I hid behind a stage curtain. “Raspberries? You mean theoneingredient I askednotto be used?” I spit out, feeling my face burn as I watched the guests approaching the desserts.
“Where does it say that?”
I heard paper shuffling on the other end of the conversation.
“Frank, Elaine Hayes is deathly allergic and this was one of her dessert requests.”
“Hold on.”
Hold on? There was no time to hold on. A moment later I heard more shuffling and arguing in the background.
“Elle, this is Paul, it seems someone wasn’t paying attention.” Paul sounded as if he was gritting his teeth at someone in his kitchen. “Listen, I can send someone to pick up the platter.”
“You can’t, they’ve already been laid out—it will look like something went wrong and I can’t have that.”
“Elle what’s the big deal, just take it off the floor,” Shawn suggested. I’d forgotten that everyone I’d given the earpiece to could hear the conversation.
“You take one thing off the floor, people will notice and think that something is wrong in the kitchen, and they’ll question all the other table items. Not only that, I know Donovan’s assistant is here somewhere watching and I can’t have anything go wrong or questioned.”
“Shoulda guessed,” Shawn said before clicking off.
I ignored the passive-aggressive slight and moved on. “Thanks Paul, I’ll just take care of it myself.” I muted my mic and reached into my purse, pulling out a smallthank youcard and scribbled a short ‘congratulations and thank you for your business’ note.
The guests of honor were on the dance floor and barely approached their table since the desserts had been put out. It should be an easy trade off.
4
SCOTT
“Gotta handit to your buddy there, Westy,” Donovan stepped away from a nearby guest and approached me. His head slightly cocked to one side and a glass of scotch in his right hand. My old boss nearly stumbled as if what we were standing on had been an actual moving boat rather than a stationed façade.
“Don’t call me that,” I muttered for the fiftieth time in the ten years we’d known each other. It was a name I had refused to let myself get used to every time Donovan had a few drinks.
And I wasn’t quite ready for his white flag, admitting that I might’ve been right about Dean’s firm. I was still judging the venue for myself, the staff, detail and overall timing of the event. I looked for anything that might appear sloppy; a miscount in chairs, delays in food preparations, and—given the time crunch to put this whole thing together—any indication that something was planned with little effort. If Donovan felt shortchanged in the least, I’d never hear the end of it. I hated feeling like I was working—especially when it came to pleasing Donavan, but I needed tonight to go smoothly.
Saving the firm that put this together was important to me. I needed another cause-worthy investment. Something that was more than just about saving jobs or making more money. Something that served a bigger purpose. A selfless purpose. Somehow, I’d trailed off from my focus on saving firms that built an honest business. The ones that actually cared about what they offered the public.
If anything were to go wrong tonight, I’d have to pull out. I didn’t favor being harsh on struggling businesses I invested in, but I couldn’t risk an ‘easy-going’ reputation either. And I most certainly wouldn’t be taken for a fool.
Not to mention Donovan would start to question my judgment and second guess tipping me off on worthy opportunities.
“Oh, lighten up. You drinkin’ enough?”
“Just this one.” I held up my near empty rocks glass.
Donovan shook his head. “Would you stopworking?” He leaned closer to me. “There are about half a dozen women that have been eying you all night. Just look around, they’re easy to spot.”
I didn’t bother and looked down at Donovan. “Oh? And how would you know?”
“Cause I’ve been eying them,” my friend shrugged with no shame.
Thanks, but I’ll pass tonight.
The type of women I would meet through work-related events were hardly of interest to me. I’d entertained the occasional model or business associate, so long as they weren’t in close connections. The types who didn’t expect anything but one to two nights tops. I’d rarely met anyone who was worth more than a fraction of my time—not that I thought they weren’t good enough for me, but my work was everything and distractions were costly.
No one could say I didn’t honestly try at one point or another to have something more. But most of the time, the women I’d spend time with wouldn’t spark a damn thing—well, not where it counted.
With that thought, I turned to once again scan the hundred somewhat guests to see if I could spotheragain—the woman in the long black lace dress. Every time I saw her, she seemed to be looking for someone or steering clear of something. I laughed to myself. It wouldn’t be the first time at one of these shindig’s, I’d seen someone trying to avoid an old flame.
