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But I’d be a fool not to go to the fundraiser. These kinds of chances didn’t come around every day, and if I was serious about my future and the future of my academy, these were the chances I needed.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“Great!” he said, and he squeezed my hand before leaving. Every kiss we shared was in that hand squeeze. Every kiss we didn’t have was in that hand squeeze.
It was a really complicated hand squeeze.
I watched his wide, strong back detour around Barricade Grandma, and I shook out my hand, trying to clear the goose bumps his touch had left behind.
For all my conviction that going to the fundraiser was the right thing, it felt scary. Out of my depth.
And it wasn’t just that I had nothing to wear, or that I was asking for money for a fledgling idea. It was because Carter, without the cool distance of the business agreement between us, was dangerous.
9
CARTER
Saturday night, I was running late and the party was already in full swing. Walking in through the front doors, I was hit by a wall of sound and heat, a hot wave of perfume mixed with champagne. The two blackjack tables, a poker table and the roulette were moving at full speed with people lined up around them three deep.
A success, I thought, pride and excitement surging through me.
The Glenview albatross was off from around my neck.
I tugged at the white sleeve of my shirt, pulling it past the black edge of my tux. The cuff links, simple silver disks my grandmother had given me on my graduation from law school, were slick under my fingers.
They were usually a pleasant reminder of my childhood, of poker games in Margot’s bedroom, arguing with my brother and making my sister giggle, eating cold slices of sugar pie and learning how to count cards and stack the deck.
But here, on the precipice of a chance for a new life, they reminded me of everything I was and tried to forget.
I caged the nostalgia and regret, locked it up and shoved it a million miles beneath my tux, beneath my desires for this city, beneath my craving to see Zoe here tonight.
It had been hard to accept terminating our arrangement, a shock after deciding I was going to fight for her. But I couldn’t ignore her wishes, and one look in her eyes told me that the photographer and Jim Blackwell were simply too much to ask her to take on.
And I totally understood that.
But she was coming tonight and once I dealt with Blackwell, maybe, just maybe, I could convince her to try again with me. For real this time.
I caught sight of Amanda, elegant in a black gown, working Eric Lafayette, and I imagined Eric was working her right back. There had been more than a little sizzle when they’d met yesterday.
“Hello, Carter.”
I turned to find Jim Blackwell waiting at the door like a black cloud.
“You couldn’t rent a tux?” I asked, taking in the reporter’s cheap suit jacket and blue jeans with distaste.
“No one here I need to impress,” he said, those deceiving chubby cheeks stretching wide into a grin. I wondered if Jim had anyone fooled by that Jimmy Olsen mask, because all I saw were the beady eyes of a snake. “Thank you for the invite to this little soiree.”
“No problem.”
Jim looked around as if the glitter and flash of the grand ballroom was a back alley. “Hell of a way to make money for a community center. Gambling? Cash bars?”
“What the hell is your problem, Blackwell?”
Jim arched his eyebrows. “You,” he said. “I thought I made that clear.”
“You have questions?” I asked, stepping close to the man so his words didn’t have to carry any further than the two of us. “Ask them. Here. Now. Stop badgering Zoe Madison.”
“What are you hiding?” Jim asked. “You aren’t fooling me, you know. I accuse your family of stealing gems seconds before this pregnant girl stands on a chair as a joke, and you run with the pregnant girl? It’s smoke and mirrors, Carter, and I’m not buying it. I think you know where the ruby is.”
“I have no idea where it is,” I said with conviction, for the first time since the questions started to roll around. If nothing else, I could thank my mother for that.
The truth, I thought, was a revelation, so thin and slick on my tongue, unlike the years of fat, heavy lies. “And furthermore, I don’t give a shit. That garbage has nothing to do with me and what I want to do for this city.”
“Did your parents steal the gems in the first place?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t lying when I said I have no contact with them. Now call the hounds off Zoe. She has nothing to do with my family.”
