Chapter 5
VALENTINA
On Tuesday morning, I nearly pinch myself walking into the DeLuca building.
It’s an impressive skyscraper downtown, and even stepping through the door makes me feel like I’ve won the client lottery.
This is exactly the kind of account I’ve been dying to land.
Even if Sebastian is notoriously hard to please.
That sounds dramatic, but I don’t think it’s unfair. He admitted as much at dinner. From what I’ve read about this gala, it’s wall-to-wall LA elite, and invitations are highly coveted. This would be the most exclusive and expensive event I’ve ever handled.
The security guard in the lobby swipes his pass to let me into the elevator, and I nearly hold my breath the whole ride up. When I reach the top floor, a kind-looking older woman is already standing there waiting for me.
“Ms. Moretti?” she asks with a polished smile.
“Yes.”
“Mr. DeLuca is expecting you.”
That probably shouldn’t sound ominous, but it does. Obviously he’s expecting me, since we set up this meeting three days ago. Even so, the idea of seeing Sebastian again, even in a professional capacity, makes my heart pound loudly in my ears.
I follow the woman down a short hallway and into a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows that cut across downtown Los Angeles in hard, bright lines.
The whole room reeks of authority. A large desk takes up a good portion of the space, expensive leather chairs sit opposite it, and a leather couch flanks one side.
There’s a conference table at the far end and artwork on the walls that probably costs more than my car.
Most importantly, there’s zero clutter. Not a single thing out of place.
Sebastian doesn’t like mess. I file that away for later.
The man himself stands by the windows when I walk in with his jacket off, white shirt sleeves rolled to his forearms, and one hand in his pocket.
He turns at the sound of the door, and I’m immediately off-kilter.
As good as he looked at dinner the other night, he is beyond distracting with his sleeves pushed up like that. I hate that I notice.
“Valentina.” He greets me like it’s a formality.
“Sebastian.” I match his tone.
His assistant closes the door behind me, and suddenly the room feels impossibly small. He gestures toward the pristine conference table. “Sit.”
He really doesn’t mince words. His professional tone leaves a lot to be desired. I imagine he’s controlling in bed, too, and flush immediately at the thought. That is absolutely the last thing I should be thinking about before discussing the biggest event of my career.
I set my bag on the table, take the chair opposite his, and pull out my iPad.
“I appreciate that you get right to business,” I say carefully. “That will save us some time.”
He sits across from me, and I look up to find him watching me with open curiosity. I try to ignore the way it makes my heart skip.
He slides a folder my way. “This is what exists so far.”
I flip through the pages, skimming preliminary information that gives me almost nothing to work with. The bones are there, but there’s no real vision.
I look up. “Who put this together?”
“One of the women from development.”
“Ah,” I answer diplomatically.
His mouth shifts slightly. “That bad?”
“It’s not bad, exactly. It’s just thin. Less of a plan, more of a wish list.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
I uncap my pen and start sorting the papers into cleaner stacks.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s start from the top. What’s the actual purpose of the gala?”
He leans back, one arm resting along the chair. “It raises money for one of our foundations.”
“That’s the brochure answer.”
His gaze holds mine. “Children’s health initiatives through the foundation, publicly. Relationship maintenance and donor consolidation, privately.”
I keep my face neutral. Basically, it’s a shell gala.
Publicly it looks like they’re raising money for a good cause, but really they’re greasing the wheels so the power players in LA will look the other way when it comes to their shadier operations.
I’ve seen this before, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of this opportunity.
“Good,” I say. “How many guests are you expecting?”
“Four hundred seated. More if we do standing cocktails before dinner.”
“We shouldn’t.” I flip to the venue layout. “Not with this footprint. Unless you want arrivals bottlenecked and donors irritated before they even hit registration.”
He’s quiet for a beat.
“I hadn’t considered that,” he says honestly.
I walk him through the logistics of the entrance. He listens intently, watching my pen as it moves over the access points. He isn’t just being polite, he’s genuinely paying attention.
When I finish, he says, “Then we move cocktails to the terrace.”
I glance at the terrace measurements. “Only if you want women in couture heels fighting the floor grates and older donors sweating through their jackets.”
He pauses, mulling this over. “So no terrace,” he confirms.
“No terrace.”
He nods once, as if filing it away. “Fine.”
That shouldn’t be as satisfying as it is, but I take the easy win. We go line by line after that, and exactly as expected, he is difficult.
He asks smart questions, but it’s clear he’s not the expert in event planning he’d like to believe. He has a vision of what he wants the night to look like, but not the knowledge to make it happen.
An hour in, we’re arguing over the catering schedule.
“We’ll have enough appetizers to keep people satisfied during the cocktail hour,” he says firmly.
“You’ll need more than five caterers,” I say, frustrated because we’ve been circling this point far longer than necessary.
“So we’ll hire more caterers.”
“You’ll be over budget for your staffing.”
“So we’ll just increase the budget.”
I look at him over the edge of the packet. “You realize that charity galas are meant to actually make money, right?”
“I’ll fund it myself.” He shrugs. “I’d rather have a full staff than hungry guests.”
I nod, even though internally I’m screaming.
He flips to the donor notes. “You separated top-tier guests.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your biggest donors don’t want to mingle with the masses. If they have to wait in a single line or fight for a moment of attention, they’re going to throw hissy fits.”
He says nothing.
I lift a brow. “You know I’m right.”
He presses his lips together like the idea of agreeing with me might actually cause him pain.
“Also, your top donors will arrive late on purpose because they think being seen arriving matters more than arriving on time. If you want them handled smoothly, they need their own lane and a separate holding point before photos.”
Another hour in, I’m irritated enough to feel sharp around the edges, which is usually when I do my best work.
He keeps pressing. I keep answering. When I think he’s wrong, I tell him so.
When I think he’s right, I adjust. It should feel adversarial.
Instead it feels like the kind of back-and-forth I rarely get with my clients.
That is probably why I lose my patience when he says, “If timing slips at the top, the whole evening falls apart.”
“That’s amateur thinking.”
Something dark and cool flashes in his expression. I continue before he can respond.
“Timing slips at the top all the time. Flights get delayed. Hair and makeup runs long. Someone important gets stuck in traffic because they refuse to leave ten minutes earlier than the rest of civilization. That part is normal. Good event management absorbs delay.”
He watches me for a second, then says, “And you know how to absorb it?”
“Yes,” I answer confidently.
“How?”
I flip to a blank page in my notebook and start sketching sequence shifts, showing him all the ways we can build seamless buffers to keep the event moving without anyone noticing delays. When I look up, he’s not looking at the page. He’s looking at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
The air between us shifts for a second, goes thinner somehow. I set my pen down.
“All right,” I say on a long exhale. “You’ve put me through the wringer. I’ve given you an hour more than I usually give for initial meetings. Do I have the job?”
He considers me for a moment, mouth pressed into a firm line.
“If anything goes wrong during the gala, you’ll handle it with the same coordination and grace you’ve shown in this meeting.” It isn’t a question. It’s a stipulation.
“Of course.” I nod. “That’s literally what I do. The guests will never know anything went wrong, and you won’t have to deal with a thing.”
“You won’t hand me excuses for why the bar is backed up and the keynote speaker is drunk in the green room?”
I roll my eyes.
“None of that’s going to happen,” I say. “Because my team will have already thought through every possible disaster and prepared for it ahead of time.”
“And how much am I paying for that level of detail?”
I take a breath and slide my printed rate sheet across the table. “This is my fee.”
He glances down at it.
“That includes lead planning, execution, staffing oversight, timeline management, vendor coordination, and on-site direction,” I say. “Anything added after scope confirmation gets billed separately. If your people make last-minute changes that require more labor, that gets billed too.”
He reads the page once, grabs a pen, scribbles something, and hands the paper back to me.
“This is your fee,” he says. “From here on out.”
I look down at the paper, and it’s more than twice what I usually charge. I thought he was joking about doubling my fee. Whether it’s clean money or dirty money is none of my concern.
I blink at the paper, but keep my face as composed as possible despite the thrill running through me.
“Fine,” I say. “That’s my fee.”
“Accepted,” he says.
“Great,” I say, gathering my things. “I’ll send over a formalized contract once I’m back at my office.”
He reaches into his event folder, pulls out a pre-drafted agreement, and slides it to me.
I look at it, then at him. “You already had a contract ready?”
“Yes.”
“You already included my fee,” I say, staring at the paper with equal parts amusement and irritation.
“I like efficiency,” he says.
“So the last two hours was what? Foreplay?”
His composure slips for just a second before the mask locks back into place.
“I had to make sure you were up for it. You are, so the contract is yours.”
I laugh despite myself. I scan the contract, make two minor adjustments, initial them, and hand it back. He signs without hesitation.
Just like that, the gala is mine. I should feel triumphant, but I kind of feel like I’ve just survived battle.
Sebastian stands too, and suddenly I’m reminded how much more physically imposing he is when we’re not sitting down.
He swallows all the energy in the room, like he operates with his own gravitational pull.
It’s not until I’m back in my car that I give myself the space to process what just happened.
I landed the contract, which is amazing.
Now, though, I’m going to have to work with him in close quarters.
I’m not entirely sure my nervous system can handle that.
Too late now. I’ve committed to this, and I’m going to throw the best damn gala he’s ever seen.
When I get back to my office, Tessa stops me.
“There’s a delivery for you,” she says brightly. “Your meeting must have gone well!”
I follow her into my office, where white orchids sit in a low modern vase. My skin prickles immediately.
Sebastian didn’t send these.
Only one person would.
I feel sick.