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Jade

We were T-minus twenty-six hours from the charity bachelor auction, and I’d spent all day with the other women on the planning committee at the venue getting everything set up.

Apparently, when it was for charity, venues allowed parties to call the shots.

In this case, occupying the ballroom in advance of the big event.

Five hundred of New York’s richest, most elite would be showing up to drink, eat, and stare at, or in the case of a respectable number of women, bid on, men.

I’d learned that ticket prices for the event were upwards of twelve-hundred dollars a head, so I had a feeling throwing money around to land a man wouldn’t be an issue. Deep pockets and all.

Meanwhile, I’d be hanging on Red’s arm like a good little fiancée and enjoying myself as much as I could.

Sure, I’d been in his world for a hot second by now, but it would never cease to amaze me just how out of place I could feel when doing things like this.

It was like I didn’t belong. Never mind, there was no like about it.

I didn’t. I was beginning to understand this girl from Queens would never not feel that way.

“What do you think about where I put the vase?” Sherrilyn asked, coming up beside me and tapping me on the shoulder while I continued to fold napkins into swans as directed about an hour ago.

Good thing I actually knew what one of these looked like after Mitzy had them at the engagement party she’d thrown for me and Red.

Not that it helped any, especially by making this a hell of a lot less physically painful on my hands.

At this rate, my hands would cramp up before I ever finished folding five hundred of these bad boys.

My gaze followed her as she pointed to the vase in question.

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure the thing qualified as a vase.

It was gigantic and stood about three feet off the floor, decorated with giant feathers and some sort of greenery.

It was a whole decor style that I just wasn’t getting, but that wasn’t what she’d asked me about. “It looks good.”

“Do you think it blocks the stage?”

At the right angle, it could block the Empire State Building. “Uhh, no. It’s good there.”

Sherrilyn wiped imaginary sweat from her brows.

I’d swear, the woman did not break a sweat all day.

I had no idea how she did it. Meanwhile, I was pretty sure I was starting to smell.

The black cotton shirt I’d chosen to wear today proved to be the best thing (besides a tank top) that I could’ve worn because it hid all my sweat stains.

Out of the blue, she stopped and stared at me, angling her head to the side. “What are you doing there?”

“Folding swans,” I explained, hoping she wasn’t about to tell me that I was doing it wrong. If so, I might have to fling myself off the roof of the building. No way was I going to start over.

“Let me help,” she surprised me by saying and nudging me over.

Okay, I was going to say it—Sherrilyn really wasn’t all that bad.

Would you believe me if I said I was actually starting to like her?

Not just because she offered to help me from my swan-imposed misery, but because she had real cojones .

Sherrilyn was fiercely devoted to the things that mattered to her most—her husband, her family, her community. She was actually quite a good person.

It struck me then that she was the kind of woman Red needed in his life.

It was too bad he’d gotten stuck with me because of his rotten situation with Mark’s close-minded mentality about family men and business.

I was so far from a Sherrilyn, I didn’t even know where to begin.

I’d said it before, but I was nothing more than a broke ass bitch from Queens, who had only just learned where she came from, but still had no idea where she was going.

I didn’t do elite.

I didn’t go to parties or dine with the best, drinking rosé, unless it was a cheap knockoff from a box.

I didn’t know how to act sophisticated.

I didn’t know how to dress.

I didn’t know how to play tennis or care to learn.

I didn’t fit into Red’s world, and I’d be smart to remember that.

“Something on your mind, Jadey?” Sherrilyn asked me, breaking into my toxic thoughts.

I shook my head. There was no way I could tell her the truth. “Just thinking about what I’ll wear tomorrow night.”

She gasped as she made fast work of another swan napkin.

“Oh, my! Did I tell you I brought my gown in for last-minute alterations, and they ruined it? The fabric was all pulled when I went in to see it. I told them they destroyed it. I could never put it on my body. I’d look like an embarrassment, a laughingstock. ”

Covering my mouth with my hand, I made eye contact with her. “No!” Seemed like an over-the-top reaction, but also just the one she’d wanted from me.

“Yes,” she confirmed, nodding. “It’s ridiculous. I’ll never use them again. They clearly don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Do you have a backup?”

She laughed, brushing me off. “Of course. It just won’t be the same.”

Will anything after this entire experience?