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Isaac’s strategy works. It’s not long until we’re weaving through the throngs of people who come up to talk to him.
He knows nearly everyone by name.
I mention it to him, and he gives me a wry smile. “I’ve been in this game a long time.”
We stop by the blind auction. Items are listed one by one, and each has a box beside it. Guests are expected to bid on them blindly, dropping their offers into the box, with the highest bid announced as the winner later in the evening.
Isaac and I walk side by side down the line. I watch in amusement as he bids on half of the items.
“A vintage bottle of champagne,” I say. “Are you a collector?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Hmm. And a private cooking class by a world-renowned sushi chef… are you trying to up your skill set?”
He sends an exasperated glance my way. “No. When would I have the time to do any of these things?”
“And yet,” I say, sweeping my hand at the ludicrous sum he’s currently writing on a scrap of paper.
“It’s expected of me,” he says. “The committee will read through all of the names. I have to be on at least some of them.”
“Are you trying to win?”
“It would look good if I did,” he admits and then smiles wryly. “But I’d rather win the champagne than… a couple’s spa retreat.”
I laugh. “I can’t imagine you taking a weekend off to lie in a Jacuzzi, but I’m sure you’d enjoy it if you ever let yourself.”
He leans in closer, voice warm by my ear. “I think,” he says, “that I might, too, but it depends entirely on the company.”
Somewhere between my second glass of champagne and the hors d'oeuvres, I make the cardinal sin of relaxing. I’m so busy pretending to be a couple with Isaac, standing close by his side and sliding smoothly in and out of the conversation with strangers, that I forgot who might be here.
Who I’m here for.
And when you let down your guard, the wolves descend. It’s the second law of New York, and I learned it quickly after I arrived. The first is to never, ever walk as anything but at a brisk pace.
I spot my former mother-in-law first.
Celine Browne is holding court by an old fresco, her diamond earrings catching the light beneath her tasteful perm.
My breathing comes faster.
This is the woman who’d begged me to come to my senses right after I’d found her son in bed with another woman. When I said leaving himwasme finally coming to my senses, she’d said she was disappointed I valued my wedding vows so little.
Oh, because your son lives by them?I’d asked, and she’d turned pink with anger.
This was two days before she unlocked the door to Percy’s and my apartment without telling me first and started packing up our wedding china, the champagne coupes, and the set of silver spoons Percy had been gifted at birth. Celine’s pointed looks had made it very clear that this was an Insult, capital I, planned and orchestrated. And I was to bear this Insult humbly, as the failure she now made it clear she thought I was, while she not-so-subtly reminded me of the prenup.
These are heirlooms,she’d said, packing up the spoons.I’d hate for them to end up outside of the family.
I was a failureanda potential thief.
Isaac’s voice is quiet. “Sophia, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “Absolutely. Yes.”
He looks down at my empty glass. “Would you like another?”
“Please.”
