Chapter fifteen
George
Iarrive at the charity gala already regretting the tuxedo. The collar presses against my throat like a polite stranglehold, and I make a mental note somewhere between the coat check and the ballroom entrance to find whoever invented the bow tie and have a serious conversation with them.
The ballroom itself is full of towering floral arrangements that probably cost more than my first car, candlelight splintering off crystal in every direction, a string quartet working through something I vaguely recognize as Vivaldi. I stand at the edge of it and feel, as I usually do at these things, like a variable that hasn’t been properly solved.
Then Tessa appears at my elbow, and I make the mistake of looking at her directly.
She is wearing a deep navy gown that catches the light every time she moves, shifting between dark and darker in a way that is genuinely distracting. I redirect my attention to the nearest centerpiece with what I hope is the expression of a man whohas simply developed a sudden, consuming interest in floral arrangements.
“You’re staring at the flowers like they’ve personally offended you,” she says, her voice low and amused.
“I’m focused,” I say. “It’s what I do.”
She makes a small sound, not quite a laugh, but close enough that it is definitely at my expense.
We are seated with the Hargroves, Gerald and Patricia, old money in the truest sense, the kind of couple who finish each other’s sentences with the practiced ease of people who have been doing it for so long that neither of them notices anymore. Dinner arrives, and Tessa slips into professional mode with her usual effortlessness, steering the conversation toward ERS’s philanthropic partnerships, and I attempt to follow her lead.
Then Gerald leans forward with the attentiveness of a man who is either genuinely curious or genuinely wealthy, which at a gala amounts to roughly the same thing.
“You’re a Maddox? Any relation to the billionaires?”
I experience what I can only describe as a brief systems failure. I am here to represent ERS, to identify potential clients, to be useful, not to explain my family tree to a man who owns what appears to be a genuinely significant amount of Connecticut. I open my mouth with no clear plan for what is going to come out of it.
Under the table, Tessa’s knee presses briefly against mine. I am almost certain it isn’t intentional. I lose the thread of every thought I’ve ever had.
“We’re here to represent ERS,” Tessa says smoothly, stepping into the gap I leave without a single flicker of acknowledgment that anything has occurred. “Have you heard of us? Our selection process is really what sets us apart.” She says it the way she does everything, with the kind of composure that makes you wonder if she has simply been born prepared.
I recalibrate, grateful and annoyed in approximately equal measure.
The orchestra shifts into something slower then, more deliberate, and Patricia Hargrove sets down her champagne flute with the decisive air of a woman who has decided to involve herself.
“You two really ought to dance,” she says. It is not a suggestion. It is a verdict, issued by someone who has never found it necessary to distinguish between the two.
Tessa shakes her head gently. “We’re here for work, Mrs. Hargrove.”
Gerald nods with the enthusiasm of a man who learned decades ago that agreeing with his wife is simply the more efficient path. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have any fun. Ask her to dance.”
I look at Tessa. Tessa looks at me. The Hargroves look at both of us with the patient, immovable expressions of people who are not going to let this go under any circumstances.
“I should warn you,” I say to Tessa, pushing back my chair, “I dance the way I do most things, systematically and without flair.”
“Noted,” she says, and places her hand in mine before I have even fully extended it.
The contact is immediate and oddly steadying, her fingers cool against my palm. I walk us to the edge of the dance floor with the measured confidence of a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing and has simply decided not to let that show.
When I place my hand at her waist, I become briefly, acutely aware of the warmth of her through the fabric of her gown, a fact my brain logs with unnecessary precision and absolutely no prompting from me. She settles into the hold easily, naturally, which only makes my own stiffness more apparent by contrast.
“You’re counting,” she says. Not an accusation. Just an observation, stated with the calm certainty of someone reporting the weather.
“I’m not counting,” I say, and then count four beats in my head before taking a step.
She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. I can tell by the slight tension at the corner of her mouth, a small tell she probably doesn’t know she has. Something about catching it almost makes me laugh, which is not a response I anticipate.
We find an awkward rhythm that gradually, through some minor miracle of perseverance, becomes a less awkward one. I stop thinking about my feet. I become aware of other things instead, which is not an improvement.
A flashbulb pops somewhere to our left, bright and indiscriminate, and I catch a glimpse of us in the mirrored panel beside the dance floor, her hand on my shoulder, my hand at her waist, both of us closer than strictly necessary for the purpose of the exercise. The image is startlingly convincing. We look like two people who belong together in a way that is professionally gratifying and personally destabilizing, and I file that observation somewhere I do not intend to revisit.
