Chapter 10
The welcome reception was held in a ground-floor function room that opened onto the hotel’s pool terrace, the doors flung wide open.
It felt like more than two hundred, Helena thought, milling around in clusters, suits for the men, cocktail dresses for the women, name badges and champagne flutes everywhere.
She hid a smile at the pretence in the room of intense relaxation when everyone was really networking furiously.
Helena recognised the S?o Paulo partners who’d come, of course, and a few others from international projects she’d worked on as well as one other non-partner who’d made the cut, a highly competent but, in Helena’s view, highly arrogant consultant from the Singapore office.
But most of the room being strangers was not a problem…
a life growing up with her father doing what he did meant that she learned to make small talk with some senior people at a young age, and even without that she was good at this, working her way around the social dynamics.
Read the room, find the interesting people, make yourself memorable without being overbearing.
The skills were interchangeable with the bedroom, she found: both required you to pay attention, to listen, to make the other person feel like they were the only one in the room.
She was mid-conversation with a partner from the London office about cross-border regulatory challenges, genuinely interesting, not just polite, when she saw her.
Across the room. Near the doors to the terrace. A champagne flute in one hand, the other gesturing as she talked to a group of four people who were visibly hanging on her every word.
Caitlin.
Helena felt the world narrow around her.
Nine months.
Nine months of silence and distance, of trying to carefully manage her own expectations, and there she was, the other side of the room.
Helena’s body responded before her mind could intervene, her pulse spiking, her skin flushing, her breath catching in a way that she hoped the London partner didn’t notice.
She looks incredible.
That was the first coherent thought that formed in her head.
She looked even better than Helena remembered, the way that she held herself and effortlessly had the group around her orient towards her like they’d been captured by her gravity.
Caitlin was a force of nature professionally, and the reminder of that hit Helena hard.
This magnificent woman, this woman who was destined surely for great things…
this woman who’d had the strength to kneel and obey Helena behind locked doors.
Her dark hair was worn down, sleek and styled, a little shorter than it had been in Houston. She wore a dark red dress that showed off her figure and her lightly tanned skin, and heels that made her legs go on forever.
And around her neck, catching the light every time she moved, a thin silver chain with a pendant of interwoven strands and a green jewel.
The necklace.
Helena’s necklace. The one she’d bought as a gift for Caitlin. The one she’d commanded Caitlin to wear while Helena took her apart in her hotel room. The one that in Caitlin’s LinkedIn photo had given Helena a fragile, probably foolish hope that she hadn’t been forgotten.
Caitlin is wearing it.
Here.
Now.
At the firm’s most important event, surrounded by every partner who mattered to her career.
Helena excused herself from the London partner, promising to talk further later in the conference, and took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, needing something to do with her hands.
She positioned herself where she could watch without being too obvious, towards the edge of the room, half-turned towards the terrace.
She watched Caitlin work the room. It was something to see…
the way she moved between groups, the laugh that carried, the touch on an arm that told the recipient they mattered.
She was being the force of nature. F.M.P.
Future Managing Partner. Watching her now, Helena could see why the nickname stuck.
And I had her on her knees, Helena thought, then immediately pushed the thought away. Not helpful. Not here.
It was another twenty minutes before their orbits converged. Helena had just finished speaking to a couple of partners from New York and had moved to the terrace for the evening air and the view of the ocean. She was standing near the railing when she heard a voice behind her.
“I thought that was you.”
Helena turned, and there was Caitlin, three feet away, a smile on her face that made Helena’s stomach flip.
Up close she was even more stunning than from across the room…
her eyes, God Helena had forgotten how she could get lost in those eyes, her smooth, flawless skin, and the necklace, right there, the pendant resting just below her collarbone.
“Hey,” Helena said, and was proud of how steady her voice sounded.
“Hey.” Caitlin stepped forward and they hugged, strictly professional, two women who’d worked together on a difficult engagement and had history.
Professional history. Helena caught the scent of Caitlin’s perfume and she was back there in Houston for a moment.
Funny how a smell can trigger memories, she thought.
When they separated Caitlin’s eyes moved over Helena’s face, taking her in. “You look amazing.”
“So do you. Congratulations on partner, by the way. Properly, in person. Youngest ever.”
“Thank you.” Caitlin’s smile widened. “It still feels surreal. I keep expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me there’s been a mistake.”
“There’s been no mistake. Everyone knows you deserve it.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“It’s not kind, it’s true.” Helena held Caitlin’s gaze for a moment…
just a moment, but long enough to feel the current between them, that same electric charge that had been there from the first night sat outside Kirby’s Ice House.
It hadn’t faded. If anything it felt stronger, concentrated by absence rather than diluted.
“So how’s S?o Paulo?” Caitlin asked, and they fell into conversation, careful to keep it professional, friendly, two people with a history that nobody else there could remotely guess at talking in public.
It was easy on the surface, talking shop.
Beneath it, Helena was aware of every detail…
the way Caitlin tucked her hair behind her ear, the way her fingers went to the necklace occasionally, the way she leaned slightly closer to Helena than the conversation strictly required.
A partner from the New York office approached and Caitlin introduced Helena with genuine warmth (“Helena was on my team in Houston, she’s one of the most talented consultants I’ve worked with”) and Helena felt the compliment deep down even as she noticed how smoothly Caitlin had described their connection.
On my team. Professionally unimpeachable.
The partner moved on and they were alone again, briefly, in the flow of the reception.
“Still on for tonight?” Caitlin asked, her expression caught somewhere between hope and excitement. “After the dinner?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.” Caitlin’s hand touched Helena’s arm, just for a second as she turned away. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Then someone else was there, another partner wanting Caitlin’s attention, and the moment passed. Caitlin was pulled away with an apologetic smile, and Helena was left standing on the terrace with a glass of champagne and a racing heart.
She’s wearing the necklace. She touched my arm. She said she’s looking forward to it.
She could almost hear Isabella’s voice in her ear: “Don’t get carried away.”
Too late, Helena thought. Far too late.
***
The welcome dinner was a formal affair, round tables of ten, place cards, a four-course meal with wine pairings and a keynote speech from the Global Managing Partner about the firm’s strategic direction.
Helena was seated with a mix of partners from different offices, and as she glanced around the room she saw that it was deliberate.
Twenty non-partners had been invited and each one was sat on a different table.
She’d been slightly worried that they’d all be grouped together, treated like token attendees who didn’t matter, but there was no chance of that.
She was there to meet and be met, and she was relieved that that genuinely was the case.
Caitlin was at a different table, visible from where Helena was sat across the dining room.
Helena made herself not look. She focused on the people around her, on being the version of herself that deserved to be in this room…
engaged, intelligent, personable. She asked questions, shared insights, laughed at the right moments. She was good at this.
But she was also, beneath all of that, counting the minutes until dinner ended.
The keynote speech ran long. The dessert course was followed by coffee and after-dinner drinks at the tables. Helena took part, smiled, and nodded. Inside, she could feel the nerves building.
It was close to ten by the time the dinner began to break up, tables fragmenting as people stood and gathered into smaller groups. She had two invites from groups to different local bars, while she could see some others who’d travelled further making their excuses and heading to bed.
Helena checked her phone.
Bar in the lobby in ten minutes? The library bar, not the main bar. C x
Helena’s fingers were steady as she typed her reply, even if the rest of her wasn’t.
On my way. H x
She excused herself from her invites to drinks, saying goodnight to the various partners. She took the long way round the dining room, avoiding Caitlin’s table. If they were going to talk, really talk, she didn’t want it to start with an awkward encounter in front of twenty partners.
The library bar at the back of the hotel was quieter than the main one. Lower lighting, wingback chairs, an ambience designed for discretion. A few couples were secreted at tables, a handful of business travellers too, but nobody from the conference as far as Helena could see.
She found a table in the corner, two armchairs angled towards each other, a low table between them, and ordered two glasses of wine, one for her and one for Caitlin. Then she sat, crossed her legs, smoothed her dress, and tried to slow her breathing.
She reached out. She’s wearing the necklace. She said it’s been too long.
Maybe it’s just a drink. Maybe she’s being collegial.
Maybe. But maybe not.
Helena sat in the dim light of the lobby bar and waited for the woman she’d been waiting nine months for already to walk through the door.