32. Dominic
Dominic
We land at Midway a little after two, and by the time the car pulls up outside Jenna’s building, we’ve already agreed that we both have so much work waiting for us that we aren’t getting a weekend. It’ll just be emails, paperwork, and the occasional pause for nutrition and filthy sex.
She needs to be ready for Bennett’s board meeting Monday morning, and I have an investment committee meeting of my own before the markets open.
So we’ll freshen up here, then go into the office and pretend it’s not Friday.
Married life.
I have never been so happy to be this tired.
“Twenty minutes,” Jenna says, as the doorman gets the door. “Shower, change, out. If you get in that shower with me, it becomes an hour, and I have a board deck to—”
“Ms. Pemberton.” The concierge moves around his desk carrying a box with two hands and careful ceremony. It’s a cream garment box, wide as a door, tied in ribbon the color of champagne. There’s an envelope on top with a wax seal. “This was hand-delivered for you an hour ago.”
Jenna looks at the box like it might be ticking.
“Is this from you?” she asks without taking her eyes off the box. “Tell me you didn’t get me a dress for the gala. I don’t even dance at them—or stay past the dessert course.”
“Not me. I’m more an edible arrangements guy,” I deadpan. “Wax seals are for people way cooler than me.”
Jenna doesn’t touch the package. She puts her hands behind her back, like maybe the box is radioactive and I’m the only one here without a dosimeter. When I reach out and take it from the concierge, she steps backward and raises her eyebrows.
“Thank you,” I say, shifting the weight to one arm and palming Jenna’s lower back with the other. “We’ll let you know if it explodes.”
He answers with a little smirk (the building staff have all made their peace with my sense of humor, or perfected a convincing imitation of it) and returns to his desk.
The elevator dings, and the doors open with their usual vault-like dignity.
I herd Jenna inside, holding the box like it’s a prop from a particularly highbrow escape room.
“What are the odds this is a positive development?” I ask as the doors glide shut behind us.
She inspects the wax seal, her teeth worrying the inside of her lip. “One in five, with a margin of error of twenty percent.”
“So . . . could be worse than a bomb.”
She doesn’t laugh, and that’s rare enough that I have to look at her sidelong.
“Do you have a secret admirer I should know about?”
Jenna actually gasps. “Jesus, Dom, who would—” She checks herself and then looks sharply at me. “It’s not my birthday. It’s not a holiday. No one should be sending me anything.” She pivots, fixes me with a look that is equal parts suspicion and havoc. “Did you set this up as a joke?”
I lay my free hand palm-up. “Sweetheart, I know you hate surprises. The only way I’m going to surprise you is with a Google Calendar invite and a two-week warning.”
Her mouth tugs up, but the worry stays locked behind her eyes.
“You know, if this is some guy sending my wife high-end mystery gifts, I want to know his return address.” I flex my shoulder, rolling the box for effect. “I’m not much of a fighter, but I won Golden Gloves in high school. Don’t make me dust off the championship hands.”
Jenna folds her arms and watches the floor numbers tick upward. By three, she’s stopped pretending not to worry.
“This is how identity theft starts,” she mutters.
“I assure you, most identity theft attempts don’t start with luxury stationery and hand delivery.”
“Exactly,” she whispers, sharp as glass. “Who tracks me well enough to know when I’ll be home, but not well enough to realize I hate surprise gifts?”
“Someone with access to your Outlook?” The elevator slows. “An enterprising intern?”
She says nothing, which means: plausible, but it’s not her top concern.
We step into the hallway, and she unlocks her door with two practiced flicks of the wrist. When we’re inside, she immediately scans every corner of the apartment.
It’s neurotic, but the place is exactly as we left it: minimal, clean, like no one really lives here, even though it’s been hers for eight years.
I set the box on the marble counter and slide the envelope off the top, holding it out to her. The wax seal is pressed with the letter J, and I watch about a dozen emotions flit across her face before she takes it from me.
“It’s from Willa James,” she says.
“That explains the seal.”
“Handwritten.” She turns the card over like there might be a disclaimer.
“Personally. She—” Jenna clears her throat and reads.
“‘Your work on the Nakamura partnership was the talk of my dinner table for a week. NeuraTech will finally go to market and help the people who need it most because of you. I’d be honored if you’d attend as my personal guest. The gown is yours regardless—my designer has an instinct for remarkable women.
Bring whomever you like. —Warmly, Willa. ’” She looks up. “There’s a plus one.”
“There’s always a plus one.” I’m grinning so hard my face hurts. “Jen. Do you know what that card is?”
“It’s an invitation, Dominic. To a gala I was already going to. Roz and I run logistics for the Mercer Capital and Cruz Financial tables every year.”
“No.” I take the card from her, hold it up like evidence.
“Look at the name. That’s not addressed to the ‘Mercer Capital team.’ That doesn’t say ‘spouse of table sponsor.’ It says Jenna Pemberton, invited by Willa James, personally, for the work you did.
Do you understand how huge it is to get invited to the Azure Room? ”
“The Azure Room,” she repeats, flat.
“Cocktail hour before the main event. Thirty people, maybe forty. Willa picks the list herself—no sponsors, no tables, no assistants with clipboards. Just the people she’s decided matter this year, drinking very old champagne in a very blue room.
” I can hear my own voice doing the thing it does when I’m proud enough to float.
“Do you know how many massive deals start as a conversation in that room? And you’re on the list, sweetheart.
Not through Bennett. Not through me. You earned this on your own.
I’m so fucking proud of you.” I take her hand and spin her, right there in the kitchen, her heels skidding on the tile, the afternoon light catching her hair, and she comes around laughing despite every committee in her head voting against it.
“You’re going to be the belle of the ball, Jen. ”
“OK, calm down.” She retrieves her hand and smooths her sweater like the spin might have left evidence.
“It’s a dress and a party. Rich people congratulating each other with a charity attached.
I’ve run the spreadsheets on these things—do you know what the per-head costs, versus what actually reaches the foundation—”
“Don’t you dare audit your own Cinderella moment.”
“I’m not auditing. I’m contextualizing.” But her thumb is moving over Willa’s handwriting, back and forth, like she’s checking the ink is real. “The plus one. We already have tickets—you have your own table.”
“Bought and paid for. Which means that plus-one is yours to spend.” I lean against the island. “Field will be here in three weeks for the Nakamura implementation review and the gala. If Hailey gets through Tuesday’s video call, he wants to hold the in-person interview while he’s in Chicago.”
Her eyes come up. I watch the idea land.
“She’ll already be here.” She reaches for her phone. “She can fly in Wednesday, interview Friday, stay through the weekend and come with me.”
“There she is.”
“I’ll need her measurements immediately. We have three weeks to find her a dress.”
The phone’s already in her hand, and I take great delight in watching her go from completely dismissive to overcome with joy.
I move out of the way and watch Jenna pace from the kitchen to the window, card and invitation flapping at her side, her face pure strategy. She’s plotting—I can see the threads lay themselves out on the floor, color-coded and cross-linked, her brain a machine of terrifying grace.
“Hails,” she says when her sister picks up. Within three seconds, the conversation becomes a full tactical deployment.
“I know! Can you believe it? No, not just the normal thing—a real invitation, from the woman herself. And the note is . . .” She trails off, giggling into her wrist like she’s blocking a cough. “Hails, there’s no world where you wear a prom dress to a downtown gala. I’m serious. No—”
There’s an eruption of noise on the other end. I make out the words “sequins” and “strapless” and something that sounds like “I will not be tamed, Jenna,” which is the sort of sibling drama I can only admire for its tenacity.
“That’s not a rule, it’s a kindness to your future self.
There’ll be cameras, Hails. I’m not even being dramatic.
” Her face splits into a huge, involuntary smile and then goes weirdly soft.
“No, I’m excited. Yes, if Tuesday goes well, they’ll schedule the final interview for the week of the gala.
If you stay through Sunday, you can come with me Saturday night.
Yes. OK. Love you. Shut up, you too. Bye. ”
She hangs up, pivots, and sees me standing there, grinning like a Colgate ad for people with zero chill or boundaries. I’ve just witnessed something fucking amazing. Jenna Pemberton—excited.
“She’s in,” Jenna says, but her voice has a weird, gentle underlayer, like she forgot to filter it for public consumption.
“If the final interview goes ahead, she’ll stay through Sunday.
If it doesn’t, she’s coming for the gala anyway.
” She hooks her thumb through the card, uses it to point at the box on the counter.
“She tried to tell me she didn’t need a dress for the gala.
That she could just wear the one she wore to senior prom. She said it still fits.”
I laugh. “Was it, like, full Disney princess? Or more of a femme fatale thing?”
Jenna’s mouth quirks, but she doesn’t look up.
“It was . . . neither. It was a disaster. She looked like a frosted disco ball. The bodice was made of sequins, there were—” she shudders—“cutouts. I think it was listed as ‘statement backless’ but in reality it was just a strip of plastic tape holding it all together.” She exhales out her nose. “I had to staple her into it.”
“And she wants to wear it again?”
She shakes her head. “I’m sure she’s just trying to rile me up. She knows how much I hated that thing.”
I slide my palms along the island and lean across, getting into her space. “What did your prom dress look like?”
Jenna’s eyes freeze, then flick up to mine. The color on her cheeks decides to evacuate. “Oh. Uh, I didn’t go to prom.”
Bullshit detector: redline.
“You didn’t go? You, who I imagine ran her high school like a committee and organized bake sales?”
“High school wasn’t quite like that for me.” Her spine straightens and she sets the invite back on the counter slowly. “We need to get ready,” she says, like it’s a fire drill. “I need to put together a draft agenda by end of day. I’ll shower first.”
She picks up the whole box, carries it into the bedroom, and pushes it onto the high shelf of her closet. Still in its ribbon. Still sealed. The way you’d store something you didn’t plan to look at again.
“Jen?”
“Twenty minutes, remember?” Her voice is fine. Her voice is completely fine, which is how I know something big just happened.
She disappears into the bathroom. I stare after her, standing in her bedroom looking at a shut closet door with the box inside it. I feel like a man who just watched a bird fly into a window nobody knew was there.
She didn’t go to prom?
I don’t know whether she wasn’t asked, got stood up, or something worse. I only know she put a designer gown on the highest shelf in her closet and escaped into the shower like I’d found a locked drawer.
I went to two proms. I barely remember either beyond cheap tuxes, bad music, and one police escort I maintain was a misunderstanding.
But I went.
I showed up.
Jenna didn’t.
By the time the shower starts, an idea is already taking shape.
If she didn’t get a prom then, I’ll give her one now.
Not balloon arches and rented tuxes. The billionaire version. A vintage car at the curb. A tuxedo cut to match her gown. Me waiting with a flower, making sure she never has to wonder whether the man taking her is proud to be seen with her.
It’s not a surprise, because she knows the gala is coming. It’ll simply be an upscaled version of her current expectations.
Perfectly acceptable.
I pull out my phone and send the first message.
The shower stops not long after, and the bathroom door clicks open, releasing a cloud of steam and the sharp, clean scent of her body wash. Jenna emerges tightly wrapped in a white towel, her sleek dark hair damp, her thumb already flying across her phone screen.
“Bennett just moved the acquisition review up by forty-five minutes,” she announces, her voice clipped and back on the clock.
I slide my phone into my pocket, burying the evidence of my newly launched tactical operation. “Good thing you have a husband to expedite your commute, then.”
She finally stops walking, narrowing her hazel eyes at me. “Why are you looking at me like you just executed a hostile takeover?”
I close the distance to press a quick kiss to her damp shoulder. “Just admiring my favorite person, sweetheart. Let’s go conquer what’s left of Friday.”