“Yes you are,” he says as his gaze starts drifting around the room before settling back on me. “So this is your world.”
“It is.”
“It’s loud.”
I laugh. “Nobody’s started talking yet.”
“They already are,” he says, and he isn’t wrong. But one of these are really conversations. They’re negotiations disguised as small talk. Two men near the champagne table are discussing a charity auction while quietly trying to recruit the same investor. Near the stage, a senator has somehow turned this fundraiser into a n opportunity to rally donors to his re-election campaign.
Hector notices all of it within thirty seconds.
“You see it too,” he says.
“I see people working,” I reply.
“I thought this was a fundraiser,” he says.
“It is.”
“When does the fundraising start?” He asks
I glance toward a gr
