The CEO’s Private Lessons

Chapter 2 — Champagne and Silk

For three full seconds, I forgot there were hundreds of other people in the ballroom.

Alexander Vale stood across the room with one hand around the stem of his glass, looking directly at me.

Not past me.

Not vaguely in my direction.

At me.

There was no reason for it to make me nervous. I worked for his company. Technically, he was allowed to know I existed.

Still, I had the ridiculous urge to check whether something was wrong with my dress.

I resisted.

Then someone stepped between us, breaking the line of sight, and I exhaled without realizing I had been holding my breath.

“Get a grip,” I whispered.

A waiter passed.

I took another sip of champagne.

That was probably my first mistake.

Not because I was going to get drunk. I had barely touched the first glass. But having something in my hand made me feel as though I had one more thing to manage, and I already had enough.

Rachel’s printed notes were folded inside my clutch.

Remember Laurent.

Remember Whitmore Capital.

Remember the presentation.

Remember not to stand in the middle of a ballroom staring at the CEO like I had never seen a man in a suit before.

I moved farther inside.

The first few introductions went better than expected.

Priya from retail spotted me near the central tables and immediately pulled me into a conversation with two executives from Laurent. I knew their names from email chains, which helped. More importantly, I knew the work.

Questions about campaign positioning were easy.

Questions about whether I had been to the new members’ club in Tribeca were not.

“No,” I said.

The woman asking blinked.

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

I waited for the world to end.

It did not.

She simply moved on.

Encouraged, I survived another ten minutes.

Then someone asked where I summered.

I thought he meant where I was traveling that summer.

“Probably nowhere,” I said. “My brother’s trying to convince me to take a long weekend in Montauk.”

The man stared at me.

His wife covered a smile with her glass.

It took me several seconds to understand that where do you summer was apparently not the same question as do you have vacation plans.

“Queens,” I added, because if I was going to fail, I might as well be thorough.

The wife laughed.

Not cruelly.

That helped.

I was beginning to think the evening might be survivable when Priya disappeared to greet another client, leaving me beside a circular cocktail table with three people I had never met.

One of them was Vanessa Whitmore.

I recognized her immediately.

Everyone did.

Her face appeared regularly in photographs from museum benefits, fashion events, and foundation dinners. Whitmore Capital had been attached to half the major developments in Manhattan for decades, and Vanessa was the kind of woman lifestyle magazines liked to describe as an heiress even though she sat on three boards and probably worked harder than half the men inheriting similar fortunes.

She was wearing dark green silk.

Not a dress that screamed for attention.

A dress that assumed attention would come anyway.

Her blond hair was pinned loosely at the back of her neck, and the emeralds at her ears looked old enough to have opinions about me.

She was speaking to a silver-haired man when her gaze landed on my name card.

“Mia Carter.”

There was no question in her voice.

I smiled. “Yes.”

“Vale & Mercer.”

“Brand strategy.”

“I thought so.”

I had no idea why she would think so.

Before I could ask, the silver-haired man turned toward me.

“Carter. Any relation to the Carters in Connecticut?”

There were probably thousands of Carters in Connecticut.

“Not unless they’ve been hiding it from us.”

He chuckled politely.

Vanessa did not.

“My family is from Queens,” I added.

Something in Vanessa’s expression shifted.

Not disapproval exactly.

Recognition.

As if she had just found the correct drawer to put me in.

“Of course.”

Two words.

Perfectly pleasant.

Somehow still irritating.

Another woman joined us, and introductions circled again.

I caught only half the names.

The conversation moved quickly from a charity auction to a restaurant opening to someone’s house in Southampton.

I knew enough about Manhattan to understand the references.

Not enough to contribute.

For the first time that evening, I felt the old discomfort crawling back.

I hated that feeling.

At work, I was never quiet because I had nothing to say.

Here, I was quiet because everyone seemed to be speaking a language made entirely from places, schools, clubs, and surnames.

Then a waiter arrived with a tray of wine.

Vanessa took one.

“So,” she said, turning to me, “how are you finding the Bordeaux?”

I looked down at my glass.

I had absolutely no idea what I was drinking.

“Good.”

The woman beside her smiled.

Vanessa’s expression remained gracious.

“Good?”

There was something about the way she repeated it that made the answer sound like a confession.

I could have lied.

I could have said something about tannins or oak or whichever words people used when they wanted wine to sound complicated.

Instead I took another sip.

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you if this bottle cost twenty dollars or two hundred.”

The silver-haired man laughed.

Vanessa lifted one eyebrow.

“That must make dinners much less stressful.”

“It makes ordering much faster.”

Another laugh.

This time Vanessa smiled too.

For half a second, I thought maybe I had misread her.

Then she swirled the wine gently in her glass.

“It’s a Château something,” she said, naming a French estate with such effortless pronunciation that I knew immediately I would embarrass myself if I tried to repeat it. “Alexander usually prefers the ’09.”

There it was.

Alexander.

Not Mr. Vale.

Not even Alex.

Alexander, delivered with the comfortable ownership of someone who had said his name a thousand times.

The woman beside her nodded. “He always did.”

Vanessa glanced across the ballroom.

I followed before I could stop myself.

Alexander was speaking to two men near the stage.

He was no longer looking at me.

For some reason, that annoyed me.

Vanessa caught the movement.

“You’ve met Alexander?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“I’ve seen him.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I mean at work.”

She smiled into her glass.

“Of course.”

Again.

That word.

I suddenly disliked it.

The silver-haired man asked where I went to school.

“Baruch.”

He nodded, but Vanessa said, “Not Columbia?”

“No.”

“I thought Vale & Mercer recruited heavily there.”

“They probably do.”

“And you came through?”

I looked at her.

“An application.”

One corner of her mouth moved.

The answer was technically rude.

It was also the first thing I had said all evening that felt like me.

Vanessa did not seem offended.

If anything, she looked mildly entertained.

“Alexander likes unusual hires.”

I knew exactly what she was doing.

Nothing she had said was openly insulting.

That was the skill.

Each question was wrapped in enough politeness that objecting would make me the problem.

I could feel my shoulders tightening.

I told myself not to let her see it.

The other woman changed the subject.

“Are you attending the Ellison dinner next week?”

Vanessa nodded.

“Alexander and I both are.”

Something in her tone made the woman smile knowingly.

“Oh?”

Vanessa took another sip.

“We’ve been going to those dinners together since we were children. Our fathers used to seat us at the same table to keep us out of trouble.”

“You two? Trouble?”

“You would be surprised.”

The silver-haired man laughed.

I looked away.

This was none of my business.

I had been in the room for less than an hour.

I did not care whether Alexander Vale had attended dinners with Vanessa Whitmore since infancy.

I especially did not care whether they had some elegant, complicated, old-money history that probably involved summer houses and matching ponies.

I had known the man existed for years and had thought about him personally for approximately fifteen minutes.

Still, when I glanced across the room again, Alexander was looking back.

This time there was no mistaking it.

His gaze moved from Vanessa to me.

Vanessa noticed.

Her smile changed.

Very slightly.

“Alexander,” she called.

My stomach dropped.

He was too far away.

Surely he had not heard.

Then he excused himself from the men beside him and started walking toward us.

I considered pretending someone across the room needed me urgently.

Too late.

Alexander stopped beside Vanessa.

Up close, he was worse.

Not worse-looking.

Unfortunately.

Worse in the sense that photographs did not capture how imposing he was when there was no screen between us. He was tall enough that I had to tilt my head slightly, and there was something unnervingly deliberate about him.

No wasted movement.

No visible nerves.

No need to prove he belonged there.

Of course he belonged there.

His name was probably on the building’s donor wall.

“Vanessa.”

She touched his arm lightly.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been working.”

“At your own gala?”

“Unfortunately.”

He looked toward the rest of us.

Vanessa began introductions, even though he clearly knew everyone.

When she reached me, she paused.

“And this is Mia Carter. One of your unusual hires.”

I almost closed my eyes.

Alexander looked at me.

“Ms. Carter.”

“Mr. Vale.”

“You’re here for Rachel Lawson.”

It took me a second to respond.

He knew who I was.

“Yes. She got sick.”

“I heard. Is she all right?”

“She will be. Food poisoning, apparently.”

“From the oysters?”

I stared at him.

His mouth shifted.

Not quite a smile.

“I told catering not to serve them.”

“You knew?”

“I had one at lunch.”

That unexpected normality nearly made me laugh.

I managed not to.

Vanessa watched the exchange with quiet interest.

“I was just discovering Mia doesn’t drink Bordeaux,” she said.

“I drink it,” I corrected. “I just don’t have an opinion worth discussing.”

Alexander glanced at my glass.

“A useful skill.”

Vanessa smiled. “Not in this room.”

“Especially in this room.”

For the first time, she looked mildly irritated.

I almost liked him for that.

Then someone behind me stepped backward.

I felt the impact before I understood it.

A shoulder caught mine.

My hand jerked.

The glass tipped.

Everything seemed to happen with horrifying slowness.

Red wine arced through the air.

Not onto the floor.

Not onto me.

Onto the pale ivory gown of the woman who had just stepped beside our table.

The stain spread across silk immediately.

Dark crimson.

Huge.

Impossible to miss.

The ballroom around us seemed to inhale.

“Oh my God.”

The words came out of my mouth automatically.

The woman looked down.

I recognized her a second too late.

Margaret Ellison.

Wife of Thomas Ellison.

Ellison Group.

One of the investors Rachel had specifically highlighted in her notes.

Of course.

Of course it was.

“I am so sorry.”

A waiter appeared with napkins.

I grabbed one.

“Please, let me—”

“No.”

Margaret stepped back before I could touch the dress.

Her expression was controlled, but the shock on her face made everything worse.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Someone bumped into me.”

The man behind me had already vanished into the crowd.

Vanessa was perfectly still.

Alexander’s face had gone unreadable.

“I’ll pay for the cleaning,” I said.

There was a tiny pause.

Then someone nearby laughed.

Not kindly.

Margaret Ellison looked at me.

“Cleaning?”

I realized immediately what I had said.

This was not a dress that went to my neighborhood dry cleaner with a ticket pinned to the collar.

Heat climbed my face.

“I mean, whatever it needs.”

“Mrs. Ellison,” Alexander said.

His voice was calm.

Everything around us seemed to reorganize itself around it.

“We’ll have someone from the hotel take care of this immediately.”

Margaret looked at him.

“Yes. Thank you, Alexander.”

Of course she knew him.

Of course.

A member of the event staff arrived and guided her away.

I stood there with the empty wineglass still in my hand.

My ears were ringing.

Vanessa’s voice came softly from beside me.

“That was unfortunate.”

I turned toward her.

She looked sympathetic.

Almost.

Then I noticed the phone.

Not hers.

A young man stood several feet away, holding his phone chest-high.

The camera was pointed directly at me.

For a second I simply stared.

He lowered it when our eyes met.

Too late.

I knew exactly what he had been doing.

My stomach dropped.

Alexander saw him too.

His expression hardened.

He said something to a security staff member beside the wall.

I barely heard it.

The ballroom suddenly felt too hot.

Too bright.

Too full of people who had all just watched me throw red wine over an investor’s wife.

“I need some air,” I said.

No one stopped me.

I set the empty glass on the nearest table and walked.

Not ran.

Running would have been worse.

I made it through the ballroom doors, down the hall, and into the elevator before my hands started shaking.

The doors closed.

For the first time all evening, I was alone.

I looked at myself in the mirrored wall.

My hair was still in place.

My dress was fine.

I looked exactly like the woman who had arrived an hour earlier believing she might somehow survive this.

Then my phone buzzed inside my clutch.

A message from Priya.

Are you okay?

Another came before I could answer.

Someone posted a video.

I closed my eyes.

There it was.

Not tomorrow.

Not after the gala.

Already.

I opened the link.

The video started with me holding the glass.

It did not show the man bumping into me.

It showed the wine hitting Margaret Ellison.

My horrified face.

My desperate apology.

And then, perfectly audible:

I’ll pay for the cleaning.

The clip ended there.

Twelve seconds.

That was all it took.

I stared at the view count.

It increased while I watched.

When the elevator reached the lobby, I walked outside without saying goodbye to anyone.

The night air hit my face.

Cars moved along the avenue.

People laughed near the hotel entrance.

Somewhere upstairs, the gala continued as if nothing had happened.

I stood beneath the awning and opened the rideshare app with numb fingers.

Rachel had sent me to represent the team.

To prove I could handle the room.

Instead, I had spilled wine on one of the company’s most important investors and become entertainment for strangers before dessert had even been served.

The car arrived.

I climbed into the back seat and gave the driver my address.

Only once the hotel disappeared behind us did I let myself say the thing I had been trying not to think.

“I’m fired.”