Chapter 403

[ 1,011 words ]

Delia’s POV

“Miss Kensington,” Adrian said. “This is Noah Vesper; he is the vice president of Vesper Group. He will be your direct contact for the gala p>

Noah Vesper did not offer his hand immediately. He studied me for a second longer than politeness required, then gestured to the chair across from him as Adrian left the room and closed the door.

“Sit,” he said, and I sat.

“My father prefers to stay out of sight until he decides otherwise,” Noah said. His voice was calm, low, and unused to being questioned. “That makes the people around him responsible for every detail that reaches the public. Adrian believes you can handle the first event. I have not decided yet, but my father thinks you are more than capable p>

“Then ask what you need to ask,” I said.

His mouth moved slightly, not quite a smile.

“You spent two years attached to a name that was never legally yours. The city watched you lose it in public. Why should I trust you with ours p>

The question landed clean. I did not look away because he was right.

“Because I know how those rooms work,” I said. “I know who sits where, who pretends not to care about the seating chart, and who will leave early if the wrong person is placed beside them. I know how to keep journalists inside the lines and donors feeling important. My personal story is already public. It does not change the fact that I can still deliver the guest list you want p>

Noah leaned back in his chair.

“You need this,” he said. It was not a question.

“Yes p>

“Good. Hungry people pay attention.” He tapped one finger once against the table. “The gala is your first assignment. You will report to me on every major decision. Venue options. Draft invitation list. Budget breakdown. I want the first package on my desk in five days. If it is weak, we end the contract and you keep the signing fee as silence money. If it is strong, you continue p>

“Understood p>

He stood. I stood with him. This time he held out his hand. His grip was firm, dry, and brief.

“One more thing,” he said. “My father will not meet you before the night of the event. He does not do introductions, but I know you’ve already spoken. He does not do small talk. If you are still here when he finally walks into the room, it will be because the work was clean enough to reach him. Do not disappoint him. Do not disappoint me p>

“I won’t p>

Noah walked to the door and opened it. Adrian was waiting outside. The two men exchanged a short look I could not read.

“Adrian will give you access to the planning files and the temporary office we have set aside for you,” Noah said. “Start today p>

He left without another word.

Adrian handed me a second folder and a key card.

“Fourth floor. Corner office. Everything you need is already inside. Welcome again, Miss Kensington p>

I took the folder and the card and walked out of the glass building with my name newly attached to a company the city had not even met yet. The contract was signed. The first task was clear. The man who had just measured me in silence was the son of a CEO no one had seen.

I had work to do.

And for the first time in weeks, I had a door that opened when I pushed it.

I sat in my new corner office on the fourth floor, the guest list spreadsheet open in front of me, and stared at the cursor blinking beside the first empty row for longer than I wanted to admit.

This was the easy part. I had spent years learning exactly which families mattered in this city, which names opened doors, and which ones simply decorated the room without moving anything forward. I could build this list in my sleep.

The problem was not knowing who belonged on it.

The problem was that I knew, and hated, exactly who had to be at the top.

I typed the name anyway.

Windsor, Julian, and Katia.

My jaw tightened just looking at it on the screen, the two names sitting there together, official, permanent, exactly the way they had been announced to the entire city weeks earlier while I stood in the wreckage of everything I had spent two years pretending to have. I wanted to delete it. I wanted to build a guest list that erased them entirely, that let me stand in a room full of the city’s elite without once having to watch Julian Windsor walk through a door with his real wife on his arm.

But I was not stupid, whatever else people believed about me now.

The Windsors were still the richest family in New York. Old money layered over a new empire, the kind of name that made every other family in this city sit up straighter the moment it entered a room. If Vesper Group wanted a successful launch, if I wanted this contract to survive past the five days Noah had given me, excluding them was not an option. Everyone wanted to do business with the Windsors. Every donor on my list would notice their absence and wonder what had gone wrong, what scandal or slight had kept them away, and I could not afford that kind of speculation attached to my very first assignment.

They were royalty in this city, whether I liked it or not.

I highlighted the row and moved on before I let myself linger on it any longer.

Sterling, Tessa, and family. I typed that one with slightly more satisfaction than I wanted to admit, imagining Tessa arriving to a gala she had no idea I was responsible for organizing, forced to spend an evening in a room I controlled after the way she had humiliated me across that restaurant table.

Kensington, David, and Martha.

I hesitated over that one longer than any of the others.

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