Chapter 3
Jerry Davis files the divorce petition on a quiet afternoon a week later.
He calls to confirm it. I say thank you, and I hang up and eat a sandwich over the kitchen sink because the table is still covered in the folders that I keep incessantly looking over.
That’s what the end of a marriage looks and sounds like. A phone call, a sandwich, and a mess.
Jason’s attorney responds within forty-eight hours.
Jason wants the house. He wants the car.
He wants to split the retirement accounts he barely contributed to, and he wants it all done fast and quiet so nothing embarrasses him at Hayes Holdings.
Gideon was right. It’s pettiness no matter which way you look at it.
Jerry laughs when he reads me the filing. “Says you can’t afford the upkeep on house. He listed his projected salary as justification for keeping the house. Projected. As in, a salary he hasn’t actually received yet.”
“That sounds like Jason.”
“It sounds like a man spending money he doesn’t have. We’ll let him.”
I like Jerry. He doesn’t soften things and he doesn’t pretend to be outraged on my behalf. He just works.
Three days after the filing, Gideon calls.
Not his assistant. Not an email. Gideon, on the number from the front of the card.
“I have a proposal,” he says. “Not a favor. I want to be clear about that before I say anything else.”
“I’m listening.”
“Hayes Holdings runs four major events a year. The gala was the biggest, and it ran better than any event we’ve hosted in a decade.
My events team doesn’t know why, but I do.
I watched a woman with no title and no badge walk into a catering crisis at my gala and fix it in thirty seconds while my paid staff stood around holding tablets. ”
I’m quiet. I know where this is going but I’m not going to help him get there.
I’ve run events for ten years. Most of them under my own name and a few under Jason’s. The difference is that Jason’s clients never knew I existed.
“I’d like to bring you on as a consultant. Executive event strategy. Six-month contract, real scope, real pay. You’d report to me, not to anyone who reports to Jason.”
“Your daughter and my ex-husband work there, Mr. Hayes. Your daughter who stole my ex-husband… You understand this looks...”
“It looks like I’m hiring the most competent person I’ve met in five years. Anyone who reads it differently is welcome to say so to my face.”
I hold the phone against my ear and stare at the wall where Jason’s diploma hung until I took it down and put it in a box. There’s a faded rectangle there left behind. I should hang something of my own there.
“I’ve been in the event planning industry for a while,” I say.
“I know.”
“What’s the pay?”
He names a number. It’s too high. It’s the kind of number you offer when you’re trying to make a point, not fill a role.
“That’s about thirty percent above market for this scope.”
A pause. “You know the market rate,” he says and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Of course, I do,” I say. “I’m not above being paid above market for my experience, but I won’t accept an inflated salary because you feel guilty.”
“Ten percent over market. And the contract goes through legal, same as any vendor. No handshake deals.”
He adjusted without flinching. No wounded pride, no “I was trying to be generous.” He heard a correction and he took it. I sit with that for a second because I’ve forgotten what it feels like when someone treats a boundary like information instead of an insult.
“I’ll take a meeting in person so we can discuss this further,” I say. “Not the job. Not yet.”
“Fair enough.”
The meeting happens two days later, on the forty-second floor of the Hayes Holdings tower. Gideon’s assistant walks me past a glass-walled conference area, past a row of offices where people glance up and glance away.
Gideon’s office is large but not loud. Dark wood, a wall of windows, two photos on the credenza. A woman I assume is his late wife, and Bella at maybe fifteen, laughing at something off camera.
He has the contract printed. I read it at his desk while he drinks his water and doesn’t rush me. The scope is real. Four events, full creative authority on format and program, budget oversight with sign-off from his CFO. Everything looks legit, but I can’t sign just yet.
“One question,” I say.
“Go ahead.”
“Where does the event budget come from? Your operating fund, or the foundation?”
“Both, depending on the event. The gala runs through the family foundation, which is structured under my personal trust. The corporate events run through the operating budget. Either way, I sign off. Nothing moves without my approval.”
He says it casually. But I hear it. The trust is Gideon’s. The foundation is Gideon’s. The budget Bella treats like her personal credit line runs through her father’s signature, not hers. Bella doesn’t own the money. She accesses it because he lets her.
I sign the contract.
“When do I start?”
“As soon as possible. There’s a donor reception in three weeks. Corporate tier, not foundation. Forty guests, intimate format, high ask. My current team has it at about sixty percent planned and everything I’ve seen so far is all wrong.” He slides a folder across the desk. “I’d like you to fix it.”
I open the folder. He’s right. The venue is wrong, and the program runs too long. The donor tiers are sorted by gift size instead of relationship depth. I can see six problems from the first page. My fingers itch to get to work.
“I’ll have a revised plan by the end of this week.”
“I expected you’d say next week.”
“You expected wrong.”
On my way out, I pass the glass-walled conference area again.
Inside, Jason sits across from two men in charcoal suits, gesturing at a screen.
He’s pitching something. I recognize the posture, the leaned-forward confidence, the hand moving in the air like he’s sculpting a point.
I built that posture. I rehearsed those pitches with him at our kitchen table, feeding him objections until he could handle them without flinching.
He looks up as I walk by. His face does three things fast. First, surprise. Then, confusion. Finally, something tight around the jaw that wants to be anger but can’t figure out where to aim itself.
I don’t wave. I don’t stop. I keep walking, my folder under my arm and my badge clipped to my jacket.
He’ll ask Bella about it tonight. Bella will ask Gideon.
And Gideon will tell them exactly what the contract says.
That I was hired on merit, at a fair rate, through legal.
Nothing to complain about. Nothing to use against me.
Just a woman doing a job, better than the last people who tried.
The elevator closes, and I catch my own reflection in the glass before it does.
Rayna Booth. New badge. New beginning. Same steady hands.