Return to the Apex: No More Mr. Nice Guy novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Gala

Weston walks into the Thorpe gala with Marin and refuses to fund the wedding in front of investors; Rex offers to sell him Lawrence's secrets.

She laid her terms out in the back of my car at six o'clock, with the gala starting at seven.

"Ninety days," Marin said. "You take me to every public thing you go to. I take you to mine."

"And what do you get?"

"Your investors in my room. Half of Boston won't return my calls, and all of Boston returns yours."

It was plausible. It wasn't all of it.

I decided not to say that yet.

"What do I get besides the notes?"

"A date who doesn't want anything from your wallet." She handed me a single page. "Three rules."

I read it. It was typed, and it was short.

One: in public, we were together. Two: in private, we weren't. Three: nobody asked why.

"No feelings," I said, reading the margin.

"No nights, either," Marin said. "Sign."

I signed.

She had a pen with her own initials on it, and she took it back without looking at me.

The Thorpe Foundation gala was in the ballroom of the Harbor Grand, three hundred people at round tables.

An ice sculpture of a swan stood in the entrance.

Lawrence had paid for the swan with my money, and I had paid for the room.

Marin put her hand on my arm at the door.

I felt the heat of it through my jacket.

We walked in.

I watched the rooms turn. Conversations stopped at the tables nearest us and started again faster.

The man with the wine list at table nine, who had been trying to get a meeting with me for a year, lifted his glass.

On the little stage at the far end, a string quartet was playing.

Sabine stood in front of it with a champagne flute she wasn't drinking.

She had on the ivory gown from Paris.

Rex stood one step behind her in a dinner jacket, with his hand low on her back.

I stopped walking.

I had paid for that gown, and she was going to marry another man in it.

It hurt less than I'd expected.

"Anyone you want me to be pleasant to?" Marin asked, quietly.

"Everyone in this room except four people."

"Good. I'll be unpleasant to the four."

Sabine saw us.

I watched her see the hand on my arm, and then the woman it belonged to, and her face closed.

Then she tapped her glass with a spoon, and the quartet stopped.

"Everyone, a quick announcement," she said, in the voice. "My fiance and I are so happy you could all be here."

She looked straight at me.

"Rex and I are getting married. Next month."

Applause started, thin and uncertain.

Three hundred people had known me as her fiance for ten years, and I was not standing on that stage.

Rex smiled at the room and put his arm around her.

Then Lawrence was beside me with a drink in his hand, and his smile was not steady.

"Weston, my boy," he said. "A word."

"Say it here."

"The wedding. The venue is a quarter of a million. Whatever's happened between us this week, you wouldn't let her down in front of everyone."

He had raised his voice so the nearest tables could hear it, and they were listening.

He wanted me to say yes in front of an audience, the way I always had.

"Lawrence," I said, pleasantly. "I won't be paying for anything of yours again."

The nearest tables went silent.

"Not the venue. Not the payroll. Not the roof."

"Weston." He lowered his voice. "Not here."

"You brought it up here."

I turned to the room.

"I wish Sabine and Rex every happiness," I said. "I mean it."

"They'll be wonderful together, and I'm told the cost of that is very reasonable."

Somebody at table nine laughed out loud.

Marin squeezed my arm once and didn't look at me.

Sabine had set her glass down on the stage. Her hands were shaking.

"You're doing this to hurt me," she said, loud enough for everyone.

"No," I said. "I'm doing it because you asked."

Lawrence took his daughter by the elbow and steered her toward the wings.

I got a glass of water from a passing tray and drank it standing in front of the swan.

My hand was steady.

Marin was looking at the ice sculpture. "That was three minutes," she said. "I had it at five."

"You timed it?"

"I always time it."

She went to find the powder room.

I went to find a quiet corner of the hallway.

The corridor behind the ballroom was empty except for one man.

Rex was waiting by the service door with his tie loosened.

"Mr. Cabot."

"You're not in this hallway to wish me well."

"No, sir." He glanced back toward the ballroom.

"I just watched you cut off the whole family in front of three hundred people. I'm thinking I may have picked the wrong table."

"You picked your table last week."

"I carry Mr. Thorpe's bags," Rex said. "I know where he keeps the second set of books."

"And I know what he told his wife about you."

He gave me his crooked grin.

"That might be worth something to a man in your position."

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