Chapter 8 - My Husband Calls From Dallas
I slipped into the ladies lounge between the second course and the speeches because I needed air that didn't smell like chandelier wax and red wine. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the vanity lights and a faucet dripping somewhere behind the marble counter. I set the folded envelope from the catering office deep in my clutch and checked my face in the mirror. I looked composed enough. That was the job.
My phone buzzed against the clutch. Mark. Dallas area code, FaceTime audio only. I almost let it go to voicemail. Then I answered.
"Hey," I said, keeping my voice light. "You're up late."
"Couldn't sleep in this hotel," he said. His voice sounded thin through the speaker, tired. "They've got the gala livestream linked on the foundation page. I caught some of it."
My stomach tightened. I sat down on the small velvet bench and crossed my legs so my dress wouldn't wrinkle.
"Oh yeah? It's loud in here," I said. "The camera makes the ballroom look bigger than it is."
"It looks good," he said. "Blue dress looks good. You looked... I saw you talking to someone by the columns. Guy with tattoos?"
There it was. I breathed in through my nose, slow, the way I'd practiced for donor photos.
"There are a lot of plus-ones tonight," I said. "You know how Hart lets people bring guests for the paddle raise."
A pause. I could hear ice clinking in a glass on his end.
"He was standing pretty close, Elena."
"He was asking where the bar was," I said. It came out too fast. "I pointed him toward the back. It's nothing."
I hated how easy the lie was. In the mirror, I watched myself do it — smile held, eyes steady. The envelope pressed hard against my knuckles inside the clutch.
Mark sighed. "All right. I'm not trying to police you from Dallas. I've just got enough noise down here."
"How did the meeting go?" I asked, glad to turn it.
"Not great," he said. "The auditors flagged two vendor payments from last quarter. Cash requests through catering, no invoice backup. They want names before Thursday."
My hand stopped on the clasp of my clutch. Catering. Cash.
"That's... normal to flag, right?" I said. "They always ask for paperwork."
"Normal, but the timing stinks," he said. "If the board chair sees a compliance note before the fall pledges post, she'll freeze the matching funds. You need a clean night in there. No side drama."
I looked down at my shoes, royal blue heels I'd dyed to match the dress. The carpet under them was cream and spotless.
"It's clean," I said. "Dinner's on schedule. Speeches start in ten."
Another pause, longer this time. I could hear him breathing.
"You'd tell me if something was off, right?" he said. "I mean before it ends up on a livestream."
"Of course," I said. "Everything's fine. Go to sleep."
"Love you," he said, but it sounded like a question.
"Love you too," I said. "I'll call tomorrow."
I ended the call and sat there with the phone in my lap. The vanity lights buzzed. The faucet kept dripping. I opened my clutch and looked at the envelope again — the copy of the cash receipt, R. Alvarez, the words private service request in someone's rushed handwriting. Suddenly it wasn't just an embarrassment, Daniel walking through my ballroom in his black shirt and that silver cross I remembered. It was a paper trail tied to the foundation's money, three days before an audit that could freeze everything Mark and I had built.
I stood up and smoothed the front of my dress with both hands. My breathing sounded loud in that small room. If the board started asking who paid cash for a masked server, and guests started posting photos of Daniel next to me, I wouldn't get to explain it as an old mistake. It would look like I hid it.
I couldn't hand this to Mark, not from Dallas, not tonight. And I couldn't let the chair hear it first.
May you like
I put the phone on silent, dropped the envelope back in my clutch, and checked the door to the hallway. Dessert service would be starting. Daniel was still out there, and the server was still out there, and I was the only one who knew enough to stop it from getting worse.
I had to handle Daniel myself, before Thursday, before the audit turned a bad night into a lost foundation.
