The hotel's conference room was crowded.
Everywhere Ave looked and felt elite.The air was thick with their scent, mixing with expensive perfume and the low murmur of two hundred women pretending to care about sick children.
Ave stood in the doorway, one hand clutched around her purse, the small one Denise approved of, barely large enough for lipstick and a compact….and tried to remember how to breathe normally.
"You've done this a thousand times," she told herself. "Don't make waves."
Except she couldn't shake the feeling that everyone was watching her.
"Ave"
A woman materialized at her elbow….Monica something, wife of a hedge fund manager, too much Botox and a dress that cost more than most people's monthly rent. Her smile was wide and empty.
"You look —exhausted, honey. Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine," Ave said automatically.
"Just didn't sleep well."
"Well, you're here now. That's what matters." Monica leaned in, her breath smelling of strawberry mixed with vodka.
"Between you and me, Samantha's been an absolute nightmare about the seating arrangements. Apparently Barbara Hendricks specifically requested not to sit near the Whitmore after that thing at the Met Gala, and.... "
Ave stopped listening. Because across the ballroom, standing on a raised platform near the auction tables, was Samantha Whitmore.
Denise's sister.
She wore cream…of course she did, always cream or white, like she was proving something about her purity tsk ….and her blonde hair was pulled back in a chignon so tight it must have given her a headache. She was speaking to a cluster of women, gesturing with one elegant hand, and even from this distance, Ave could see the coldness in her smile.
Samantha had never liked her. From the moment Denise brought Ave home," this is Ave, we're engaged"...Samantha had looked at her like something tracked in on someone's shoe. The kind of woman who could disorient you with impeccable manners.
"—don't you think, Ave?"
Ave blinked. "Sorry?"
Monica's smile tightened. "I was saying, the children's hospital is such an important cause. We're so lucky to have women like Samantha dedicated to making a difference."
"Right." Ave forced her mouth into something approximating agreement. "So lucky."
Monica's eyes narrowed slightly, but before she could respond, a voice cut through the noise.
"Aveline Whitmore. How wonderful that you could join us."
Samantha.
She'd crossed the ballroom without Ave noticing. Up close, her makeup was flawless. Not a hair out of place. Perfect.
Except for her eyes. Her eyes were Denise's eyes. Pale blue, calculating and cold.
"Samantha." Ave's voice came out steadier than she felt. "The event looks beautiful."
"We do what we can." Samantha's gaze swept over Ave's dress, lingered just long enough to make it insulting.
"That's a... interesting choice. Very... last season."
Monica made a small noise that might have been a suppressed laugh.
Ave's face burned. The dress wasn't last season, she'd bought it three months ago, and Denise had loved it. But that didn't matter. Samantha had marked her as inadequate, and everyone within earshot had heard it.
She reminded herself ; "Don't react. Don't give her anything."
"I thought it was appropriate for the occasion," Ave said evenly.
"Of course you did." Samantha's smile sharpened. "Well, we should get you seated. You're at table twelve, near the back. I hope that's alright, we had to make some last-minute adjustments."
Table twelve. The least associates of charity luncheons. Where they put the people who didn't matter, who were only invited because excluding them would cause questions.
"That's fine," Ave managed.
"Wonderful." Samantha touched her arm, brief and dismissive.
"Do enjoy yourself. And Ave?" She leaned in slightly, voice dropping just enough that Monica had to strain to hear.
"Denise mentioned you haven't been feeling well. If you need to leave early, no one would blame you."
Then she was gone, gliding back toward her important guests, leaving Ave standing there with Monica's pitying stare burning into the side of her face.
"She's always so thoughtful," Monica murmured.
Ave didn't trust herself to respond.
She made her way to table twelve. Past the good tables, the ones near the front with the donor plaques and the better centerpieces, and found her assigned seat. The other chairs were empty. Either she was early, or everyone else had found excuses not to sit at the reject table.
She sat, smoothed her dress and reached for the water glass and realized her hand was shaking.
"Stop it. You're fine. This is nothing."
But it didn't feel like anything. It felt like the walls were closing in. Like everyone in this ballroom knew something she didn't, and they were all waiting to see how long it took her to figure it out.
Her mother's voice whispered through her skull: "Fear is a tool."
Except Ave didn't know what she was supposed to be afraid of anymore.
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The program was halfway through.
Speeches, auction items, a video montage of sick children that made everyone dab at their eyes with cloth napkins while simultaneously checking their phones under the table.
Ave's tablemates had eventually arrived two older women she'd never met who spent the entire meal talking around her like she was furniture, and a younger woman who kept sneaking glances at her phone and barely touched her salmon.
No one asked Ave how she was.
She was halfway through a glass of wine…her second, or maybe her third, she'd lost count, when Isabella Carrington sat down in the empty chair beside her.
Ave nearly choked.
Isabella. Socialite, influencer, walking disaster in designer heels. The woman who'd gotten kicked out of the Met Gala for doing cocaine in the bathroom with a city councilman's wife. Who'd been married three times before thirty. Who showed up to charity events in dresses that barely qualified as fabric.
She was also stunning. Dark hair. Darker eyes. The kind of bone structure that made photographers lose their minds.
And she was currently holding a glass of red wine directly over Ave's lap.
"Oh my God," Isabella said, too loud.
"Ave! I didn't see you there—"
The wine glass tilted. Ave saw it happening in slow motion. Saw the dark liquid arc through the air. Saw it splash across her pale blue dress in a spreading crimson stain.
The table went silent.
"Shit!" Isabella leapt to her feet, hands fluttering.
"Oh shit, oh shit, I'm so sorry…."
Ave stared down at her ruined dress. At the wine soaking through the fabric, cold and wet against her skin.
This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be...
"Here." Isabella was pulling her up, surprisingly strong for someone so slender
. "Come on, there's a bathroom…private lounge, actually. We can get you cleaned up—"
"I'm fine—"
"You're not fine, you're covered in wine. Come on."
And before Ave could protest, Isabella was pulling her through the ballroom. Past the staring faces. Past Samantha's tight smile and Monica's poorly concealed smirk. Past all of it, toward a side hallway that Ave hadn't even noticed.
The private lounge was empty. Small.
The door clicked shut behind them.
Isabella locked it.
"What are you..." Ave started.
"Take off your dress."
"Excuse me?"
"Your dress. Take it off. There's a robe in the closet, you can wear that while I work on the stain." Isabella was already moving, pulling open a cabinet.
"Unless you want to walk back in there looking like you murdered someone."
Ave's head was spinning. From the wine. From the shock. From everything.
"This is insane," she whispered.
"Yeah, well." Isabella turned, holding a white spa robe. Her face was different now. Sharper. Less dizzy socialite, more... something else. "Welcome to your life."
Their eyes met.
And Ave saw it. The performance Isabella had just given….the stumble, the spilled wine, the loud apologies, all of it was deliberate.
"You did that on purpose," Ave said slowly.
Isabella's smile was grim. "We don't have much time. So I need you to listen, and I need you not to freak out, okay?"
"Who are you?"