The smile fell off Gavin’s face like a man jumping off a building. “I have the money in a duffel bag,” he said. “In my car. I want to give it back.”

Lock stared. He was not prepared for the admission nor for the offer of restitution. He had the money in his car? He wanted to give it back?

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Lock said.

Gavin cleared his throat. “I know about you and Claire,” he said.

Now Lock was the one to lose his composure, or almost. But at that moment the bartender slid Lock’s drinks across the counter, and Lock was able to divert his attention long enough to accept the drinks and pitch a couple of bucks into the tip bowl. Know about Claire? No! How? Lock’s eyes sought out Heather. Jesus.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Lock said.

Gavin sighed. “I came into the office one night when you were there with her. I saw everything, heard everything . . .”

Saw everything, heard everything? Lock’s sensibilities were offended. One night when he and Claire were making love, Gavin had been present, watching?

“Okay,” Lock said with preternatural calm. He had made a tactical error; he should have waited, as he’d planned.

“I will tell Daphne,” Gavin said. “I will tell Heather. I will tell Jason Crispin. I will tell Isabelle. I will send the ugly truth through this tent, and by the time dinner is served, everyone will know.”

“You would do that?” Lock said. “Of course you would. You’ve been stealing from the cause for months, so it’s no surprise that you would blackmail me to keep yourself from getting in trouble.”

“I want to give the money back,” Gavin said. “It was a mistake.”

A mistake? Lock checked his surroundings to see if anyone was listening. Was the bartender listening? Lock had to seal this up, somehow; he couldn’t handle it now.

“Let’s talk about it on Monday,” Lock said. “You and me, in confidence. You’ll come in at seven?”

Gavin nodded once, briskly. Was he appeased? Would he keep his mouth shut? Did he trust Lock to save him? Why would he? It was safe to say that trust between them, now, was out of the question. What linked them was fear.

Gavin took his glass of wine and his clipboard and disappeared into the crowd. A mistake? When you committed a crime or broke a commandment—either a religious commandment or one of your own making—and you did so willingly, with both eyes open, was it fair to call it a mistake?

Maybe it was.

Never again! Never again! Never again! Siobhan was shouting in her mind, but whispering under her breath. She would never again cater two titanic events back-to-back, she would never cater again without Carter, she would never cater again, period! She would sell the business and go back to making sandwiches and scooping ice cream at the pharmacy on Main Street. She would marry Edward Melior and live a life of leisure; she would go to lunch instead of making lunch and serving lunch. Because this was hell. The tent she was working in was hot and airless. She had been up all night for three nights running, prepping the dinner, and because she didn’t have enough staff, and because her husband was a compulsive gambler, she had ignored the passed hors d’oeuvres. She had five hundred pieces of three different things, which was, put mildly, not enough.

Claire poked her head into the catering tent. Siobhan noted, unhappily, that Claire looked fantastic. She was freaking Heidi Klum in that sensational dress, and she had finally found a stylist who knew what to do with her hair—but Claire strolling in all cool and beautiful infuriated Siobhan. To make matters worse, Claire was wearing the strand of pearls that their father-in-law, Malcolm, had given her when she gave birth to J.D., the first child to carry on the Crispin name. She was flaunting her own good fortune by wearing those pearls; she was announcing herself as the “have” to her sister-in-law, the “have-not.” Siobhan felt like Cinderella. The little adulteress was out sipping viognier while Siobhan slaved inside a plastic bag.

Claire said, “There aren’t enough hors d’oeuvres, Siobhan. People are complaining and they’re getting very drunk. They’ve decimated the cheese table and the raw bar. The only things left are some lemon wedges and rinds of Brie. You have to send out more food, pronto.”

Pronto? Siobhan wanted to slap her.

“I don’t have anything ready,” Siobhan said. “Let them get drunk.”

“What?” Claire said. She looked around the tent. Siobhan’s staff was furiously plating dinner. “Where is Carter?”

Finally she had noticed that Siobhan was doing this all alone!

“If I had to guess, I would say Harrah’s in Atlantic City.”

“What?” Claire said.

“I kicked him out. It’s a long story that I do not have time to explain,” Siobhan said. “Do you have anything else to say, or are you only here to ride my ass?”

“Siobhan—”

“Nice pearls!” Siobhan spat.

Claire got the key to the concession stand from the security guard. It was time to bring out the chandelier.

“I’d be careful carrying it in those shoes,” the security guard said.

“Point taken,” Claire said. She should have had someone help her, but she couldn’t find Lock or Jason. Claire scanned the crowd. She saw Jason standing at one of the tall cocktail tables, talking to Daphne Dixon. Daphne looked gorgeous in a coral halter dress that put her “beautiful tits” on display. Claire sighed. The sight of Jason and Daphne together unsettled her, but there was no time to pry them away from each other. And where was Lock? Okay, forget it: Claire would get the chandelier herself. There was a table outside the entrance of the tent where the chandelier was to sit and garner everyone’s admiration on the way into dinner.