Page 38 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

The event moves around me, warm and well-run, exactly what it’s supposed to be. The Lyon couple have found new conversation. The vineyard rows are silver at the edges where the lights don’t reach. Somewhere behind me a server opens a new bottle.

I look across the terrace.

Harper is still there. Maddox has said something that made her laugh again, that full unguarded version, and Asher is watching her with an expression I recognize because I’ve been wearing a version of it for two weeks.

Sophia’s voice is still in my ear.

So do you.

I straighten my cuffs.

I cross the terrace.

14

KILLIAN

The last guests leave just past midnight.

The terrace empties the way good events empty, slowly, reluctantly, people finding one more thing to say at the door because they’re not quite ready to let the evening go. That’s the measure of a night done right. Not the flowers or the wine or the lighting, though all of those matter. It’s whether people want to stay.

They wanted to stay.

I stand at the edge of the main floor and watch the staff begin the quiet work of closing down. Asher is in the kitchen, I can hear the shift change happening back there, the particular sounds of a kitchen winding down after a long service, the low voices and the clink of equipment being cleaned and stored. Through the glass I can see Maddox near the vineyard path with the two investors he’d brought in from Geneva, unhurried, his hands in his pockets, laughing at something one of them said. He’ll be another twenty minutes at least. He always is.

I do my own closing rounds. Shake the right hands. Say the right things. Thank the board members who attended and mean it because a night like this one is good for everyone. Find the Lyon couple from this afternoon near the door and tell them I’ll hold their usual table for next summer before they’ve had a chance to ask.

Mallory is near the terrace entrance with her clipboard and her radio and the particular expression of a woman who has executed something difficult and done it well and is allowing herself exactly one moment to know it before she moves on to the next thing. She has Harper’s notes tucked under her arm.

I cross to her. “Flawless,” I tell her. “Start to finish.”

She exhales a long breath. “Harper’s service path fix saved us forty-five minutes on the board reception turnover.”

“I know.”

“She’s good, Killian. Really good.” She tucks the clipboard under her other arm. “I’d work with her again in a heartbeat.”

“Good. You will.” I glance toward the terrace. “Get some rest. Go home to your husband.”

She laughs, already turning. “Already texted him. He’s got the kids. I’m sleeping until Saturday afternoon and no one is stopping me.” She lifts a hand over her shoulder as she goes. “Night, Killian. Good event.”

“Good event,” I say.

She disappears through the main doors.

I look toward the terrace.

She’s at the far railing, facing the vineyard.

The terrace lights have been dimmed to their lowest setting for closing and the rows beyond are dark and silver under the moon and she’s standing at the edge of it all in a deep plum dress that I have been not looking at all evening. Gold accents at the fabric, grapes and florals threading through the deep color, the hem falling to her ankles where gold heels hold her up. Her hair is loose down her back. She doesn’t know I’m there yet.

I cross the terrace.

She hears my footsteps and turns, and the dim light catches her face and she smiles when she sees it’s me and something in my chest does what it’s been doing since a pool terrace two weeks ago, that low, inconvenient tightening that I have not been able to discipline away no matter how many boardrooms I’ve sat in since.

“Successful night,” I say, stopping beside her at the railing.

“Very.” She turns back to the vineyard. “It went exactly the way it should have.”