Chapter 7 - The Whitmore Gala
The Whitmore Foundation Gala was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an event so exclusive that police barricades stretched two blocks down Fifth Avenue to keep back the paparazzi and spectators.
Flashing bulbs illuminated the wet night like continuous lightning as our Maybach pulled up to the red carpet. Outside, a sea of reporters was shouting names, their cameras clicking in deafening bursts.
"Are you ready?" Gabriel asked, looking at me across the leather interior. He wore a bespoke tuxedo that matched the midnight blue of my gown with pinpoint precision.
My palms were sweating, but my pulse was steady. I thought of my furniture sitting on the wet sidewalk in Brooklyn. I thought of Damian pouring champagne on my chest while forty people laughed.
"I’m ready," I said.
The chauffeur opened the door.
Gabriel stepped out first. The moment his face hit the lights, the press erupted into pandemonium. Reporters screamed his name; Gabriel Thorne hadn't walked a red carpet in three years.
He ignored the noise, turning back toward the car and extending his right hand.
I placed my gloved fingers into his grip and stepped out into the blinding light.
A collective gasp seemed to ripple through the velvet ropes. The flashbulbs intensified until the entire avenue was washed in white. Gabriel slid his arm around my waist, pulling me firmly against his side, his thumb resting possessively on my hip.
"Smile, Ava," he murmured under his breath, his face a mask of effortless, aristocratic calm. "Let them see how little their opinions cost."
We walked up the grand stone steps of the Met, passing through the towering Roman arches into the Great Hall.
The hall was filled with three hundred of the wealthiest individuals in the Western Hemisphere. At the center of the reception area, holding court beneath a massive floral arch, stood Damian Cross and Victoria Langford.
Damian was laughing, holding a glass of vintage champagne, wearing a tuxedo that probably cost more than the emergency fund I had given him for his bar exam fees. Victoria was clinging to his arm, looking smug and triumphant.
Until Damian looked up.
His glass stopped halfway to his lips.
The color didn't just leave his face; it looked as if his soul had been sucked out through his boots. His eyes locked onto mine, dropping to the five-carat sapphire resting against my chest, then to Gabriel’s hand wrapped familiarly around my waist.
Victoria followed his gaze. Her champagne glass tilted, spilling golden liquid over her ivory satin shoes, but for once, she didn't seem to notice.
"Ava?" Damian’s voice carried through a sudden, spreading lull in the room’s chatter.
Gabriel and I stopped five feet from them. The surrounding circle of venture capitalists, senators, and socialites parted like the Red Sea, sensing the sudden, violent shift in atmospheric pressure.
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"Good evening, Damian," I said, my voice smooth, clear, and ringing with absolute confidence. "I trust your hands have healed from picking up glass?"
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