CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nadine did not ask me to hide at the foundation fundraiser.
She also did not ask me to stand beside her all night.
That distinction mattered. The event took place in a restored bank building near City Hall, all marble columns, brass railings, and rooms designed to make donors feel history had personally approved their money.
Mercer Row had repaired the mezzanine three years earlier, before Nadine bought the townhouse and before I knew the sound of her laugh in my kitchen.
I arrived alone. She arrived with Portia.
Nadine wore a dark green dress that fell to the floor and showed one shoulder.
Not the green of the cabinets. Deeper. The color made her skin look warm beneath the chandeliers.
Portia saw me first. She leaned toward Nadine and said something.
Nadine turned. Her face changed in a way no contract could protect me from. I crossed the room.
“You came,” she said.
“You invited me.”
“I invited you two weeks ago. Before we had sex and you got weird.”
Portia lifted her champagne. “I’m going to the bar because I support honesty but not every detail.”
She walked away without waiting for permission.
I looked at Nadine. “You look beautiful.”
“That sounded prepared.”
“It was. I saw you from across the room.”
Her mouth curved. “Better.”
I offered my arm. She took it. The choice was small and public.
People noticed. Not everybody. Most guests were occupied with themselves.
But two board members looked from Nadine to me and back again.
A photographer took a picture near the sponsor wall.
A woman from the gallery opening smiled like she had just confirmed a theory.
Nadine’s hand tightened once around my arm.
“You okay?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“You can let go.”
“I don’t want to.”
So I kept walking. She introduced me to colleagues without overexplaining.
“This is Warren Mercer.”
Not my contractor. Not a friend. Not a man who happened to be standing beside her. Warren Mercer. She let people decide what they saw. At the first table, I met the foundation’s board chair, a silver-haired woman who shook my hand and said she knew Mercer Row’s work at the gallery.
“You preserved the original brick instead of covering it,” she said.
“The gallery owner wanted the history visible.”
“Nadine praised that decision during the grant closeout.”
I looked at Nadine.
She lifted one shoulder. “It was good work.”
The board chair’s attention moved between us. Not suspicious. Not yet. Simply attentive.
“How do you two know each other?” she asked.
Nadine answered. “Mercer Row is renovating my townhouse.”
“And now he’s my date,” she added before the woman could build a question around the missing part.
The board chair smiled, but her eyes sharpened by a degree.
“How nice,” she said.
It was the kind of sentence that could mean six things in a room funded by wealthy people. We moved on.
“You didn’t have to add the date part,” I said.
“I didn’t want to stand there acting shady.”
“You weren’t.”
“I would’ve felt like it.”
I did not argue. At dinner, we sat with Portia, Milan, two foundation donors, and a developer named Halpern who had requested a proposal from Mercer Row for a boutique hotel conversion.
I had met him twice. He talked fast, paid late, and treated every conversation like somebody had started a clock without telling the rest of us.
He recognized Nadine from the video before the appetizer arrived.
“You’re the divorce-party lady,” he said.
Nadine’s smile stayed in place. “I’m Nadine Bellamy.”
“Right. That clip was everywhere. Hell of a speech.” He looked at me. “And Mercer got the renovation out of it? Smart man.”
I set down my water.
Nadine answered before I did. “The contract was signed months before the party.”
Halpern waved one hand. “I’m joking. Still, good marketing. Woman leaves her husband, hires the handsome contractor, gets the dream kitchen. People eat that up.”
Portia’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Milan looked at me. Nadine’s face did not change, but I felt her leg tense beside mine beneath the table.
I said, “That isn’t the story.”
Halpern laughed. “It’s the story people will buy.”
“No.”
The word landed flat enough to end the joke.
He looked at me. “Come on, Mercer. I’m complimenting you.”
“You’re talking about a client and my date like she was included in a change order.”
The table went quiet.
Halpern’s smile tightened. “You serious right now?”
“Yes.”
Nadine touched my knee beneath the table. Not to stop me. To remind me she was there.
Halpern leaned back. “I thought we were doing business.”
“We were discussing a proposal.”
“Same thing.”
“No. A proposal is how I decide whether I want the business.”
His face changed. I had spent twenty-six years building a company that could decline money without collapsing. That was one of the reasons.
Halpern muttered, “Everybody is sensitive now.”
Portia smiled sweetly. “And yet you found the one table where nobody cares.”
Nadine’s hand tightened on my knee. The server arrived with dinner and saved Halpern from choosing a worse sentence. He left the table before dessert.
Milan watched him go. “I assume we’re not doing the hotel.”
“No.”
“Good. His plans were ugly.”
Portia lifted her glass. “To ugly plans and unemployed disrespect.”
Nadine gave her a warning look.
Portia lowered the glass. “I’m being subtle.”
The dinner continued. Nobody made another joke about the video. Later, Nadine and I stood near the mezzanine while the auction closed below us. The music was loud enough to give us privacy without making us whisper.
“You might’ve just lost a seven-figure job,” she said.
“He would’ve been a bad client.”
“You knew that before tonight?”
“I suspected.”
“And if he had been a good client?”
“I still would not let him talk about you that way at my table.”
She turned toward the railing. “I could’ve handled him.”
“You did.”
“You stepped in.”
“I spoke for myself. He suggested I used you to market my company.”
Nadine considered that.
“I wasn’t rescuing you,” I said. “I was deciding what kind of man I do business with.”
She looked at me. “That answer is annoyingly solid.”
“I worked on it while he talked.”
“I knew it.”
A photographer passed and asked for a picture. Nadine hesitated. I did not put my arm around her until she moved closer first. The camera flashed. There would be no pretending after that.
When the photographer left, she said, “This is gonna get back to Terrence.”
“Yes.”
“And the foundation.”
“We’re standing at the foundation.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. Mercer Row had not contracted directly with her foundation.
The gallery had hired us, then reimbursed part of the work through a preservation grant Nadine’s department helped administer.
Our proposal had been selected before she bought her townhouse.
She had not served on the vendor committee.
Still, appearances had their own paperwork.
“Did you have any role in choosing Mercer Row for the gallery?” I asked.
“No. I managed the youth-program grant. Facilities handled construction.”
“Did you approve our invoices?”
“No.”
“Then disclose the relationship Monday and let counsel tell you what else is required.”
Nadine’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been thinking about this.”
“Since the board chair asked how we met.”
“I hate that you noticed that too.”
“She noticed us.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong.”
“I agree.”
“Then why does this feel like I’m about to be called into the principal’s office?”
“Because institutions like forms.”
She laughed without humor. “That is your answer to everything.”
“Not everything.”
I touched the bare skin at her shoulder. Nadine’s face softened.
“What do you want me to call you tonight?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“To people. You said exclusive. I agreed. Are you my boyfriend?”
The word sounded younger than either of us. I still wanted it.
“Yes,” I said.
Her eyebrows lifted. “That easy?”
“I’m forty-nine. I know what the word means.”
“It means you have to answer when Portia puts you in the group chat.”
“No.”
“It’s part of the role.”
“I decline.”
“You can’t. She’ll appeal.”
I smiled.
Nadine stepped closer. “Then I’m your girlfriend.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds strange.”
“Do you want another word?”
“No.”
She looked over the room below us. “I haven’t been anybody’s new girlfriend since I was twenty-one.”
“I haven’t had one in five years.”
“You’re rusty.”
“So are you.”
“Mine is understandable.”
“Convenient.”
She turned toward me. “You used my word.”
“It became ours.”
The auctioneer announced the final total. Applause rose through the building. Nadine kissed me while everybody was looking toward the stage. Not hidden. Not displayed. Open. When she pulled back, Portia stood ten feet away holding up her phone.
“I got it!” she yelled.
Nadine closed her eyes. “Delete that.”
“Never.”
Milan appeared beside her. “Send it to me first.”
I looked at Nadine. “Your people are difficult.”
She smiled. “You’re in it now.”
On the drive home, my phone rang through the truck speakers.
Milan’s name appeared.
“I just saw you,” I answered.
“Did Nadine check her email?”
Nadine turned toward me from the passenger seat.
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“The magazine accepted all the conditions. They want to photograph the house after final inspection.”
Nadine smiled. “Tell her yes.”
Milan continued, “There’s something else. The foundation board chair asked me whether you and Nadine were dating during the gallery project.”
The smile left Nadine’s face.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“The truth. You met Nadine through the townhouse contract months later.”
“Good.”
“She thanked me. Then she wrote something down.”
Nadine stared through the windshield.
I ended the call after telling Milan she had done nothing wrong. The truck cab stayed quiet.
“This might be nothing,” Nadine said.
“It might.”
“You think it isn’t.”
“I think you should disclose before somebody asks again.”
She nodded slowly. Then she took my hand from the center console and held it for the rest of the drive. Being open did not remove risk. It only meant we would face the same risk in the same room.