Chapter 1
“Is there something wrong with this watch?”
Celia looked at me.
Vivienne looked at the box.
That difference mattered.
I kept my palm flat across the velvet lid so my fiancée could not close it.
“Celia.”
Her throat moved.
“Yes.”
One word.
Enough to change the room.
Behind us, champagne stopped moving toward mouths. Thirty guests suddenly remembered how quiet rich people can become when they are terrified of being noticed.
I looked at Celia’s wrist again.
The mark was narrow.
Red.
Almost rectangular.
Exactly beneath where the metal case would have rested.
“What happened?”
Vivienne answered for her.
“She has sensitive skin.”
I turned toward her.
“I asked Celia.”
Silence.
Celia’s voice shook.
“She made me wear it yesterday.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Vivienne snapped:
“It was a fitting.”
I almost laughed.
“For my wrist?”
She realized the mistake.
Celia continued.
“The back became hot.”
My eyes dropped to the watch.
Not dangerously hot.
Enough to irritate skin.
Enough that Vivienne had apparently wanted someone else to discover the problem first.
Then Celia whispered:
“I heard something too.”
Vivienne went completely still.
“What?”
Celia swallowed.
“When she took it off me, she put it beside a small black box.”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
“A man’s voice came through it.”
The ballroom felt colder.
“What did he say?”
Vivienne finally lunged for the watch.
I caught her wrist.
Not hard.
Enough.
Celia answered.
“He said, ‘Signal is clean. He’ll never know it’s listening.’”
No one moved.
I looked at the gift resting between us.
My engagement watch.
My fiancée’s gift.
A microphone hidden against my skin.
Then I asked the question that frightened Vivienne more than the first.
“Who was supposed to be listening?”
May you like
She did not answer.
But someone near the ballroom doors immediately started walking away.
