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Matilda tried to calm Pierre, to shut him up, as though there were time to rescue the evening, as
though the damage hadn’t already been done. But Will’s eyes were wild with confusion. Angela and
Kit sidled over, using their bodies as shields to prevent onlookers from watching the drama, to keep
more details from leaking beyond our group into the party at large.
“Sometimes at events like this, Pierre,” Matilda said, grabbing his elbow, “when the drinks flow
more freely than the food, we say things we don’t mean, and we hurt people terribly, people who
don’t deserve it.”
“And sometimes, Matilda, we tell the truth,” he spat, releasing his arm. Turning to Will, he said, “I
hear the truth’s been in short supply in your life lately, buddy. Heard about old Carruthers and your
little girlfriend, or rather, ex-girlfriend. Again my money backed the wrong candidate. Family values
my ass. Not that you suffered for long. Must have been the happiest day of your life, Cassie, when you
found out that his ex was a bigger slut than even you.”
Wham came the punch, which sailed over my shoulder, landing hard, then sealed with a good kick
to his ribs even before Pierre hit the ground. Will’s arm was cocked, loaded, about to launch, or so I
thought. But when I got over my shock, I realized I wasn’t looking at the back of Will’s tux standing
over Pierre’s writhing body, but rather chef whites belonging to Jesse Turnbull.
Time seemed to stop in that instant, allowing me to feel for a brief second like an observer,
hovering eerily over the events, watching Angela and Kit holding Will back from completing the job
that Jesse had started, seeing two burly bodyguards scoop up a bleeding Pierre, still yelling, despite
the blood and the missing front tooth, “Just ask her, Will! Ask how she got those charms, how all of
them did!” “Asked” sounded more like “asstht,” something that would have been funny, might one day,
in some faraway future, still be funny, to other people unaffected by his drunken tirade. Even after he
shook his arms free of the security guards, Pierre wouldn’t stop.
“Because they just use men, Will, they use them for their pleasure and then throw them away and
she’ll do that to you too, buddy! So goodbye, whores,” he said, giving a flaccid salute, before getting
hustled out the door and thrown into the back of his own waiting limo.
Everyone heard that, heard a drunken Pierre Castille sounding more like a jealous ex than a bitter
man rejected by a group of women he now deeply resented. So beyond some whispers and stares, the
party instantly recognized the sight, then healed over when the limo drove away and returned to their
drinking and hors d’oeuvres. I silently thanked Jesse with teary eyes, then took hold of Will’s lapels,
pushing him gently away from the crowd, down a dim hallway leading to the washrooms. There I
pressed him up against the wall, holding him upright with my forehead in the middle of his chest for a
second, where I left a little prayer, something to help him better listen while I desperately tried to
explain things.
He was breathless.
“I’m very confused, Cassie,” he said, his voice up an octave. “I’m confused by some of the things
that were just said by that asshole. Can you … enlighten me?”
“I don’t know. I think, I guess … Pierre wants to ruin us.”
“Ruin who?”
“Ruin S.E.C.R.E.T., our organization, me, us.”
“Why? What does he fucking care?”
“Because … I rejected him. We rejected him.”
Will laughed, genuinely laughed.
“Sorry. Let me get this straight. You rejected the richest man in the city, so he bought a fifteenmillion-dollar
painting from your … group. But you don’t want the money because he’s a bad man.