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When the call ends, I return to the memorandum with a smile I don’t bother suppressing. She understands now that I’m not treating what happened between us as an isolated night. I want more than that, and I’m making sure she knows it.

***

By Saturday evening, Blaire is standing beside me beneath the vaulted glass ceiling of the Ashbourne Foundation's annual patron reception, looking entirely at home among a room full of collectors, curators, advisors, and donors from half a dozen countries. My mother has supported the foundation for years, and tonight she's one of its principal patrons. The event has nothing to do with Kensington Holdings and very little to do with my family beyond Eleanor's name appearing on the donor wall and beneath one of the evening's featured acquisitions. That's exactly why I asked Blaire to come. She belongs in this room on her own merit.

I watch her finish a conversation with an advisor from Hong Kong before turning toward a curator from Berlin. Ten minutes earlier, she'd been speaking with a collector from Cape Town and a private-sales specialist based in Geneva. She doesn't cling to me, and I don't expect her to. I prefer watching her work the room.

"You're staring," my mother says beside me.

I turn. Eleanor is holding a champagne flute and looking considerably more amused than I would like.

"I'm observing," I reply.

"Of course you are."

I give her a look. My mother smiles and turns toward Blaire just as she approaches us.

"Blaire," Eleanor says warmly.

Blaire's expression changes immediately.

"Eleanor."

My mother reaches for her hands.

"It's so good to see you."

"You too," Blaire says, and the warmth in her voice is genuine.

Eleanor looks her over for a moment, not critically but with the same perceptiveness she has always possessed.

"You look wonderful," my mother says.

"Thank you," Blaire replies. "So do you."

"I hear San Francisco has been very good to you."

"It has," Blaire says. "I've been fortunate."

"Fortunate and talented are not the same thing," Eleanor tells her.

Blaire smiles, and I know that smile. Not the guarded one she gives me. The real one. My mother knows it too.

They speak for several minutes about the foundation, the current exhibition, and one of the pieces Blaire had been discussing earlier with the curator from Berlin. I stay mostly out of it. There's no reason to insert myself.

When another patron approaches Eleanor, she excuses herself and touches Blaire lightly on the arm.

"Don't disappear before I find you again," my mother says.

"I won't," Blaire replies.

Eleanor steps away, then looks at me as she passes. That look is enough.

Later, I find her alone near one of the side galleries.

"You're pleased with yourself," I say.

My mother glances toward me.