“Take some from the catering platters like I did.”
Why did Nico have to witness this? She shut her eyes. “Please.”
“Fine, I need a break anyway. Give me the credit card.”
With Alexis out of the way, Valerie was able to focus. Normallyshe might stress at being in such close proximity to a man who made her skin tingle, but she’d worked hard on this event and refused to be derailed by the dopamine flood that occurred when they made eye contact.
Or so she thought, until he smiled at her. It was incredible what it did to his face, transforming its cold perfection into a surprisingly intimate warmth, and satisfying because she had a sense that Nico wasn’t someone who smiled often. It felt special, just for her. She took a step back and lifted the folder filled with print copies of the event plan to her chest as if that would hide the sudden pounding of her heart.
Work. It was time for work. “Shall we move to the coat check?”
Nico listened attentively and Valerie let the folder drop to her side as she relaxed into the rhythm of her tasks. It was pleasant to be with Nico. It gave her intense satisfaction to go over everything, in part to show him she knew what she was doing, but mostly because it was gratifying to have someone appreciate the small details that made an event appear seamless. Nico cared about the importance of specifics, such as the number of roses in the arrangements (six in the small, twenty in the large), and the greenery used for filler (fern, not baby’s breath).
Alexis arrived with lunch just as they finished, and haphazardly set out the food on an empty table. Valerie examined the trays, which did not hold the sandwiches she requested.
“I felt like sushi,” Alexis said breezily, taking the California and kappa rolls for herself. Valerie and Ricky split the spicy salmon and tuna, while Nico politely refused. He went off to examine the selection of whiskeys Valerie had stocked on the advice of a master distiller Ruth recommended.
Alexis checked her phone. “I’m leaving at six to meet the girls,” she said. “Are you coming by later?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be done here.” No one in their shared friend group had told her there were plans, and Valerie’s last message dangled at thebottom of the group chat like a hook filled with uneaten bait. It would have been nice to be invited instead of being an afterthought. Or maybe they’d simply assumed she’d be there. She cheered and took another salmon roll. That made more sense, and she could think about whether to go later.
Right now, she had an event to run and a name to make for herself.
Two
Nico Hever turned from the whiskey display and again surveyed the room with approval. The somewhat generic event space had been transformed into a sophisticated Pall Mall club reading room, ideal for a man who took pride in his old-fashioned outlook. Malcolm’s oil portrait, a traditional sitting in the style of van Dyck, dominated the area from its place of honor near the front. The deep-red roses were decorative but acceptably masculine.
He examined the photos on the tables, set out in matching frames. It was a big day for Roger Badgerton, the Badgerton family, the Bread Company corporate entity, and by extension of all that, Nico himself. Luckily, thanks to Valerie’s mix of creativity, pragmatism, and attention to detail, he was convinced the memorial would unfold without issue. The Badgertons would be able to see off their patriarch with the dutiful reverence Malcolm would have demanded and the respect for the Badgerton name he held dear.
Laughter came from the lunch table. It couldn’t be easy to run a business like Ad Astra and work with people coping with the valleysrather than the peaks of life, but Valerie had surpassed his expectations. She’d dealt with Roger, and then Nico, with a compassionate sensitivity complemented by her superb knowledge and experience.
“People should leave uplifted,” she’d told him in one of their early conversations.Rather than depressed by thoughts of their own mortalityhad been left unsaid, but he’d filled it in. It had been a treat to watch Valerie tie in elements of Malcolm’s life. Take the heavyweight LL Bean–style canvas bags, filled with a fresh loaf of Malcolm’s favorite Bread Company sourdough rye, which would be provided to guests as they left. They were the perfect memento of Malcolm, who had prided himself on his generosity (admittedly, only at a personal level and limited to his peers, since he’d fought viciously against increasing minimum wage and corporate taxes). The bags had been silk-screened with a commissioned pen-and-ink sketch, an idyllic scene of a lakeside dock with a steaming coffee cup and one of the Bread Company’s distinctive honey buns balanced on the arm of a Mariposa chair. It radiated an exclusiveif-you-know-you-knowallure the guests would appreciate.
Nico adjusted his green tie in the window reflection. A woman once said he looked good in green, a casual compliment he’d hung on to for years. He’d taken more care than usual over his appearance, telling himself it was to honor Malcolm and not to impress Valerie. It was curious that a woman so filled with life had picked such a grim focus for her business. His due diligence research had uncovered Valerie’s background in weddings and galas: high stress but without the added weight of heartache and bereavement.
He’d spent a lot of time over the last three weeks wondering why Valerie had chosen to embrace the worst moments of people’s lives, which meant he’d spent a lot of time thinking about Valerie herself. It made him a little uncomfortable, like a kid with a crush, but he suspected this would soon fade. Work would rush back in to fill the spacewhere Valerie had taken up more of his thoughts than seemed reasonable for a woman he barely knew.
He listened to her chat with Ricky over the sushi. The serious expression and primly clasped hands of her online corporate headshot barely resembled the real-life woman. He didn’t know if it was her personality that animated her face, or if she simply photographed terribly, but in person she dazzled in a way the camera didn’t come close to capturing. Her features were fascinatingly narrow—long eyes, a thin nose, and a mouth with delicate lips he found sexier than a magazine-perfect pout—but it was her presence that caused him to stumble over his polite greeting. A light shone from her, and when he’d reached out to shake her hand earlier, part of him wondered if it would linger on his skin like bioluminescence on a night beach. Her black pants clung to generous curves and the white shirt made her skin glow.
She glanced over Ricky’s shoulder and smiled at him, instantly decimating any idea of his crush fading. Confirmed: He would ask her for coffee when this was all done. Or drinks. Dinner. Anything. All of it.
Hoping he was staying professional—although he was already calculating if it was inappropriate to ask her out right after the event, or if he should at least wait for tomorrow—he was about to join them at the table when his phone rang. Expecting it to be Roger, who had an allergy to texting, Nico was surprised to see it was his middle sister. Kimmy rarely called, as she preferred to communicate via memes that he often found incomprehensible. He moved to the corner and answered.
“Stefanie and I have been talking,” she said.
Those six words were enough to ruin his day although Kimmy and Stefanie left him out of conversations all the time. While he disliked talk simply for the sake of it, he’d felt empty when he’d heard them giggling behind Kimmy’s door as a kid or seen them leaving to go somewhere without him. As an adult, the only thing that had changed was that he’d gotten better at hiding his feelings.
Which meant he did not say,What else is new, but instead acted like a grown man and said, “Talking about what?”
“Mom and Dad. Their fortieth wedding anniversary is coming and we need to mark the occasion.”
“Okay.” He wasn’t sure why she was calling. His two older sisters—mostly Stefanie, to be fair—rarely listened to him.
“Stef says she’s tired of being the one to plan family stuff and wants you to step up.” Kimmy’s tone said,Don’t shoot the messenger.
“I’m working on a project with a tight deadline.” He wasn’t, no more than usual, but he resented Stefanie acting as if he was the one slacking when she refused to listen to any idea he ever had to offer. What was the point of contributing if he was only going to get shot down?
“You always have work.”
