls that needed taste testing?”
“They’ve still got about fifteen minutes in the oven,” I said.
Gabe turned as if to go. “Okay, see you then.”
I rolled my eyes affectionately as he turned back around, then swooped in to give me a kiss. “How was your day?” I asked.
“It was fine,” he said, and apparently “fine” meant that not one but two teenagers had told him that he made history sound interesting, which was about the highest compliment you could get from a teenager. Having just graduated with his master’s degree in education, he was spending the spring and summer tutoring until his official job as a history teacher at a high school in East Harlem started this fall. “I have no idea how they know about me and you, but it seems that dating Pomona Afton makes me extremely cool.”
“Hell yes, it does,” said Vienna from her stool, and Gabe jumped a little bit as if he hadn’t noticed her, even though she was right there. Because the man only had eyes for me. Yes, I loved it.
“Oh, hey, Vienna,” he said. “How’s everything?”
“Good, good,” she said. “We’re figuring out some of the final pieces for the big night.”
Which seemed to have been far more difficult than his day spent with teenagers who adored him. “The seating chart for the gala is simplyimpossible,” I said with a gusty sigh that I hoped conveyed the difficulty but also that I was world-weary enough that it wouldn’t conquer me. “Coriander’s slept with so many people’s husbands that the only place I can put her without insulting anyone is in the corner behind a bookshelf, which is apparently against fire code. And I didn’t think the Race CEO would RSVP yes, but he did, which is a problem because I’ve invited a couple of former employees he fired for embezzling, and I can’t uninvite them because I want them to give some of the money they embezzled to the kids.”
“The stakes are high,” Gabe said, and not even sarcastically. It felt good to hear someone say that nonsarcastically, because it was true. My seating chart woes might sound silly and frivolous, but the goal of this gala was to make people donate money to helpkids, and they wouldn’t do that if they were in a foul mood from sitting beside someone who’d stolen their money or their husband.
“They are high,” Vienna said, her voice tight. I hoped she didn’t think he was being sarcastic. Gabe always spoke in a kind of measured way, so it could be hard for people who didn’t know him well to tell. “But if anyone can do it, it’s our girl.”
“One hundred percent,” Gabe said.
Tears prickled the backs of my eyes. I cleared my throat. Something that I still wasn’t quite used to: people believing in me. “You guys.”
The timer dinged. “Quick,” Gabe said. “While she’s distracted by the happy tears, we eat all the sweet rolls.”
“Youguys.” With them at my side, I could do anything.
CHAPTER
Two
Except fix the seating chart, as it turned out. No matter how hard I worked at it, there was always someone in the wrong spot. In the end I made the executive and somewhat cowardly decision to put Coriander’s table setting under her middle name, Lynn, and convince her that fake thick-framed glasses were not only the height of fashion at the moment but that she’d be perfectly on theme if she wore them. Hopefully none of the wronged wives would recognize her. Also, hopefully Coriander wouldn’t pitch a fit when she noticed I wasn’t wearing said fake thick-framed glasses myself, as I may have hinted I would be.
