Page 54 of Trust Fund Baby

I smiled sweetly. “Good evening to you, Martin. I’m just going to drop my things off in the back room and get set up at the front desk.”

“That jacket screams thrift store, Roxie,” he hissed, taking a deliberate step toward me. “Do you know how hard I worked to get this guest list? People in this room could buy your entire apartment building without blinking.”

“Well,” I said lightly, brushing past him toward the back, “then maybe one of them can buy enough art tonight so that I can get the fuck out of here.”

I heard the sharp exhale behind me, a sound that usually meant I’d personally given him a tension headache. I didn’t care. I had a blister the size of Rhode Island and exactly zero emotional bandwidth for his theatrics tonight.

In the staff prep room, I dropped my bag and checked the final list for tonight’s show. I spotted Michelle Granger’s name toward the bottom with an unnamed plus one marked next to hers instead of her husband.

Michelle had always been one of my favorite customers. She was the first one to make me feel like I was good at my job. Like I actually knew the art, and she trusted my judgment and went with pieces I’d curated specifically for her home. She was sharp, old-money, always dressed head-to-toe in elegance, and blissfully low maintenance compared to the usual roster of high-maintenance collectors. If she was bringing a plus one, it was probably some impossibly well-bred friend or family member, especially with how connected she and her husband, Elliot, were.

I had barely slipped my earpiece in for the evening when it buzzed. “Yes?” I asked, tucking my clipboard under my arm.

“Ms. King?” One of the usual workers Martin always brought in for show nights asked. “Michelle Granger is here.”

She was early.

Of course she was. She did nothing below her highest standard.

“Perfect,” I said into the earpiece. “I’ll be right out.”

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and plastered on my best smile. The kind Martin liked to call “warm but not over-excited,” which basically meant “don’t scare the rich people.”

I slipped out of the prep room, weaving between servers balancing champagne flutes on silver trays and workers fidgeting with the dimmers. I motioned to them that the lights were perfect, if only to save them from Martin’s wrath. The noise of an already-forming crowd hit me in waves—laughter, clinking glasses, the slow throb of jazz from the hired quartet in the corner.

Michelle looked radiant in a floor-length navy gown with diamond drop earrings that probably had their own insurance policy or were on loan for the night from a high-end dealer. Her posture was perfect with her chin lifted, shoulders back as if she’d been born to have her portrait painted at any moment.

God, I want to be her.

And then I saw him.

Standing just to her right, hands casually in his pockets, tall enough to make the room feel suddenly too small. Charcoal suit that looked far too good on him, crisp white shirt that hugged the muscles of his chest that I had spent all week trying to erase from my mind, and no tie, leaving his collarbones exposed because of course, the top button was undone.

Sebastian Whittaker.

The man who had waltzed back into my life only to cause destruction, it seemed, after ten years of not having run into him once in this city. And now he won’t fucking leave me alone.

My stomach dropped straight to my heels. Then the drop turned into a spark of white-hot annoyance that spread to my ears. Hallie might have been right about warning me away from murdering anyone before the champagne ran out.

Michelle caught sight of me and beamed. “Roxie! There you are, darling.” She reached for my hands like she’d been waiting all night to see me. “I want to introduce you to a dear friend of mine. He’s been dying to see this show ever since I told him about it. He’s looking for some new pieces for his place.”

I didn’t trust myself to look at him yet, so I kept my gaze firmly on Michelle. “Of course. Always a pleasure to see you.”

And then she turned to include her guest, because I had yet to address the man standing next to both of us with his piercing green eyes staring a hole straight into the side of my face. Her hand, with nails flawlessly painted, swept toward him, as though presenting a work of art. In my humble opinion, he was more like a catastrophe.

“Roxie, this is Sebastian Whittaker.”

Finally, I looked at him.

He was already watching me, his expression unreadable, though there was the faintest curve to his mouth, as if this little surprise was all his idea. As if he’d planned to waltz into my place of work with my favorite client just to see what I’d do.

The room seemed to narrow until it was just the three of us, Michelle blissfully unaware that I was calculating all the ways I could smash calamari in his face without losing my job. But I knew I couldn’t make a scene. Not here, in front of not only Michelle, but Martin too.

“Sebastian,” I said, my voice smooth as glass. “What an … unexpected surprise.”

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