Chapter 3 #2
Margaret Ashworth. Flash: her smug face at a garden party, the way she’d tried to undermine Victoria’s charity gala by scheduling a competing event.
The slight tremor in her left hand that betrayed her drinking problem, carefully hidden behind silk scarves and society smiles.
Great, now I knew enough secrets to start a gossip column—or possibly a blackmail empire.
Diana Burton. Flash: tennis matches at the country club, her daughter’s sweet sixteen where Victoria had deliberately worn the same designer dress just to spite her.
The way she overcompensated for her new money status by outspending everyone else.
Apparently, Victoria had filed away every social faux pas like a librarian of spite.
Rebecca Whitman. Flash: decades of rivalry dating back to prep school, a shared ex-boyfriend, and six years of passive-aggressive charity committee meetings.
The memory came complete with a detailed catalog of every backhanded compliment ever exchanged.
These women made professional wrestlers look like amateurs in the drama department.
I blinked rapidly, trying to process this download of data that felt both foreign and familiar.
It was like suddenly remembering every episode of a soap opera I’d never watched, complete with surround sound and scratch-and-sniff scandal.
Each memory came with Victoria’s carefully cataloged list of weaknesses to exploit—like a supervillain’s handbook to social destruction.
“Mrs. Everett?” Sam’s voice cut through my daze. “Would you like me to continue?”
“No, I—” I swallowed hard, struggling to reconcile Zoe’s conscience with Victoria’s mental rolodex of social ammunition. “I remember them.” Boy, did I ever. Victoria’s brain was like a cross between a high-society yearbook and a CIA dossier.
Sam’s eyebrow twitched. “Of course. Though perhaps you’d like to review the seating arrangement? Mrs. Harrison has placed you next to Mrs. Ashworth, which given last month’s… incident…”
“The one with the fake beauty treatment party?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them, another memory surfacing like a shark in a swimming pool.
“Where Victoria—where I…” I trailed off, horrified at the calculating cruelty I could feel lurking in that particular recollection.
Apparently, Victoria had turned social humiliation into an Olympic sport, and she was going for gold.
Sam’s fingers paused over her tablet. “Yes. That incident.”
Well, wasn’t this just perfect? Not only was I crash-landing into the socialite version of high school drama, but I was apparently the queen bee with a PhD in psychological warfare.
And now these memories were surfacing like landmines in designer dresses, each one a reminder of exactly why Victoria Everett needed a karmic intervention.
The car slowed to a stop outside La Maison, and I could already see the perfectly coiffed heads through the restaurant’s windows. Time to put on a show worthy of Broadway—though this might be the first time the villain gets recast as the hero halfway through the performance.
The private dining room of La Maison looked like Marie Antoinette’s fantasy come to life—all crystal chandeliers and gilt-edged everything. A dozen of Manhattan’s most carefully maintained women clustered in elegant groups, their designer outfits meticulously chosen like armor for social warfare.
The moment I walked in, the room’s atmosphere shifted like someone had adjusted the thermostat to Ice Queen Approaching.
Backs straightened, pearls were clutched, and fake smiles appeared faster than you could say social hierarchy.
Sam took up her position behind my right shoulder, tablet at the ready like a shield against incoming social missiles.
“Victoria, darling!” Charlotte Harrison floated toward me, her air-kiss precisely calculated to avoid actually touching skin. Another memory flash: she’d spent half the summer visiting her sister while the bandages from her latest facelift healed. “We were just discussing the new chef at?—”
“Victoria!” Diana Burton materialized at my elbow, cutting Charlotte off mid-sentence. “That dress from last week’s dinner was divine. Though didn’t Rebecca wear something similar last month?”
Rebecca Whitman’s head snapped around so fast I worried for her recently injected neck. “Actually, mine was couture.”
“Ladies.” I smiled, watching them brace for whatever social devastation Victoria would normally deliver.
“You both look lovely. Though honestly, I’m more interested in hearing about your daughter’s scholarship program, Diana.
And Rebecca, didn’t you mention something about a domestic violence shelter needing support? ”
The silence that followed was deafening. Behind me, I heard Sam’s tablet pen clatter to the floor—the PA equivalent of a gasp.
Margaret Ashworth swooped in, probably hoping to capitalize on what she assumed was a moment of weakness. “Speaking of support, Victoria, I heard the most interesting rumor about your last charity gala’s numbers?—”
“Oh God, numbers,” I groaned theatrically. “Can we not? I’d much rather hear about actual people we’re helping. Though I wouldn’t say no to a drink first.”
As if summoned by magic, a waitress appeared with a tray of crystal glasses filled with something that probably took years to age to perfection.
“Perfect timing.” I smiled genuinely at her, my waitress solidarity kicking in before I could stop it. Several socialites blinked rapidly in confusion, like they’d witnessed someone pet a shark. “Thank you…” I paused, waiting for her name.
“Sarah,” she supplied, looking startled.
Oh crap. The memory hit me like a delayed splash of cold water—Victoria had never bothered learning staff names in her life. Behind me, Sam shifted slightly—her equivalent of a full-body cringe.
“Thank you, Sarah.” Too late to take it back now.
I took a glass, and thank God Victoria’s muscle memory kicked in before I could grab it like I was at a happy hour special, my fingers automatically arranging themselves into some elegant configuration that probably required years of finishing school to master.