Red Hot Lies. Laura Caldwell

didn’t intend to startle you. Everything is fine.”

      And indeed it was. The sky was turning a sultry blue-black now. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” he said into the phone. “Thank you, and have a pleasant night.”

      He picked up his wine again. He speared a bit of scalloped potato. He tried to force himself into the relaxed, almost euphoric state he would usually enjoy on such an evening.

      The Ramsey Lewis CD came to an end, throwing his estate into cavernous silence.

      Suddenly, he didn’t like being alone. What an odd thought.

      For the first time in a very long time, Forester Pickett was afraid.

      4

      Sam was distracted. I could see it when I walked into the office of Cassandra Milton, Wedding Creator. Sam and I both thought the title wedding creator was pompous, but Cassandra was one of my mother’s best friends, and we’d heard her weddings always went off flawlessly.

      “Hi, gorgeous.” Sam got up from his seat on one of the white couches in the waiting room. He was wearing a navy suit over his short but trim, strong body. He was thirty, a year older than me, and he had cropped blond hair and the sweetest olive-colored eyes I’d ever seen. But those eyes were strained today, the faint creases at the corners somewhat deeper.

      He hugged me just a fraction tighter than normal.

      I pulled back, studied him. “What’s up with you?”

      “Just some complications at work.”

      “Forester Pickett kind of work?” Sam also worked for Forester Pickett. Specifically, he worked for a private wealth-management firm that handled most of Forester’s investments, and Sam was one of the financial advisors assigned to him.

      He nodded.

      “Want to talk about it?”

      “Not right now.”

      “Does Forester know about it?”

      “Yeah. But I need to talk to him some more.”

      “Sometimes Forester likes determinations rather than discussions.”

      “I know. And it makes me nuts.” Sam let me go and sank back into the couch. He dropped his head in his hands for a second, and his gold hair glinted under the muted overhead lights.

      I sat next to him. “Are you all right?” Maybe it wasn’t work. Maybe he was suffering the same issue I was—feeling as if the wedding was a speeding train that wouldn’t stop. Hell, I was starting to feel like my life was that train. In a few short years, I’d gone from single girl associate with no responsibilities (except to bill some hours and have a good time on a Saturday night) to a nearly married, almost-partner, lots-of-responsibility woman with a fiancé who, just this past weekend, had started talking about houses in the suburbs.

      Sam raised his head and put on the composed smile he used when he wanted to pacify his mother. “I’m fine.”

      “C’mon, tell me.” And then I’ll tell you.

      I had a happy vision of us blowing off Cassandra and the dinner at the Union League Club. We’d flee to a dark bar on Roscoe near Sam’s apartment. We’d drink beer and talk about how it had all gotten away from us, how we wanted to put the breaks on. We would decide that we wanted to be together, sure, but without all this formality and fuss. I would continue to get my sea legs at work. I would finally feel like I owned that job. And, in a few years, when we were both established and tiring of it all, maybe then we’d get married and think about a house in Winnetka.

      Just then Cassandra Milton floated into the room. She was a tall, immaculately dressed woman in her fifties. “Well preserved,” Sam once called her. He was right. All I knew was that when the time came, I needed to have the name of the surgeon who preserved her.

      “Ready for a few details?” Cassandra said. She said this every meeting. “A few details” almost always consisted of an hour of excruciating decisions about shrimp forks and frosting.

      “Absolutely.” Sam stood and loosely clapped his hands in front of him, as if he’d just been in a huddle and someone had called Break!

      I stood, too, telling myself it would all be worth it—eventually. I was just being immature about wanting to slow things down. I was a hundred percent certain I wanted to be with Sam. I’m not going to lie and say it had always been that way. When Sam and I first discussed getting married, I was struck with the enormity of the situation—no sex with anyone else ever again; having to see the same person every morning for as long as my life lasted; having to consult with someone about every major life decision from what blender to buy to what vacation to take. Being in the holy state of matrimony was nothing I’d ever romanticized. I didn’t need it as a notch on my belt. But I was wild for Sam. I adored him in a way I’d never realized was possible. Monogamy required giving a lot up, but I was going to gain a hell of a lot more. I loved Sam in such a way, that my whole body said, God, yes, each time I saw him.

      And now here we were at the office of a Wedding Creator. It was all going to be okay.

      I glanced at him for the hang in there look he always gave me at Cassandra’s, but he didn’t meet my gaze.

      “Sure, Cassandra.” I stood and reached for Sam’s hand, but he just sat there, staring straight ahead.

      “Sam?”

      He looked up. “Sorry.” He stood quickly. “I forgot something. I mean, I’ve got to check on something. Can you handle this on your own?”

      “You want to leave?”

      “Yeah.”

      “I’ll go with you. We can put this off.”

      “We cannot put this off,” Cassandra said. “The contract with the restaurant requires we choose our appetizer selections by tomorrow.”

      “Can you do it?” Sam said. “Please?” With any other groom, I would assume he was wisely trying to shirk his duties. But Sam actually enjoyed all the planning that went into our wedding.

      “Of course, but seriously, are you all right?”

      He put on that practiced smile again. “Sure, yeah.”

      “Okay. I’ll meet you at the dinner.” We’d talk then. I would get the whole thing out—all my doubts—and the talking would dispel my panic.

      He blinked. He seemed to have forgotten about the work dinner. He looked at his watch. “Right, okay. I might be a little late, but I’ll meet you there.”

      “Shall we?” Cassandra said, in the voice I knew as her impatient tone, even if it was cultured and low.

      I squeezed Sam’s hand and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll see you at the club.”

      Later, I realized Sam hadn’t answered me. He just watched me walk into Cassandra’s office, and when I turned back to give him a reassuring smile, he seemed to be studying me, memorizing my face.

      5

      I sat in the ballroom of the Union League Club, an empty chair at my side.

      “Where’s Sam?” asked Faith McLaney, a woman from Carrington Associates, the wealth-management firm where Sam worked. Faith was ten years older than Sam and, in some ways, a mentor to him. Their boss, Mark Carrington, handled only a few exclusive clients, while Sam and Faith backed him up, dividing the clients between the two of them.

      “I’m not sure.”

      I texted him again—Where are you? Still no reply.

      I watched while a line of speakers from a newly formed venture-capital firm took the dais and eternally praised themselves for raising so much funding. I tried to make small talk with the others at our table—two people from a local