Chapter 6 - The Velvet Trap
The Grand Ballroom of the Annapolis Waterfront Hotel was a sea of polished brass, white linen, and glittering chandeliers.
Over three hundred naval officers, flag personnel, and their spouses moved beneath the vaulted ceilings, the low murmur of professional small talk punctuated by the clinking of champagne flutes and the muffled brass notes of the U.S. Navy Band playing soft jazz from the mezzanine.
Near the perimeter of the room, standing awkwardly by a high-top cocktail table near the service entrance, stood Rosalie and Adrian.
The contrast between them and the rest of the room was excruciating.
Rosalie was wearing an off-the-rack sapphire gown she had pulled from the back of her closet—a dress from three seasons ago, slightly frayed at the hem, which she had frantically tried to steam with a kettle in their darkened house after the electricity had been disconnected at noon. Her hair, washed with cold water and dried without a blow-dryer, hung flat and lifeless against her shoulders, pinned desperately with two cheap plastic clips. She held an empty champagne glass, her eyes darting nervously across the crowd like a cornered animal, terrified that someone would notice her scuffed heels.
Beside her, Adrian looked like a man standing before a firing squad.
He wore his standard service dress blues instead of the formal mess dress jacket required for the head table. The alterations on his custom jacket hadn't been completed because the tailor had refused to release the garment without a four-hundred-dollar cashier's check. His collar was too tight, digging into his neck, and a sheen of cold sweat glistened on his forehead despite the air-conditioned chill of the ballroom.
A small circle of junior officer wives—women Rosalie had spent the last two years bullying and lecturing on "officer etiquette"—approached their table.
Leading them was Vanessa Miller, the wife of Captain Miller, Adrian’s commanding officer. Vanessa was dressed in an immaculate emerald silk gown, her diamond earrings catching the light of the chandeliers.
"Rosalie, darling!" Vanessa purred, though her eyes were sharp, missing nothing. She glanced down at Rosalie’s frayed hem, then up at her flattened hair, a razor-thin smile touching her lips. "We were wondering where you were! The planning committee meeting was at five. The caterer said the vendor invoices for the centerpieces were flagged for an audit this afternoon. Did you manage to clear that up?"
Rosalie’s throat clicked as she swallowed. "Oh... yes! Absolutely, Vanessa. Just a minor... administrative bank glitch. Carly—my sister—she was handling the wire transfers from our family account, and she’s just... well, you know civilians. Completely disorganized."
She let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh that caused several officers at the adjacent table to glance over.
"Civilians," Vanessa repeated, her smile freezing into something decidedly less warm. "Yes. How inconvenient for you. And Adrian... where is your mess dress jacket? I thought all prospective O-5 selectees were required to wear formal mess dress tonight?"
Adrian gripped his scotch tumbler so hard the crystal groaned under his fingers. "A logistics delay with the base tailor, ma'am. Nothing to worry about."
"Of course," Vanessa said smoothly. "Well, you two must be so excited. The Admiral is arriving any minute. I hear he’s bringing the guest of honor directly from D.C."
"Guest of honor?" Rosalie asked, desperate to steer the conversation away from her dress. "Who is it? Another politician?"
"Hardly," a deep, commanding voice boomed behind them.
The group turned. Captain Miller himself stood there, his chest covered in decorations, his graying hair cropped tight. His face was stern, his eyes fixing on Adrian with a heavy, unreadable weight.
"The guest of honor tonight is the incoming Deputy Director of Fleet Cyber Warfare," Captain Miller said, his gaze dropping to Adrian’s non-regulation uniform for a fraction of a second before returning to his face. "A Commander who just finished a four-year classified billet with Special Operations Command in Bahrain. Highly decorated. Admiral Dalton requested her personally."
Rosalie smiled, puffing out her chest slightly, trying to reclaim some shred of her lost social currency. "Oh, how lovely! Adrian always says the cyber division does such important support work for the real fleet officers."
Captain Miller stared at Rosalie as if she had just spoken in gibberish.
"Support work, Mrs. Sterling?" Miller said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy baritone. "This officer coordinated the signals intelligence that took down three insurgent mortar cells in the Persian Gulf while surviving two direct compound strikes. I wouldn't call that 'support work.' I’d call that the only reason half our forward units came home alive."
Rosalie’s smile vanished.
Before she could speak, the double oak doors at the main entrance of the ballroom swung wide open.
The master of ceremonies stepped to the center of the podium, his voice echoing through the state-of-the-art sound system, cutting through the chatter like a siren.
"Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests... please rise for the arrival of the Official Party: Commander, Naval Forces Atlantic, Rear Admiral Charles Dalton... accompanied by Commander Carly Anne Vance, United States Navy."
The ballroom snapped to attention.
Over three hundred men and women stood straight, heels clicking together in unison across the hardwood floor.
Rosalie froze.
Adrian dropped his glass.
The crystal tumbler hit the parquet floor with a sharp, violent shatter, bourbon and ice cubes splashing across the polished leather of his shoes and the frayed hem of Rosalie’s sapphire gown.
Nobody looked at the broken glass.
May you like
Every eye in the room was fixed on the entrance.
***