CHAPTER SIX: BLACK TIE
886 Words
The dress wasn't wrong. Mia had altered it herself, burgundy silk crepe, fitted perfectly, statement earrings borrowed from Jade. It was wrong for the room.
She understood this the moment The Plaza's entrance came into view.
The women ahead of her wore Valentino. Versace. The kind of understated black that cost more than rent and didn't apologize for it.
Mia looked at her burgundy dress and made a decision.
Good. At least I'll be visible.
The Grand Ballroom was gold ceilings, forty feet up. Chandeliers that had never learned restraint. Eight hundred people moving through amber light with the ease of people who had been rehearsing this performance since childhood.
Davis appeared at her elbow immediately. "Mr. Storm asked to be notified when you arrived."
She found Ethan near the silent auction wall, twenty paintings, each with a starting price that would've covered months of her previous salary. He was in black tie. Which she had known intellectually and was entirely unprepared for experientially.
He turned when she approached. Something happened in his face, brief, controlled, not quite an expression.
"You look." He stopped. "The earrings are good."
"They're Jade's." Mia kept her voice even. "She considers them a diplomatic contribution."
The corner of his mouth moved. Almost.
"Come look at this." He turned back to a canvas, deep blues and grays with a s***h of amber low on the left. "Tell me what you see."
She looked at the artist's name. The starting bid. Then she looked at all twenty pieces and felt the pattern land.
"You set these prices," she said.
"The foundation sets."
"These aren't market prices. You're creating the market." She turned to him. "These artists don't command this yet. But after tonight they will."
He said nothing. Which was confirmation.
"Seven years?" she asked.
A pause. "Seven years."
"Does anyone know?"
Another pause. Its own answer.
She looked back at the amber painting. "That s***h of color, it's the only deliberate thing in the whole piece. Everything else is instinct. But that was decided."
He looked at the canvas for a long moment. "That's the most accurate reading anyone's given it tonight."
"Have you been testing people?"
"I've been listening." Quietly. "There's a difference."
Victoria Hale arrived with the timing of someone who'd been watching for the right moment.
Ivory dress. Perfect posture. A smile so warm it contained absolutely nothing provable.
"Miss Calloway. I've heard so much about the Harlow project." Her eyes moved to Ethan, a flicker, gone. "Ethan has very high standards. That you've met them says quite a lot."
"About her standards," Ethan said flatly.
Victoria's smile adjusted by three percent. Only Mia was close enough to catch it.
"How are you finding New York? It can be overwhelming, for people who didn't grow up in this world."
The phrasing was surgical. This world. Not the city. Not the industry. Pointing it out would sound paranoid.
Mia smiled. "I find it clarifying. It shows you what things actually cost versus what people claim they cost."
A beat of real silence.
Victoria's smile became, briefly, genuine. "I think we'll understand each other very well, Miss Calloway."
Then she was gone.
Mia waited until Victoria was four people away. Then she picked up champagne from a passing tray and said quietly: "She's more dangerous than I thought."
"Yes."
"You could've warned me."
"You didn't need warning." He was watching the space Victoria had occupied. "Preparation would've made you perform. You were better without it."
"That's the most strategic compliment I've ever received."
"It wasn't a compliment. It was an observation." The almost-smile again. "The compliment is that you held ground better than three of my senior executives manage."
"They're afraid of her."
"Yes."
"I'm not."
He looked at her then, fully, directly.
"No," he said. "You're not."
Later, the terrace.
The November air was sharp and immediate. The city spread below, Central Park dark in the middle distance, amber light along its edges.
Mia had no coat. She felt warmth settle over her shoulders before she registered what it was.
His jacket. Placed without comment, without ceremony.
She didn't look at him. She pulled it tighter.
They stood in silence, the city below, the warm ballroom behind the glass door neither of them was facing.
"Why the arts?" she asked. "Of all causes."
The silence stretched long enough she thought he'd let it go.
"My mother was an artist," he said finally. Quietly. To the park. "She said art was for making the invisible visible."
Mia held very still.
"Is that why you hired me?" she asked.
He turned his head slightly. His face, in the dark, was the most unguarded she'd seen it.
"Among other reasons," he said.
His hand came to rest at the small of her back. Brief. Certain. Gone before she could decide what to do with it, as they turned together toward the open door.
She didn't look at him.
But she felt the absence of his hand for the rest of the evening like a sentence that had been started and deliberately left unfinished.
In his jacket pocket, folded: the auction receipt for the amber painting. Purchased quietly. Kept.
Some things you decide instead of feel.
He was beginning to lose the ability to tell the difference.
— End of Chapter Six —
- Writer
