The voice was sharp and cutting, slicing through the low cultured hum of the string quartet like a serrated knife through silk. My mother, Catherine Vance, materialized from the crowd with the unerring precision of a heat-seeking missile. She was wearing a silver gown that shimmered with every movement, a dress perhaps a decade too young for her sixty-two years. The sapphire necklace draped across her collarbone looked like a collar of frozen water. I knew—because I’d seen the paperwork during my last visit home—that the necklace was insured by a loan leveraged against my father’s construction business. The beautiful thing strangling her neck was actually a noose made of debt, and she wore it like a crown.
“Don’t just stand there like a statue,” she hissed, her fingers wrapping around my upper arm with surprising strength, her nails digging into my flesh through the thin fabric. “Go check if the valet is parking the Bentleys correctly. We have extremely important guests arriving. Mr. Sterling is already here—I saw his car—and we cannot afford any mistakes tonight.”
I stood taller, my spine automatically locking into a rigid line, a reflex from years of military training. I clasped my hands behind my back in an unconscious position of parade rest.
“I am a guest, Mother,” I said, keeping my voice level and professional. “I flew in from Washington D.C. this morning on the six a.m. shuttle. I haven’t even had a glass of water yet.”w
