Chapter twenty-eight
Tessa
I've spent most of the evening pretending I belong here.
It's not difficult, exactly. The private dining room is warm and candlelit and full of people who are very good at making other people feel welcome, which is either a Maddox family trait or a symptom of old money. Either way, I've smiled until my face aches and made conversation about things I care nothing about, and if anyone suspects I'm performing, they've been too polite to say so.
Eleanor laughs at something Daniel says quietly in her ear, and the sound is so open and unaffected that it makes something in my chest pull tight. It is nothing like the careful, gracious version of her I have been watching all evening.
That is the irony of my job. I spend so much time helping create moments for other people that when I see one arrive naturally, without effort or orchestration, it still catches me off guard.
Across the room, Margaret is already in motion, her finger running down a printed checklist while she corners Daniel'smother near the dessert station. I don't know how she does it. The event is functionally over and she's still executing. I make a note to either admire that or be frightened by it later.
I catch George's eye without meaning to. He gives me the smallest nod, barely a movement at all, and I know exactly what it means.We're almost done.
I look away first, which I've been doing more lately. His small signals have started to feel like a private language, and I've noticed I'm getting fluent in it, which seems like important information about something I haven't decided to think about yet.
The servers begin collecting the last of the dessert plates in that quiet, practiced way that signals an evening winding down, and the room exhales into something looser. Conversations slow. Jackets get retrieved. George stands and adjusts his jacket with one efficient pull at the lapel.
I say my goodbyes to Eleanor, and she takes both my hands in hers and squeezes them and says,"I'm so glad you were here."She means it. That's the part that gets me — she actually means it. The words settle warm and slightly guilt-edged in my stomach, because I'm not sure I was here in any real sense. I was working. There's a difference, even when you're not sure you can explain it.
Daniel's father shakes George's hand for a long moment near the door and says something low, too quiet for me to catch. Whatever it is, it earns the real smile — not the composed, boardroom version George wears like a second suit, but the one that reaches his eyes and does something entirely unfair to his face. I file it away without meaning to. I've been doing a lot of that lately.
The night air hits us as we step outside, cooler than I expected, carrying the smell of rain on warm pavement. It would be a lovely moment if the street weren't strobing with camera flasheslike a slow electrical storm. I count three photographers before I stop counting, because counting makes it feel more manageable and it isn't.
My hand finds George's. It's reflex now, or close enough to reflex that I've stopped questioning it. His fingers close around mine automatically, and we move toward the black car idling at the curb with the quiet efficiency of two people who have done this enough times that it has its own choreography.
The reporter moves faster than the security man beside the door.
He cuts across the pavement with his smile already in position. He's youngish, sharp-eyed, and seems to be the kind of person who's very aware of camera angles. He looks at me like he's already written the caption and is just waiting for the quote to fill in underneath it. My stomach drops exactly one floor.
"So the matchmakers at ERS date each other too?" he calls out, loud enough to make sure the cameras catch it before I can decide not to answer.
The flashbulbs pop and I feel every single one of them somewhere behind my sternum.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes. Some part of my brain is generating professional responses and some other part has simply gone offline, and I am standing on a pavement in front of three cameras with my mouth open like I've never spoken English.
"Or only when it looks good for the cameras?" he adds, and his smile doesn't move at all when he says it, which is somehow the most unsettling part.
George steps forward.
He is suddenly simply between me and the reporter, solid as punctuation. "ERS doesn't discuss client relationships with the press." His voice is perfectly level, the kind of level that takes years to build and probably a particular kind of childhood.
I am standing behind his shoulder thinking:he said client relationship.
"But this one isn't a client relationship, is it?" the reporter presses, still smiling, still loud, still aimed at both of us.
George doesn't answer. He turns to me instead, and for one half-second his eyes find mine and then he takes my hand again, differently this time. Not reflex. His thumb presses once against my knuckles, slow and precise, like a word being chosen carefully.
We move toward the car. The security guard steps into the gap behind us. I am very focused on not looking back, which means I am extremely aware of everything happening behind me.
The car door closes and the city noise drops away like a curtain falling.
The leather seat is cool against the backs of my legs. George settles behind the wheel and the silence is immediate and thick. His hand is no longer holding mine and I notice the absence.
I study his profile. Jaw set. Gaze fixed on the windshield with the kind of focus that has nothing to do with traffic. He pulls into the street and I watch the warm light of the restaurant disappear in the wing mirror while my pulse continues to run slightly faster than the situation now technically requires.
"I should apologize," I say, because someone should and it's clearly going to be me.
