Chapter 20: The Gala

Mara's POV

The Physician of the Year dinner was held in the grand ballroom of the Riverside Hotel.

Four hundred people had paid three hundred dollars each to sit in it.

I wore the black dress and my mother's pearls.

Daniel wore a rented tuxedo that was an inch short at the wrists, and I took his arm on the sidewalk under the awning.

"Rule one," he said quietly.

"We're not at a hospital."

"We're at a dinner for one."

"Then we'll be very careful," I said, and we walked in through the revolving door together.

Heads turned.

I saw a board member's wife whisper to her husband and a cardiologist lift his eyebrows.

I smiled at each of them.

Mitchell stood by the stage in a white dinner jacket, with a tall glass in his hand and a ring of admirers around him.

He saw me, and then he saw whose arm I was holding.

I watched his face go through four expressions in the space of a breath, and the last one was smooth.

He excused himself and crossed the marble floor.

"Mara." He kissed my cheek. His lips were dry. "How lovely. And Dr. Westerfield."

"Dr. Bannister."

"I wasn't aware you'd been invited."

"I'm Mrs. Bannister's guest," Daniel said.

"Of course you are." Mitchell's smile did not move. "A word, sweetheart. In private."

He took me by the elbow to the coat check, where the girl behind the counter was counting tickets and did not look up.