Chapter 8: The Gala

The Thaxton Foundation Winter Gala was held every year in the ballroom of a Fifth Avenue hotel.

I had run its coat check at fifteen, and its silent auction at twenty-two.

I had not been allowed through its doors in five years.

On Monday, I had given the board an extension.

Wren Holdings would wait until the night of the gala, and the board would vote on my father's chairmanship before the doors closed.

It was not mercy.

I wanted them all in one room.

Since Saturday, Edgar had called me nine times.

I had not picked up once.

I could still hear him in the study doorway, telling our father he had let him call his sister a thief.

I did not know yet what I would say to him.

The headline broke the Thursday before, in a gossip column Lydia had clearly fed.

THAXTON THIEF RETURNS TO NEW YORK.

Under it was a photo of me in the gate hall, with my wrist in a guard's fist.

Every outlet in the city had picked it up by Friday.

Every one of them would be waiting on the red carpet.

"You don't have to walk it," Torsten said, from the driver's seat.

"I do."

"We could go in by the kitchen."

"I was blacklisted for five years, Torsten," I said.

"I'm not going in by the kitchen."

He came around and opened my door.

He wore a black tuxedo with a plain white shirt, and I had to look at the street for a second.

My dress was dark green, with a low open back and a long slit up one leg.

He took my arm.

His eyes dropped to my shoulders and came back up.

"Don't," I said.

"I haven't said anything."

"You were going to."

"I was going to say you look like the owner of the building," he said.

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