Downgrade My Ride? I'll Upgrade My Groom! novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Gala

I stood in front of the closed elevator doors and watched the numbers count down to the lobby.

Your father wanted this more than I did.

When I came back into the boardroom, the committee was gone.

Clay was alone at the window with his hands in his pockets.

"He said my father wanted it," I told him. "The wedding. The swap. All of it."

Clay turned around.

"Do you believe him?"

"I believe Dad needs seventy million dollars." I sat down on the edge of the walnut table because my knees had gone soft. "And I believe Niles would only pay it to family. And I wouldn't sign."

"So your father found him a bride who would."

"His scholarship girl." I pressed my fingers to my eyes. "He picked her out for Niles like a tie."

Clay came and stood between my knees and put his arms around me.

He didn't say anything.

That was the right thing to say.

The Eastman Foundation summer gala was the next night, in the big hall of the Art Institute, under a ceiling full of glass.

I'd been going since I was nineteen.

This was the first time I walked in on Clay's arm.

Sydney walked in on my other side in a red dress with a slit to her hip.

"I'm your emotional support baker," she announced to the man at the door. "I'm on the list as Plus Chaos."

He found her on the list.

Gran had written "Plus Chaos" herself.

The room was full of people who had watched me get shamed on a phone screen five days ago.

Tonight they all wanted to say hello.

The girl from social found me by the champagne.

She was in a borrowed-looking black dress and looked like she hadn't slept.

"I deleted it," she said in a rush. "The video. I took it down Monday night. And I told HR the company clip came from Niles's office. They didn't do anything."

"Thank you."

"Bailey's been redoing your fall campaign," she said. "It's so bad, Liv. She made the logo pink."

Sydney choked on her champagne.

The two guys from sales came over next, with a plate of tiny crab cakes.

"We were idiots," the taller one said.

"You were," I agreed, and took a crab cake.

Clay leaned down to my ear.

"You're enjoying this."

"Every minute."

I didn't see Niles until he was beside me on the terrace.

I'd gone out for air.

The terrace looked over the gardens and Michigan Avenue, and the night was warm and smelled like cut grass and car exhaust.

He smelled like bourbon.

He'd bought his ticket in April, when he still thought Eastman Capital might lend him money.

"Liv."

"Go back inside, Niles."

"I want to talk to you. Without your bodyguard."

"He's my husband."

"He's a stunt."

He moved closer.

His eyes were glassy, and his tie was loose.

I'd never seen him drunk in public, not once in four years.

"Come home," he said. "I mean it. I'll send her away. I'll fix it. You know I'm better with you. Everyone knows it. Bailey made the logo pink, Liv."

I almost laughed.

"I'm not coming home. Not next week. Not ever."

"You don't mean that."

"I've never meant anything more."

I turned to go.

He grabbed my wrist.

Hard.

His fingers dug into the bone, and he pulled me back toward him, and I hit the stone railing with my hip.

"You don't walk away from me," he said through his teeth. "Not twice."

"Let go."

"Not until you say it."

A hand closed over his.

Clay didn't yank, and he didn't swing.

He simply took Niles's fingers one by one off my wrist and held on to his hand.

"She said let go," Clay said.

People had come out onto the terrace.

Sydney. The bank president's wife. Two of Gran's board members. A photographer.

Niles tried to pull his hand back.

He couldn't.

"Get your hands off me."

"You first," Clay said. "Oh, look. You did."

He let go and stepped between us.

"You'll leave now," he said evenly, "or I'll walk you out. Your choice. Mine's more embarrassing."

Niles looked at the people watching.

He straightened his tie with shaking hands.

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