“No, absolutely not,” a voice snapped. “These napkins look cheap.”
I followed the sound. Charlotte Holloway stood at the head of a long, gleaming table, a bolt of pale blue silk and chiffon and beadwork poured over the chair beside her. The dress probably cost more than my first car. The way she wore it, she might have believed it cost more than the building.
She pointed at the table linens with a manicured finger, her expression caught halfway between horror and fury. The event planner, a woman whose smile looked like it had been glued on hours ago, nodded too quickly, fingers trembling around her clipboard.
“The linens are supposed to be blush,” Charlotte said, enunciating as if she were instructing a particularly dim child. “This is… rose. Or salmon. It’s wrong. And these folds.” She reached down and crushed the corner of a napkin between two fingers. “It’s giving… budget wedding. Do we look like a budget wedding?”
I cleared my throat.
“Is there a problem with the linens?” I asked.
She turned sharply, hair swinging over one bare, sculpted shoulder. In person, she was exactly what the magazines promised: luminous, poised, striking. Her skin glowed, her makeup was flawless, and she had the aura of someone who had spent her life walking into rooms that rearranged themselves around her.
Her gaze slid over me the way you skim over a menu item you know you’re not going to order.
“Who are you?” she asked, brows knitting. “You’re not in uniform.”
A small, wicked part of me wanted to answer the way everyone in this building should have: I own the place, sweetheart.
Instead, I smiled. “I’m Isabelle,” I said. “Daniel’s mother.”
For a heartbeat, something like recognition flashed in her eyes. Perhaps she had seen a photograph. Perhaps I was supposed to look more… something. Polished. Tamed. Less like myself.
Then her expression cooled by several degrees.
“Oh.” She drew the word out, smoothing it with practiced politeness. “Right. He mentioned you might… arrive early to assist.”
“Assist,” I repeated, tasting the word like a foreign dish.
“Mm.” Her gaze dropped to my dress again, cataloging and categorizing. No designer label she recognized, no sequins, no dramatic silhouette. Just clean lines, good tailoring, and fabric that pooled when it moved. “The staff should have directed you to the staging area. Looks like they got it right indeed.”
There it was. The little twist of condescension, wrapped in sugar.
I smiled wider.
“I admit,” I said, “I assumed I’d be on the welcome line with my son. But I can be flexible.”
Her confusion flickered deeper now, faint lines appearing between her brows, but before she could respond, another voice floated into the room like the tinkling of ice in crystal.
“Charlotte, darling, the guests are beginning to arrive. We can’t keep them standing in the hallway, it’s vulgar.”
Vivien Holloway swept into the center of the chaos the way a ship cuts through a harbor it believes it owns. I’d seen her picture a hundred times: charity galas, museum openings, benefit dinners. In person, she was a study in deliberate perfection. Not a hair out of place, not a smudge in sight. Her dress—champagne-colored, of course—matched the event’s color palette, because of course it did.
Her eyes landed on me.
“And this must be…” Her voice trailed off for half a heartbeat as she took in my dress, my lack of jewels, my hair pulled simply back. “You must be Daniel’s mother.”
The sliver of silence between must and be was surgical. Fifteen years ago, it might have sliced me clean in half.
These days, it barely nicked the surface.
“Mrs. Holloway,” I said, inclining my head. “The venue looks beautiful. The redesign really honors the original architecture.”
It did. The Pacific Ember had been a sad thing when I first toured it: outdated chandeliers, tired carpets, a sense of faded grandeur that felt more resigned than romantic. I’d run my hand along the banister then and thought: I could love this place back to life.
Vivien waved a dismissive hand, the diamonds on her wrist catching the light.
“The new ownership spared no expense,” she replied. “Though I preferred the last group. They understood standards.”
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep my smile from turning sharp. The last group had understood how to overspend and underperform. They had understood how to draft impassioned letters begging me not to gut their precious “brand identity” as we negotiated the buyout.
They had not understood that the quiet Latina architect sitting at the conference table’s end—taking notes, listening more than she spoke—wasn’t a consultant.
She was their replacement.
“Mother,” Charlotte said, cutting a glance at me. “We should revisit the seating arrangements. Given… the circumstances.”
“Of course, darling.” Vivien’s voice turned syrupy. “We want everything to feel just right.”
She shifted her gaze back to me, smile stretching but not quite reaching her eyes.
“Mrs. Romero,” she said. “We’ve arranged a charming spot for you in the private dining area, with the staff.” She paused delicately, as if searching for the gentlest words to gild a brick. “You’ll feel more comfortable there.”
“In the kitchen,” Charlotte added sweetly, as if clarifying something that might have slipped past me. “Closer to the servers.”
I glanced at my watch, more out of habit than anything. The slim, understated Patek hugged my wrist, its face small, its significance enormous. Its price tag could have paid for the entire flower budget five times over.
“How considerate,” I said.
Charlotte’s smile widened the way a cat’s does when it thinks it has done something clever.
Before any of us could say anything else, a familiar voice cut through the air.
“Mom.”
I turned. There he was.
Daniel had always carried himself like someone who’d grown used to straddling two worlds. As a boy, he’d known how to charm the children of the families whose houses I cleaned, just as easily as he’d known how to share a plate of tacos with my coworkers in a cramped back hallway. As a man, he now wore suits tailored to his shoulders, not his insecurities.
Tonight, he looked every inch the man the magazines adored. Charcoal suit, white shirt, tie just loose enough to look effortless yet respectful. There was a steadiness in his dark eyes that hadn’t been there at twenty. Life had sanded off his arrogance and left conviction in its place.
He crossed the room in quick strides.
“Mom, you’re here,” he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek.
“As ordered,” I replied.
He pulled back and looked between me, Charlotte, and her parents. The subtle tightening around his mouth told me he’d walked in at precisely the wrong moment.
“I was just helping your mother find her seat in the kitchen,” Charlotte said lightly, looping her arm through his. “We want her to be… comfortable. We thought something more… informal would be better. For her background.”
She didn’t see the way his jaw clenched at that word. Background. She didn’t know the years that lived between us and that word.
Vivien chuckled, brittle and bright. “Well, given where you come from, Mrs. Romero, we assumed you’d prefer something a little less stiff.”
Daniel’s posture changed in an instant. The easy charm evaporated, replaced by a tension I recognized from the first time he’d had to fire someone who thought his last name meant he’d be a pushover.
“Charlotte,” he said quietly, “we talked about—”
“It’s fine,” I cut in, laying a hand on his arm.
He looked at me, and I gave him the smallest shake of my head. The same signal I’d given him in a hundred different situations: when landlords had spoken down to us, when teachers had assumed he was in the wrong, when other parents had made snide comments about “those people” while looking straight at me.
Not yet, my eyes said. Not here. Not this way.
“I’m very comfortable,” I said calmly. “I’ve been in nicer kitchens than ballrooms, if I’m being honest.”
Charlotte laughed, mistaking my comment for a joke. Vivien tittered in response. Douglas lingered near the bar, already holding a drink, his cheeks flushed with the early warmth of alcohol and attention.
“Perhaps,” I added, eyes flicking to my son, “we should focus on welcoming the guests. I believe they’re arriving.”
Right on cue, the chime of the main elevator echoed through the suite. Voices swelled from the hallway—polished, practiced laughter; heels tapping unevenly on marble; greetings layered over greetings.
