He chuckles. “All right, Lessi, tell me more. I want to know everything about her.”
The floodgates open. The tears flow again. And I start talking.
chapter 4
Saylor
I’ve been to some dodgy venues in my line of work. Warehouses converted into “experiential galleries.” Rooftop bars with forty-dollar drinks that taste like someone emptied a perfume counter into soda water. A retirement party on a yacht that hit a sandbar. But I have never, in my twenty-six years on this planet, attended a funeral with valet parking.
The bloke opens Celeste’s door before I’ve even fully stopped the car. He’s wearing a pressed black polo with gold embroidery on the chest—some logo I don’t recognize—and he’s got the careful, neutral expression of someone trained to look at extremely wealthy people without actually seeing them. A second attendant appears at my window and I hand over the keys, resisting the urge to ask if the trashcans around here are friendlier than the ones in Brooklyn.
Two women in black cocktail dresses intercept us at the entrance with flutes of champagne on silver trays. The bubbles catch the afternoon light, tiny golden explosions climbing the glass.
“Welcome,” one of them murmurs, like we’ve arrived at a spa retreat and not a memorial service.
Celeste takes a glass without looking at it. I watch her jaw tighten as her gaze sweeps the venue—a converted estate hall with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a manicured lawn that rolls toward the ocean. White hydrangeas spill from every surface. A string quartet is warming up in the far corner, and the air smells like lilies and money. Nothing about this saysa woman died. Everything about it sayslook how much we can spend on the fact that she did.
“Champagne,” Celeste says flatly. “At a funeral.”
I take a sip of mine. “Decent champagne, at least.”
She shoots me a look. I raise my glass in a small, guilty toast.
“If Whitney could see this—” Celeste’s fingers tighten around the stem. She doesn’t finish the sentence, but I’ve spent the last two and a half hours listening to stories about Whitney Trace, and I can fill in the blank. Whit would’ve hated every square inch of this. The hydrangeas alone would’ve sent her into a rant.
Celeste squares her shoulders. The transformation is immediate—the softness from the car, the tears, the wet laughter, all of it disappears behind a wall so polished I can almost see my reflection in it. She is, in the span of a breath, someone else entirely. Someone armored.
“I need to find Eleanor,” she says, scanning the room. “I wrote a speech for Whitney, and knowing her mother, she’s planned every second of this program down to the bathroom breaks. If I want a slot, I’ll need to ask in person.” She reaches up to fiddle with one of her earrings—ones I probably couldn’t dream of affording, the kind of jewelry that comes in a velvet box with a certificate. “It’s better if I approach her alone. Eleanor and I have…history.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. But I’m choosing to spare you. Eleanor has the warmth of an ice storm.” Celeste glances at me, and for half a second the armor slips. Something uncertain flickers beneath. “Will you be all right on your own?”
“Celeste, I’m a grown man at a weirdly fancy funeral with free booze and hors d’oeuvres everywhere. I’ll manage.”
The corner of her mouth lifts. “Avoid the truffle brie bites. I promise they will turn your stomach into an active volcano.”
“How do you know they will have truffle brie bites?” I scan the room as if Celeste has seen something I haven’t noticed yet.
“Because they always do. They always have white hydrangeas, staff dressed in black-tie, bottles of Dom Pérignon and Belvedere on ice. The pomegranate sorbet as a palate cleanser. These events are rinse and repeat. She couldn’t even switch up her playbook for her own daughter’s funeral.” Celeste mutters something more under her breath that I miss. But it sounds bitter.
“Hey, I forgot to say this in the car.”
“What?” she asks.
I pull her into a hug, my arms circling her shoulders gently. Her spine stiffens beneath my touch, and for a heartbeat, she’s frozen against me, like a deer caught in headlights—this small act of comfort apparently more startling than anything the day has thrown at her so far. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Celeste.”
She looks up, and once our eyes are locked I swear I see a flicker of something. Nothing indecent. Maybe just…hope that tomorrow will feel more normal. The next day even more so. It seems like Celeste, with one look, is asking me if everything is going to be okay. I don’t know if that’s what’s really going through her head, but it feels right to answer her unasked question. “Everything is going to be okay. You’ll get through this.”
“Thank you.” Nodding, she touches my cheek. It’s quick, almost reflexive—but before I can allow myself to enjoy the graze of her fingertips against my jawline, she’s free of my embrace, cutting through the crowd with the practiced stride of a woman who has been walking into hostile rooms her entire career.
I watch her go. She moves like she’s on a runway even when she’s not, which is either a professional habit or a survival mechanism. Probably both.
A man in a windowpane suit catches my eye from across the room and gives me a slow, assessing once-over—shoes, watch, shoulders, face—before returning to his conversation. I’ve been on the receiving end of looks like that before, but usually I’m working security at the door, not standing inside holding champagne.
I drain my glass, set it on a passing tray, and go looking for the restroom.
The hallway leading away from the main space is quieter, all dark wood paneling and recessed lighting. My dress shoes click against marble floors and I catch my reflection in a gilded mirror hanging between two oil paintings—a sailboat, a horse. Rich-people art. The kind of stuff that exists solely to fill wall space in buildings where the walls cost more than the art.
