CEO Humiliated the Single Dad at Christmas — Then Her Father Called Him “Boss”
Chapter 3
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
"I'm going to be candid," she said, "because candor is a kindness. This evening is for the people who make the decisions that keep 4,000 people employed. It isn't a reward ceremony. If somebody told you otherwise, they were being nice to you. And being nice to people isn't the same as being honest with them." She took a small sip of the champagne she was not drinking. "Are you here alone?""I am.""No wife waiting in the lobby?""No.""Ah." Something flickered behind her eyes, some satisfaction at having located the shape of him: single, then. "Kids?""A daughter.""And she's where tonight?""With my sister," Luke said. "I promised her I'd be back before 11:00."Celeste made a soft sound that was not quite a laugh. "Well," she said, "that does explain a great deal." She turned her head and signaled a floor manager with two fingers—the gesture of a woman who has never had to walk across a room to ask for something. "Someone will find you a seat. Have a plate. Enjoy the music."She had already begun to turn away when Luke spoke again, perfectly level. And that was the first thing about the whole evening she would replay later and not be able to stop replaying."Mr. Sinclair hasn't arrived yet?"She stopped. She came back around one-quarter turn, and for the first time, there was actual frost under the courtesy, because a man in a canvas coat had just asked after her father as though the two of them had an arrangement."My father," she said, "doesn't report to people like you."The floor manager arrived 30 seconds later with a tablet and the particular tension of a man who had received a correction he did not understand. He led Luke away from the main floor, past the strategic partners' tables with their brass lamps and folded linen, toward the far wall where two smaller rounds had been set up near the swinging doors to the kitchen.Every time those doors opened, a wedge of white light and clattering noise swung across the tablecloth, and the air smelled faintly of scorched butter. The manager set down a hand-lettered card at the last seat, the one nearest the wall, and murmured an apology he did not have the authority to explain.Luke read his own name in a different hand than the ones on the main floor, sat down without a word, and set the wrapped box carefully beside his water glass.He sat there for 40 minutes and ate almost nothing. He watched the room the way a man watches a machine he is being paid to evaluate, which is to say he watched the places where the motion caught: he saw a server carry the same tray past the same four executives three times without one of them acknowledging she existed; he saw a young analyst laugh two seconds late at something Celeste said and then check the faces around him to see whether the laugh had been correct; and he saw Celeste move through all of it like weather—warm on one side and cold on the other, depending entirely on what the person in front of her could do for her.