Chapter One
HOLLAND
I spottedthe Wexlers near the bar before Callum even finished checking his coat. That was the thing about doing this job for seven years. You learned to read a room faster than your husband could work it.
“Holland.” Margaret Wexler’s hug was tight, smelling of Chanel and the desperation of a client on her third contractor. “Thank God. Tell me you’re on the lake house. If I have to look at those warped window frames for one more summer, I might set the place on fire myself.”
“She’s been handling it since you first called,” Callum said, setting a glass of wine on the table at my elbow without breaking his stride. “Holland’s the one who remembers every detail.”
He said it like a compliment. He said it like he meant it. But he didn’t stay to hear my answer. He was already moving toward the cluster of investors near the windows, and I was left holding the wine and Margaret’s anxious, hopeful gaze.
“The windows are a priority,” I told her. “I’ve got the original specs from the architect you hired in 2019: mortise-and-tenon joinery. We’ll replicate it, but with modern weather sealing.”
Margaret’s shoulders dropped an inch. “Thank God. You remembered the joinery.”
“I remember everything about that house. You served me lemon cake in the kitchen while the inspector was on the roof.”
She laughed, and the sound was warm enough to carry me through the next ten minutes of small talk. This was what I did at these events. I was the person who remembered the lemon cake and the window specs, while Callum worked the room and collected the credit. I’d made peace with that arrangement years ago. I’d even convinced myself it was a partnership.
Then I turned toward the main table and saw Laura Vale with her hand on my husband’s forearm.
She was seated beside him. Not beside her own date, if she’d brought one. Not in the COO-appropriate spot three chairs down where the operations people usually sat. She was in the seat I’d occupied at every client dinner for the last five years, and her manicured fingers were resting on Callum’s sleeve like she’d forgotten they were attached to her body.
I didn’t move. I stood near the bar with my wine glass and watched Laura lean in, her words drawing a laugh from Callum, her blonde hair brushing his shoulder. She was wearing a navy dress I recognized from a Saks Fifth Avenue window. I’d pointed it out two weeks ago, and now here it was, on her body, at my event.
“Mrs. Hart.” One of the junior associates appeared at my elbow with a seating chart. “We have you at table three.”
Table three was for the loyalists—the clients who mattered but didn’t need the charm offensive. The people who already trusted Crestline, who trusted me, and wouldn’t walk away just because they were denied five minutes with the CEO.
“Who did the seating?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
The associate glanced toward Laura. “Ms. Vale finalized it this afternoon.”
Of course, she did.
I took my seat at table three and spent the next hour doing what I always did. I asked the right questions. I remembered the right details. When the Thompsons brought up their concernsabout the foundation work on their property, I was the one who pulled out my phone and showed them the soil report I’d commissioned six months ago. When the Harpers mentioned their daughter was starting architecture school, I was the one who wrote down the name of a professor I knew at Columbia.
Callum worked the room with easy handshakes and practiced smiles. I held my own small corner of it together, discussing soil reports while my jaw ached from a smile I didn't feel.
And across the dining hall, Laura kept touching him. His sleeve. His wrist. Once, when he made a joke about zoning regulations, she laughed and put her palm flat against his back like she was steadying herself. Like she needed to. Like he was hers to steady.
I watched the way she turned her body toward him every time he spoke. The way she answered questions that were directed at him. The way she used “we” when she talked about the firm’s future.
“We’re really excited about the direction we’re taking the lakefront portfolio,” she said to a table of investors, and I heard it from three tables away. “We think there’s room to push the design language further.”
We.
The design language was mine. I’d built it from scratch seven years ago, pulling from mid-century modernism and the particular light quality of Lake Michigan at sunset. Callum had never designed a single structure in his life. He was a businessman. A very good one, but a businessman. The aesthetic that made Crestline recognizable was something I’d drawn on tracing paper in a rented apartment while he was still learning how to read a balance sheet.
And Laura Vale was sitting there telling investors we were going to push it further.
I set my fork down.
“You okay?” asked the woman beside me. I hadn’t caught her name.
“Fine,” I said, managing a brief smile. “Just running through the Thompson foundation specs in my head.”
When the main course was cleared and the speeches started, I watched Callum stand at the podium and talk about Crestline’s vision. He was good at this. He was always good at this. His voice filled the room, and his smile was the right kind of practiced, and when he gestured toward the crowd, he made everyone feel like they were part of something important.
