Chapter 5: Nine Steps

On the night of the Founders' Dinner, I came down the grand staircase in the red dress.

Two hundred people were drinking in the hotel ballroom below, and the women were in navy, ivory and gray.

Nathan was at the bottom of the stairs.

He had his back to me and a hand on an investor's shoulder.

I took the last step and he turned.

His eyes went over me once, fast, and I saw him take a breath.

"Han," he said. "You look..."

Then the investor pulled him by the sleeve into a circle of men, and Nathan's fingers brushed the base of my spine as he was carried off.

It was a quick, checking touch.

I stood there with the place on my back still warm and watched him disappear into the crowd.

"Hannah, darling."

Margaret had come up beside me without a sound, in navy silk with her pearls at her throat.

She looked at the dress from my shoulders to the hem.

"Red," she said, tilting her head. "How brave."

I had heard that word from her for seven years.

It meant I did not belong in the room, and she had always said it sweetly enough that I thanked her.

"I thought so too," I said. "Everyone else in here looks like the wallpaper."

Something moved behind her face, and it was not anger.

"Do find your table, dear," she said, and went back toward Table One.

I took a glass of sparkling water from a passing tray and walked to the long bar at the side of the room.

I told myself I would stand there for five minutes.

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