Chapter 5: Red Dress

The red dress was mine, and it was the one I had bought for the rehearsal dinner.

It had a low back and a skirt that moved when I did.

I had put it on at six o'clock, thinking I might as well look like a woman who isn't sorry.

Lawrence opened the car door himself at the end of our drive.

He looked at me from my shoes to my hair, one slow pass, and said nothing at all.

That was somehow worse than a compliment.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

"You're staring."

"I'm checking that you can walk in it."

"I can walk in anything."

"Good," he said, and shut the door behind me. "You'll need to."

The Greenwich Hospital Benefit was held every year in the old Marlowe Hotel ballroom, under crystal chandeliers the size of small cars.

My father had written the biggest check in the room for eleven years running.

Tonight, his name was not on the program.

I felt the lack of it the moment we walked through the doors.

Lawrence put his hand at the small of my back, light and warm through the silk, and the room turned to look.

I heard it spread, one whisper at a time.

"That's the Lockridge girl."

"With Kerrigan?"

"I heard he doesn't even go to these."

"I heard he's buying her."

I kept my chin up and smiled at nobody.

"They think you bought me," I murmured.

"Let them."

"I would like it noted that I paid for my own dress."

"It's noted." The corner of his mouth moved, barely. "It's the best-paid-for dress in the room."

I almost laughed, and I was angry at myself for almost laughing.

We made it as far as the champagne before the first one came.

Keep reading free with an account. Start We Never Said We Went Bankrupt! from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.