LAST NIGHT MISTAKE

The Company Dinner

She found out about the dinner on Wednesday morning.

A calendar invite landed in her inbox at eight fifty-three, seven minutes before she was due at her desk. Mandatory attendance. All senior staff and personal assistants. Caldwell Empire annual client dinner. Friday evening. Seven o'clock. Dress code: formal.

Sonia read it twice and then read it a third time.

Formal.

She opened her wardrobe in her head and did a quiet inventory and came up with exactly nothing that qualified. She had club clothes and she had work clothes and she had the yellow top she wore the night everything started and none of those were formal.

She called Lena on her lunch break.

"How formal is formal?" Lena asked immediately.

"The kind that has its own dress code in the calendar invite."

Lena was quiet for two seconds. "We are going shopping tonight."

They went to three stores. Lena vetoed everything Sonia picked because Sonia kept gravitating toward things that were safe and dark and easy to disappear in. Lena finally pulled a deep green dress off a rack in the third store, held it up and said nothing, just raised an eyebrow.

It was fitted through the waist, simple at the top, and did exactly what a dress was supposed to do without trying too hard.

"That one," Lena said.

Sonia bought it and told herself it had nothing to do with anyone in particular.

Friday came faster than she wanted it to.

The restaurant was the kind of place that did not have prices on the menu. Low lighting, round tables dressed in white linen, the quiet clink of expensive glasses. Sonia arrived with Dana, who looked immaculate in black and moved through the room like she owned it. She introduced Sonia to three clients whose names Sonia immediately locked away in the organized part of her brain.

She was doing well. Smiling the right amount, saying the right things, keeping her wine glass mostly decorative.

Then Matthew walked in.

He was in a dark suit, a different one from his office suits, the kind that was cut for a room like this one. He had someone with him. A woman. Tall, polished, auburn hair pinned perfectly, a red dress that had definitely cost more than Sonia's month of groceries. She was laughing at something he had said and touching his arm lightly as they crossed the room.

Sonia looked back at her wine.

Dana appeared at her elbow. "That is Clarissa Holt. Her family's firm is Caldwell's biggest investor. She and Matthew have known each other since college." A small pause. "She comes to this every year."

Sonia nodded like it was useful information and not a small sharp thing pressing against her ribs.

She was fine. She was completely fine.

She got through the first course without looking at his table more than twice. She talked to a junior analyst named Peter who was nervous and funny and reminded her a little of herself three years ago. She ate her food and laughed at the right moments and was entirely present.

Then the tables shifted for the networking portion of the evening and Matthew appeared beside her.

"Miss Reyes." Then lower, almost immediately. "You look beautiful."

She turned to face him. He said it the way you said something you had not planned to say out loud. No calculation behind it. Just the truth arriving before he could stop it.

"Thank you," she said carefully.

"Are you enjoying the evening?"

"Very much. The salmon was excellent."

Something pulled at the corner of his mouth. "I meant the company."

"Peter from analytics is very interesting."

He looked across the room at Peter, who was currently spilling water on his own jacket, then back at her.

"Riveting," Matthew said.

She laughed before she could stop it. A real one. The kind that came from the same place as the ones at the bar that night, unplanned and unguarded, and she watched him react to it the same way he had then. Like it did something to him.

Clarissa appeared at his side.

Her eyes moved to Sonia with a pleasant smile that did its job perfectly. "I do not think we have met."

"Sonia Reyes. Mr. Caldwell's assistant."

"Of course." The smile stayed exactly where it was. "Matthew speaks highly of his team."

Matthew said nothing. He was looking at Sonia in a way that Clarissa could not see from where she was standing and Sonia absolutely needed him to stop.

"Excuse me," Sonia said pleasantly. "I should get back to Dana."

She walked away steady and slow and did not hurry and that was how she knew she was getting better at this.

She was lying to herself completely.

But she was getting better at it.