Page 5 of A Vicious Love

“Whiskey. Double.”

The waiter froze.

This was a wine event. A carefully paired, donor-catered wine event where everyone had been given an embossed card explaining the vineyards, tasting notes and which wealthy family had sponsored each bottle. The waiter opened his mouth as though he might explain that.

Then he looked at me.

I gave him a tiny smile and nodded once.

“Of course, Mr. Crow.”

Jamison released him without noticing the exchange.

He didn’t know I’d made sure there would be whiskey here for him. I did it at every event. I spoke to the staff beforehand, checked the bar, made sure they stocked the brand he liked, the glass he preferred and the ice he didn’t complain about.

Jamison hated wine events.

So I made sure he had whiskey.

The waiter returned quickly with a double in a heavy glass. Jamison took it without looking up.

He drank his whiskey without looking at me, his attention already moving back to the conversation with Marcel. I traced the edge of his tattoo with my thumb while security rotations, contracts and merger clauses moved around the table.

A family I vaguely knew was discussed as though they were pieces of meat on a butcher’s table.

I ate a few bites of my entrée and kept Jamison’s hand tucked in my lap until his phone lit up. He pulled away to check the message, leaving my fingers curled around nothing.

I clasped my hands together instead.

These events terrified me more than I ever admitted. Every ballroom reminded me how easily everyone else seemed to fit into this world. They knew when to laugh, what to say and how long to hold someone’s gaze. I had been trained in the same rules my entire life, yet somehow it always felt as though everyone else had received an extra page of instructions.

After a while, I tried again. “What are you doing this weekend?”

Jamison didn’t look away from his phone. “Normal shit.”

His sigh said the rest.

I nodded and turned toward Harrison when he asked if the performance had gone well.

“It did,” I said, finding my smile again. “One of the little girls forgot her steps and then remembered right at the end, and everyone clapped so hard for her.”

Harrison listened.

Emmie did too.

Marcel even asked what age group the scholarship covered, and I answered in far too much detail because when someone gave me their attention, I had a terrible habit of pouring every unused word into the space before they changed their mind.

Jamison drank whiskey and checked his phone. Every time his glass emptied, another appeared. Because I had made sure it would.

The dinner stretched on forever. Speeches blurred into applause, donations were announced in beautiful voices and Harlan families smiled at one another across tables covered in flowers.

I laughed when I was supposed to and clapped when everyone else did. I asked Harrison’s date about her dress, told Emmie her earrings were gorgeous and thanked Marcel when he quietly shifted the dessert plate closer after noticing I couldn’t reach the sugared berries without leaning across the table.

By the time the night ended, my cheeks hurt from smiling.

Outside, the temperature had dropped. Drivers waited beside black vehicles while security teams moved through the crowd in quiet patterns. Women in diamonds kissed cheeks, and men made promises about lunches they would cancel tomorrow through their assistants.

I stood beside one of the stone pillars and waited for Jamison.