Chapter 5: The Calloway Dinner

Sloane

The dress arrived on Wednesday.

No note with it. Just a black box with a card that said Calloway dinner, Friday, 7PM and inside the box a dress that was somehow exactly the right thing without anyone having asked me what the right thing was.

I stood in my new bedroom in my new temporary life and held it up and thought about the fact that Beckett Rowe knew my size without asking and decided that was a thing I was going to file away and deal with later.

I had a lot of things in that file at this point.

Friday came fast.

The car arrived at 6:40. Beckett was already in the lobby when I came down. Dark suit. No tie again. He looked at me when the elevator opened and something moved across his face so quickly I almost missed it.

Almost.

"You look good," he said. Flat and factual like he was reading from a document.

"You knew my size," I said.

"I told you. I make it my business to understand the situations of people I work with."

"There's a line between thorough and unsettling."

"I'll keep that in mind."

We got in the car.

The Calloway estate was forty minutes outside the city. Big house. Old money big, not new money big. The kind of place that had been in the same family long enough that it had stopped trying to impress anyone.

There were maybe thirty people inside when we arrived. The kind of thirty people who have known each other for decades and have entire conversations in the space between what they say and what they mean.

Beckett put his hand on the small of my back when we walked in.

Light. Brief. Gone almost immediately.

But I felt it for about ten minutes after.

Richard Calloway found us within five minutes of arriving. Seventy one. Silver haired. The kind of man who shakes your hand and looks at you like he's reading something you didn't know was written on your face.

"Beckett." He shook Beckett's hand and then turned to me. "And this must be Sloane."

"It is," I said. I shook his hand. Firm. Direct.

He held it a second longer than necessary.

"Sharp eyes," he said. Not to me. To Beckett.

"Yes," Beckett said simply.

Calloway looked at me a moment longer. Then he smiled. "Come find me later. I'd like to know what kind of woman makes Beckett Rowe rearrange his entire life."

He moved away.

I kept my expression completely neutral.

"He likes you," Beckett said quietly beside me.

"He just met me."

"Richard Calloway decides what he thinks about a person in the first thirty seconds. He decided about you in fifteen."

I looked at him. "And what did he decide."

"That you're real."

I didn't say anything to that.

The dinner itself was fine. I sat beside Beckett and across from a woman named Constance who had opinions about everything and a man named Harold who had opinions about nothing and I managed both of them the way I managed difficult people in depositions. Patience and precision and the occasional redirecting question.

Beckett watched me work the table.

I could feel it without looking at him. That specific attention. The way someone watching you carefully feels different from someone just looking in your direction.

After dinner there was drinks on the terrace. I was standing near the railing looking at the garden below when a woman appeared beside me.

Late thirties. Elegant. The kind of beautiful that has been maintained carefully and knows it. She looked at me the way women look at each other when they are deciding whether you are a threat.

"Sloane Mercer," she said. Not a question.

"Yes."

"I'm Vanessa." She smiled. "Vanessa Holt. Beckett and I are old friends."

The way she said old friends told me everything about what she thought old friends meant.

"Nice to meet you," I said.

"I have to say." She looked me over once. Quick and professional. "You're not what I expected."

"What did you expect."

"Someone easier." She said it pleasantly. Like a compliment. "Beckett usually chooses easy."

I looked at her for a moment.

"Then I guess things have changed," I said.

She looked at me for a second. Then she smiled again. This time it reached closer to her eyes.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I guess they have."

She moved away.

I stood at the railing and let out a slow breath.

Behind me I heard Beckett's voice. He had appeared without me noticing.

"Vanessa," he said.

"Old friend of yours apparently."

"She has a specific definition of that word."

"I gathered." I turned around. He was closer than I expected. Close enough that I had to look up slightly. "She said you usually choose easy."

Something moved across his face.

"You're not easy," he said.

"No," I said. "I'm not."

We looked at each other for a moment.

And then Richard Calloway appeared from nowhere with two glasses of whiskey and a satisfied expression and handed one to each of us and said something about the garden and the moment dissolved.

But it didn't disappear.

I felt it the whole car ride home. Sitting in the back seat in the dark with six inches of space between us and the city lights going past outside. Neither of us talking. Both of us aware of the six inches in a way that had nothing to do with the arrangement we'd signed.

We got back to the penthouse at eleven.

In the elevator he said: "You handled it well tonight."

"I handle most things well."

"I know." A pause. "That wasn't a compliment on your performance. It was an observation about who you are."

The elevator opened.

We walked to the bedroom wing. Stopped at the point where the hallway split. Him to the right. Me to the left.

"Beckett," I said.

He stopped.

"The thing you're not telling me." I looked at him directly. "The Calloway dinner is done. You said before the first event."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Tomorrow," he said. "I'll tell you everything tomorrow."

He went to his room.

I stood in the hallway for a second.

Then I went to mine and sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall and thought about the fact that whatever he was holding back had been sitting between us since the beginning.

And tomorrow I was finally going to find out what it was.

I didn't sleep much that night.