Julia
Chapter Twenty Five
I use one of the hotel suites to get ready because Mario arranged it for me.
The gala is downstairs in the ballroom, and I have spent too much of the past two weeks running between Conti Enterprises, the hotel, the printer, the florist, the sponsor coordinator, and Patrice’s increasingly terrifying spreadsheet to risk being late because of traffic or a broken zipper.
The suite gives me space to get ready. Space to breathe. Space to look at myself in the full-length mirror and remind myself that tonight I am here for two reasons.
I helped build this room from the ground up.
And I am attending it with Ricardo.
The second part still makes my stomach tighten.
The green dress Ricardo bought for me is tailored to perfection.
Silk skims down my body instead of clinging, the neckline elegant enough for a gala and still low enough that I know exactly why he chose it.
The color is one that I've previously avoided.
It should be too much with my hair, too obvious, too bold.
It isn’t.
It makes my eyes look greener. My skin warmer. My freckled skin less like something I once tried to cover and more like something that belongs exactly where it is.
I stare at myself for a little longer before I leave the suite.
Then I pick up my clutch, my phone, and the small emergency folder Patrice made fun of me for carrying until it saved us twice this week, and I go downstairs.
By the time I reach the ballroom, the final catering staff are moving with precision around the perimeter. The white-jacketed bartenders are setting polished glasses in neat rows. The string quartet is tuning near the far side of the room.
Gold light spills from the chandeliers over the tables, the flowers, the raised platform where Mario will speak later, and the sponsor wall near the entrance, where every name has been placed with painful deliberation.
Nothing in this room is accidental.
The Conti Gala is not only a celebration of two years in Chicago.
It is a public statement that Conti Enterprises is no longer new enough to doubt.
Every politician, donor, civic board member, hospital trustee, developer, and well-dressed skeptic in this ballroom is here to watch the Contis become part of the city’s infrastructure.
Or to pretend they are not watching.
Either way, they came.
I stop beside the first table and check the cards again.
State Senator Halbrook is where he should be.
Nora Whitcomb Farley is placed with the hospital foundation chair and the education committee donor who will be flattered to sit near her.
Harriet Bloom is nowhere near Sybil Crane.
Sybil has been given arts council people and a slightly better line of sight to the stage than Harriet, which should make her feel superior without giving in too much to her silly demands.
“Julia?”
I look up to find Patrice moving toward me with her headset tucked discreetly beneath her hair and a clipboard in one hand.
“You are supposed to be done working,” she says.
“I am almost done.”
“You're supposed to be done-done.”
“That was before the port board chair’s wife called to ask whether her table had sight lines to the stage.”
Patrice blinks. “Why?”
“Because she has decided she photographs better from the left.”
For half a second, Patrice looks as if she might actually walk out of the ballroom and into traffic.
Then she exhales and looks down at her clip. “Okay, we can—"
“Handled.”
“Really? You are a goddess.” Her gaze moves over my dress, and her expression softens into something almost approving. “Literally. You look beautiful.”
Her compliment almost makes me blush.
“Thank you.”
“And now,” she says, taking the folder from my hand, “you are going to enjoy the rest of the evening as a guest.”
“I still need to check the sponsor signage.”
“Owen checked it.”
“That does not reassure me.”
“I knew it wouldn't,” she says. “So I checked it after he did.”
That pulls a small laugh from me.
She smiles. “Go. Guests will start arriving in fifteen minutes. If the room catches fire, I promise I will tell you.”
“I would prefer slightly sooner than that.”
“Noted.”
I let her take the folder because if I do not, I will spend the next four hours adjusting table cards that do not need adjusting. My hands feel strangely empty without it.
A guest.
Tonight, I am supposed to be a guest.
I am still trying to figure out what to do with my hands when I feel him behind me.
I know before he speaks.
My body knows first, which is a strange and terrifying and wonderful feeling.
“Cuore mio,” he says in that low accented voice. It is close enough that it brushes over the back of my neck.
I shiver and turn.
For one second, everything else disappears.
He is in a black tuxedo, tailored with the same old-world precision he brings to everything else. His hair is brushed back from his face, the silver at his temples catching the chandelier light. The split in his lip has healed, though I can still see the faintest trace of it if I look hard enough.
His gaze moves over me, not hurriedly, though not crudely. He takes me in as if there is no part of me beneath his attention.
My cheeks heat.
“You like the dress?” I ask, because saying anything else feels dangerous.
His mouth curves.
“Mmm,” he says, and I can practically feel it on my skin. “I like the dress.”
I have a feeling he's not talking about the dress.
My fingers tighten around my clutch. “It is beautiful.”
“Yes,” he says, eyes still on mine. “It is.”
I roll my eyes because if I do not, I may do something humiliating, like melt in the middle of the ballroom.
His hand settles lightly at my lower back.
It is not possessive in any obvious way. He does not pull me into him. He does not make a display. His palm simply rests there, warm through silk, and everything in me seems to focus in on that single point of contact.
It feels as if everything in the room does as well.
A florist looks over.
One of the bartenders looks away quickly.
Patrice, traitor that she is, smiles down at her clipboard.
People notice.
I notice them noticing.
Ricardo notices me noticing them.
“Breathe,” he says quietly.
“I am breathing.”
“Barely.”
“I am not used to this.”
“No?”
It's not entirely true. I am used to this. It's simply not a feeling I thought I would have again.
His thumb moves once against my back. “They will adjust.”
Before I can think of an answer, a hotel manager approaches with a question about the order of arrivals for Mario’s remarks. His gaze flickers briefly to Ricardo’s hand at my back, then to my face.
“Miss O’Brien, Mr. Conti,” he says. “Apologies. We wanted to confirm whether the mayor’s office should be held until after—”
“No,” I say immediately. “The mayor’s office should be greeted as soon as they enter. We won't hold them for anyone.”
The manager nods, relieved. “Understood.”
The manager leaves.
I glance at Ricardo. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked amused.”
“I am often amused by competence.”
“That is a very strange compliment.”
“Here's an even stranger one.” He pulls me closer and whispers in my ear. “I'm quite aroused by competence as well.”
My breath catches, and his mouth curves against my skin.
But before I can think any more about it, the first guests begin arriving, and there’s no room for that.
Coats are taken. Champagne appears in hands.
Polite laughter rises near the sponsor wall.
Men who dislike each other clap shoulders as if they are old friends.
Women who have not forgiven each other for things that happened ten years ago kiss cheeks and compliment earrings.
I know this world.
I hate it.
Ricardo keeps me beside him as the room fills. He introduces me by my name. Not as Mario's assistant or as Judge O'Brien's daughter. Or even as his date.
I am simply Julia O'Brien.
When people ask if I am with Conti Enterprises, I answer honestly. I tell them I work with Mario’s office and helped coordinate the guest strategy for the evening. When their eyes shift to Ricardo, he does not correct them away from the other truth.
It's obvious we're together, but I appreciate that tonight I am simply myself.
The first time someone says, “And you are here with Ricardo tonight?” my pulse jumps.
Ricardo looks at me.
He lets me answer. I appreciate that as well.
“Yes,” I say. “I am.”
The woman smiles with the satisfied look of someone who has just been handed something worth repeating.
“Lovely,” she says.
It will be around the room in ten minutes.
Maybe five.
I should feel exposed.
I do feel exposed.
But I also feel Ricardo’s hand at my back, warm and comforting, and I do not step away.
Across the ballroom, Mario stands near the entrance with Victoria at his side. He looks every inch the man who commands the room without needing to say so. Victoria is in a deep blue gown that makes her look both elegant and untouchable, one hand resting lightly over the curve of her stomach.
When her eyes meet mine, she smiles warmly.
A few minutes later, I find myself beside her near the edge of the ballroom while Ricardo speaks with Lorenzo and a hospital donor who has too many opinions about valet flow.
Victoria touches my arm lightly.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. So do you.”
She gives me a small smile. “I had more help than I care to admit.”
“I doubt that. I hate to sound like a cliché, but you're glowing.”
She beams, and then I see her gaze move briefly toward Ricardo, then back to me.
She says, “The first public evening is always the hardest— and the strangest.”
I let out a breath that almost becomes a laugh.
“That obvious?”
“Only to someone who has survived one.”
I glance toward Mario. He is speaking to Deputy Commissioner Wells with controlled civility while Wells tries very hard to appear unconcerned by being the entire focus of Mario Conti’s attention.
“I’m not sure I’m handling it as well as you did.”
Victoria’s mouth tilts upward. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was almost kidnapped?”
My jaw dropped. “You— what?”