Tess #3
I lingered at the bottom of the stairs, looking over the sea of faces for hers while I tried to remember what she’d been wearing.
I was found before I found her. “Tess, you made it! Glad to see you. I know how important it was for Kendra to have you here tonight.” Leila pulled me into an embrace, reminding me how good she was at hugging. “Is your room okay?”
I tended to forget that in the time between visits.
It was easy to lump her in with all the other well-off people we dealt with at Conscience Connect, and I often found myself thinking of her as an out-of-touch socialite when really she was a very generous and warm woman.
Because she had money, I wanted to think of her as selfish and materialistic, but she was nothing of the sort.
She’d dedicated her life to philanthropy, for God’s sake.
She’d raised a daughter who had built a career that helped fund charitable organizations.
She had the gift of service in her blood, and she gave damn good hugs.
“The room is perfect, as always.”
“Good. I’m relieved. I haven’t really used it since the last time you were here, and we have some other guests staying tonight, so I didn’t have anywhere to move you if there was a problem. You know where to find extra bedding if you need it?”
“Yep. I remember.”
“Of course you do.” She looked me over, and not in the are-you-appropriately-dressed look-over way, but in the I’m-genuinely-interested sort of way. “You look fantastic, by the way. Did you do something different to your hair?”
The only thing I’d done different since I’d last seen her was betray her daughter and fuck Scott Sebastian. And if I looked fantastic, it was because I was wearing her daughter’s clothes. “I think I’ve gained five pounds?”
“It looks amazing on you. Make sure to hit the dessert bar and gain five more.”
“I’ll do that.” Sincerely, I would. She always chose the best caterers, and after all this socializing, I was going to need an ostentatious chocolatey thing of some sort. “Do you know where I can find—?”
Before I could finish, Kendra was at my side, grabbing my hand like we were teenage girls instead of women near thirty. “Nice choice!” she exclaimed, remarking over my dress. “I should have told you to get into my jewelry. That would look perfect with my diamond pendant choker.”
With barely a breath in between, she returned a wave to someone across the room. “I need to catch up with you, Kay. Later. After you eat something.”
Then her attention was back to me. “Thank God you came. I’ve gotten so used to anti-peopling, I don’t remember how to people. Tell me how to people, will you?” Again, her eye caught elsewhere. “Janet! Look at your baby bump! Three months to go now?”
“Thirteen weeks,” Janet replied, as though that extra week definitely needed to be accounted for. “Too long.”
“It will go by in a heartbeat.” It seemed like Kendra was peopling just fine to me.
But I knew this was the sort of socializing that exhausted her. “Keep up exactly what you’re doing. Then, when it’s all over, you’ll take some hot cocoa upstairs and soak in the tub with Outlander on the TV.”
She closed her eyes and made a delicious sound like she was already imagining it. “I really do love Outlander. And hot cocoa. And soaking in tubs.”
“I know you do, K.”
Her gaze was somewhere else now. “Bruce and Cathy! Good to see you!”
“You too. Congratulations,” one of them said. Bruce, I was guessing, since it was a male voice.
“Thank you!” She threaded her arm through mine. “Make the rounds with me, will you?” she asked, already pulling me along with her into the crowd.
“Yep.” But something was itching at me all of a sudden. “Are we...celebrating something?”
She mouthed a hello and waved at yet another guest across the room, and this time I really looked at the ring she’d retrieved from the red purse. Really thought about it and why she was wearing it on her left hand. “K, that looks an awful lot like an engagement ring.”
“Oh, yeah,” she sighed like whatever story she was about to tell was a drag. “I should have told you already, but I just didn’t know—ah! There you are. Let me introduce you.”
I was pretty sure her last couple of sentences weren’t meant for me but for the tuxedoed man she’d now broken from me to speak with. “My assistant is here. I want you to meet her.”
He had his back to me, and my eye was caught on Kendra’s ringed hand, possessively sitting on his shoulder blade. It was quite a ring. Three carats? Four?
Then I really looked at the man’s backside. Most men look the same in a tux, and this one was no different, but the build was familiar. And the length and style of his hair. And was that a hickey peeking up over the collar of his jacket?
I knew that hickey. I’d made that hickey.
Panic and dread and utter shock swamped over me. I wanted to run. I needed to run, but my feet were glued in place as the bearded man pivoted to face me.
To his credit, his expression remained steady as Kendra introduced him. “Tess,” she said brightly. “This is Scott Sebastian. My fiancé.”