Nothing But Mistakes

Patrick woke in the middle of the night—already restless the moment he registered your absence. He blinked several times, eyes adjusting to the darkness as he rolled onto his back, arms reaching for you and finding nothing. Your spot was empty, sheets cold. Panic washed over him, and he didn't like how much he cared about something so small. Patrick never cared about women leaving in the middle of the night.

You had changed something in him he couldn't quite comprehend yet.

Slowly he sat up, blankets pooled around his waist, his Rolex catching the moonlight filtering through the blinds. He'd forgotten to take it off again. Then he heard it—a faint sound from the bathroom, barely there. Running water and something like coughing. The panic returned with full force, like a bucket of cold water.

He didn't hesitate. His legs carried him to the bathroom before he'd made a conscious decision, and he pushed the unlocked door open—and found you bent over the sink, shaking. The tap was running endlessly, drowning out the sounds, and you didn't notice him until you caught a pair of dark eyes watching you in the mirror.

"Oh—I—I thought I was quiet enough," you rasped, throat sore and swollen.

"You weren't."

You nodded apologetically. "Sorry. I couldn't sleep. My throat is killing me… feels like I swallowed a ton of sand."

He crossed and uncrossed his arms over his chest, brows drawing together as if his face couldn't decide which expression to settle on.

"I told you that eating ice cream in hot weather was a bad idea," he commented, stepping up behind you—almost naked except for his white briefs. "You never listen, Cupcake. That bothers me, somehow."

"Bothers?"

Patrick went still right behind you. "Are you in pain?"

His arms looped around your waist on autopilot. The height difference made it easy for him to rest his chin on top of your head. He didn't put his full weight on you, balancing himself against the counter as he reached past you to turn off the tap.

"My head hurts really bad and… as I said, I think I have a mild flu. And a sore throat."

You watched him frown, caught in the middle of some internal debate. You leaned back against his chest—his cologne still sharp even though you could barely breathe through your nose. Somehow his scent was imprinted in your brain regardless.

"Go back to bed," he murmured against your ear, nose brushing your temple. "I'll call the best doctor I can get in the morning if it comes to that."

"No, thank you," you protested, shifting in his arms until your faces were close. "You don't have to do that. I still have issues with my medical insurance—"

He didn't bother arguing. He simply lifted you with arrogant ease and you wrapped your arms and legs around him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Patrick carried you back to the bedroom, set you down on the bed, and held the blanket open until you lay down properly before tucking it around you. Then he crossed the room to check the windows for drafts.

"Will you lie down with me?" you asked, wrapped in the blanket like a little pastry.

He stood beside the bed for a moment, smirking, eyeing you like he was seeing something real for the first time. Raw and honest. Disarmed and so genuinely you that it hit somewhere behind his ribs—not quite his heart. Something even more elusive than that.

"No. I'll sleep on the couch—I can't afford to get sick. Bryce is throwing a party at his summer house in the Hamptons and I'm not missing it because I spent the night next to your runny nose."

Your eyes went glassy—not with tears, just with quiet acceptance. The small, practiced acceptance of knowing your place in his world. "Yeah… that's right," you said, rubbing your red nose. "Only losers like me get sick in summer."

A low, amused chuckle rumbled from his chest.

"You're illegally cute like this, Cupcake." He sat down on the edge of the bed, warm hand catching your face, thumb stroking your cheek. "Playing innocent and a little naive." His eyes softened into something dangerous in a completely different way. "I wouldn't leave you in this bed even if you were infected with something deadly. I'd stay right here with you and we'd spend our last night together—in this bed, skin to skin, just like in those stupid romantic novels you told me about."

"You hate them, don't you?"

"Sometimes," he muttered, eyes dark but holding a quiet warmth. "Now—you're burning up and that's not good. I'll get you some aspirin."

You nuzzled against his palm like a devoted kitten. "It's only good when I burn from wanting you?"

Patrick's breath caught—just for a fraction of a second.

"It's only good when I say it is."

You rolled your eyes and sighed when he removed his hand and disappeared into the living room, a strip of light falling through the open door. Your face genuinely burned when you pressed your fingers to your cheeks, head pounding. He returned quickly—glass of water in one hand, two small pills in the other.

Taking medicine from other people always made you uncomfortable. But Patrick wasn't just anyone. You trusted him, in some twisted way. Maybe you were sick with more than just a flu—something far more dangerous.

After you swallowed the pills Patrick set the glass on the nightstand and pinched your cheek lightly. "Good girl."

"Thank you, Doc."

He paused, eyes curious, lips curling into that hauntingly dangerous smile. "Did I ever tell you I wanted to be a surgeon?"

"N-no?"

He climbed carefully into bed beside you, giving you enough space while making it perfectly clear you were welcome to lie against his chest.

"Doesn't blood scare you at all?"

His low chuckle reverberated through his ribcage. "Not at all," he said, wrapping an arm around you and tracing lazy circles on your lower back. "In fact, I rather love the sight of blood—"

A sudden pause hung in the air.

You looked up at him, about to ask him to continue—and then you sneezed directly into his collarbone. He wordlessly produced an entire pack of napkins.

"Keep your nose covered," he said, almost scolding. "I wasn't joking about missing the party."

You sneezed again, nearly elbowing him in the face. "Sor-ry—I—maybe I should just sleep on the couch—"

"Too late for that, I think."

He watched your uncontrollable sneezing with detached skepticism, but kept handing you napkins with something that almost resembled care. Your eyes began to water, head spinning harder. You sat up and he followed.

"God, I think I'm dying," you groaned, pressing two napkins to your nose at once.

You sniffled, a wave of frustration and self-pity crashing through you. You hated being like this—helpless and pathetic and leaking from the face—and Patrick, as if he could read every thought, watched you with quiet understanding.

"My dramatic little Cupcake," he crooned, brushing stray hair off your forehead. "So dramatic she can't even keep herself together."

"It's n-not funny."

"Of course it is," he replied, and pressed a kiss to your forehead—once, twice—then left a slow, open-mouthed kiss against your neck. "Get some sleep. You really need it."

You grabbed him with both arms, pulling him as close as you could. His skin was impossibly smooth beneath your fingers as you traced long stripes across his back and shoulders, his moles scattered like small constellations you could find even in the dark.

"You'll be here when I wake up."

It wasn't a question.

"Mhm," he hummed, pressing his forehead against yours, eyes already closed. "I'll be anywhere you want me. Even in your dreams."

Spring, 1986

The two weeks after that night at Pastels flew by in a blur of gallery meetings, late nights cataloguing new acquisitions, and the familiar ache in my shoulders from hunching over provenance files. I told myself I hadn’t thought about Bateman much. 

Not really.

The name slipped into my head sometimes—sharp and unwelcome—but I pushed it away like a half-finished sketch I didn’t want to look at. I had work. I had routines. I had the quiet comfort of my Russian icons watching over me from the shelf. Two weeks was enough time to convince myself the man I’d seen at the Met had only been a trick of the light, or a stranger with a similar jawline.

People changed. Masks improved.

I almost believed it.

Until Friday evening, when Mama called.

“Rebecca, darling, you’re coming with us tomorrow night,” she said without preamble, her voice warm but laced with that steel she reserved for family obligations. “The renovation opening at the business school. Your father has been working on this for months. It’s important.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, phone cradled between my ear and shoulder while I tried to finish labelling a set of early Repin prints. “Mama, I have plans—”

“You always have plans,” she interrupted gently. “This time you’re making time. Your father needs the family there. Mark will be coming too.”

Mark. Of course. My little brother had been working at Pierce & Pierce for almost two years now—some junior analyst or associate role he never talked about in detail. He was proud of it in that quiet, ambitious way of his, but he still lived in the same modest apartment in Murray Hill and complained about the hours like any normal person.

“And I’ve already prepared a few words for you to say,” Mama continued, as if that settled everything. “Nothing long. Just a short thank-you on behalf of the family. You’re good at these things, solnyshko (sunshine).”

I closed my eyes. The Russian endearment usually softened me, but tonight it felt like a gentle trap closing. “Mama, I really don’t—”

“Rebecca Grace Rice.” Her tone shifted—soft but final. “Your father has done a great deal for that institution. The least we can do is show support. Besides…” She paused, and I could almost see her tilting her head the way she did when she was reading me too well. “You’ve been a little off lately. Quiet. Distracted. Is everything all right?”

The question landed like a small stone in still water. I hated how easily she noticed. Mama had always been like that—part Russian intuition, part motherly radar. She could spot a crack in my armor from three boroughs away.

“I’m fine,” I said automatically. “Just tired. Work has been busy.”

A thoughtful hum travelled down the line. “If you say so. But you will come tomorrow. Wear the white Gucci suit—the one with the subtle pinstripes. It makes you look professional and elegant. And please, try to smile. For your father.”

I exhaled through my nose, already knowing I’d lost. “Yes, Mama.”

“Good girl. We’ll pick you up at six-thirty. Don’t be late.”

She hung up before I could offer any more excuses.

I stared at the phone for a long moment, then looked over at the nightstand. Patrick’s photograph still sat there, face up, his wrong smile staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t been able to put it away. Every night I told myself I would, and every night I left it exactly where it was.

Two weeks. I had almost convinced myself it was nothing.

Now I was being dragged to some business school gala where I’d have to make polite conversation and deliver a speech I hadn’t even written. Perfect.

I dressed on autopilot the next evening.

The white Gucci suit came out of its garment bag like a verdict: sharp shoulders, clean lines, the kind of armor that reassured donors and trustees you were serious, tasteful, and utterly harmless. I buttoned the jacket, studied myself in the mirror, and tried on a few different versions of my face—polite, engaged, mildly impressed. Nothing too sincere.

The photograph on the nightstand stayed exactly where it was. I avoided looking at it while I did my makeup, but the awareness of it lingered at the edge of my vision like something dead in the road you decide not to examine too closely.

By six-twenty I was perched on the arm of my sofa, clutch in my lap, listening for the elevator. The apartment felt smaller on evenings like this, my books and sketches and Russian icons suddenly juvenile next to the life my parents preferred to present to the world.

They arrived at six-thirty-two, which meant Mama would be in a good mood and Papa would complain about traffic. Both expectations were met. He kissed my cheek briskly, already halfway into a conversation about endowments and capital campaigns. Mama stepped back to inspect me, tugged a stray hair into place, and gave a satisfied nod.

“Beautiful,” she said. “They will eat you up.”

“I’m not on the menu,” I muttered. She caught it, of course, and rolled her eyes in that practiced, glamorous way she’d perfected somewhere between Moscow and Midtown.

The car ride uptown blurred into a stream of my father’s monologue about trustees and my mother’s low reminders about names I should remember. Buildings slid past the window with that glossy, damp sheen Manhattan gets after a late-afternoon drizzle. I watched my own reflection instead. The suit looked expensive. The woman in it looked like she belonged.

Inside, something small and feral paced.

The gala sprawled across the renovated lobby of the business school: glass and steel, aggressively modern lighting. Champagne flutes sailed past on silver trays. Men in dark suits clustered in neat, identical knots. Women in jewel tones laughed a little too brightly. A jazz quartet in the corner produced tasteful, unobtrusive noise.

I stepped into the room and felt the familiar shift—my spine straightening, my expression smoothing into something magazine-ready. This was performance art. Everyone knew their role.

“Rebecca.”

My father’s hand settled against the small of my back, steering me toward a group near a donor plaque. Names were etched into the metal in smug serif fonts. A dean, two law firm partners, someone from a bank. I smiled, shook hands, said the right things about how inspiring the renovation looked. They praised the Met in return as if it were my personal achievement.

At some point I became aware that I was scanning the crowd.

It started as a habit—looking for Mark’s face, his familiar freckles, the slightly too-soft tie he usually wore. But the longer my eyes drifted, the more single-minded the search became. Shoulders. Profiles. A head of medium-brown hair at the bar that made my heart slam once, stupidly hard, before the man turned and the jawline was wrong.

I told myself I was simply checking the room the way I always did: lighting, art, potential donors. My pulse didn’t get the memo.

“Have you seen your brother?” Mama asked under her breath, refilling her champagne. “He said he was coming straight from work.”

“Probably buried under spreadsheets,” I said. The joke came out thinner than I meant. She darted a quick, assessing look at me, then released me with a little wave.

“Go find him. And be ready—they want you at the podium after the dean.”

I wove through the crowd, pausing when required to acknowledge acquaintances and nod at someone’s wife I half-remembered from a Christmas party. Conversations washed over me: arbitrage, leveraged buyouts, the Yankees. Everything sounded like white noise tuned to money.

Near the far end of the room, by a high-top table stacked with canapés arranged like jewelry, I finally spotted Mark. He stood with three other men, all roughly his age, all wearing the same Pierce & Pierce uniform: slick hair, dark suits, pale shirts, expressions hovering between boredom and hunger.

He saw me first. His face lit up with that real, unguarded grin that still made him look twelve for a split second. He excused himself and crossed the space in a few quick strides.

We hugged—brief, careful, but enough to make my chest unclench a fraction. Up close he looked tired, a little wired around the eyes.

“You look very official,” I said, adjusting his tie out of habit. “Did they promote you to human, or are you still property of Pierce & Pierce?”

He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, launching into something self-deprecating about eighty-hour weeks. Then his voice dropped conspiratorially.

“You’re going to be surprised who I’m working with.”

A thin, unpleasant thread unspooled along my spine.

“Who?” I asked.

Mark tipped his chin toward the small group he had left behind. “Bateman. Patrick Bateman. Ring any bells?”

The sound in the room warped.

The air seemed to thin by half an inch. The chatter and clinking of glasses continued, but everything slid slightly out of focus at the edges, as if I were watching a badly tuned television.

I followed the direction of Mark’s nod slowly, deliberately, buying myself an extra heartbeat or two.

“Hey, are you zoning out?” Mark asked, sounding concerned. “I know it’s been a while since we used to spend time together—”

“Stop—” I gritted my teeth.

“I haven’t said anything,” he cut in, laughing. “Pierce & Pierce is huge. No one here knows you could’ve built sandcastles with someone you work with now.”

He took a sip of his scotch and licked his lips just as deliberate footsteps clicked behind us.

“So, your father arranged all of this?” a familiar male voice asked.

We both turned at the same time.

Patrick Bateman stood there with a gorgeous, elegant blonde on his arm—the same woman I’d seen him with at the Met weeks ago.

“Not bad,” Patrick said, scanning the room with a smug little smile. “Very chivalrous of him. Everyone has to start somewhere.” His gaze settled on me. “Rice.”

The way he said my surname was mocking, but deeper now. More mature. More masculine than I remembered from high school.

“Oh, I’ve listened to your lectures at the Met!” the blonde exclaimed suddenly, her face lighting up. “They were fantastic! I never thought I’d be so fascinated by Russian art.” She offered me her hand, grinning widely. “I’m Evelyn. Evelyn Williams.”

I stood frozen.

My blood turned to ice. My nails dug into my palms.

“Mark Rice,” my brother chimed in quickly. “And this is my lovely older sister, Rebecca—”

“Rebecca Troublemaker Rice,” Patrick interrupted, his lips curling, eyes bright with something aggressive and pleased.

The word Troublemaker slid between us like a razor.

For a second I watched his mouth rather than heard the rest of the sentence—the way his lips shaped the syllables, how satisfied he looked with himself. There it was: Newport, age twelve, freckles and blood and broken shells, compressed into three neat words in a business school lobby.

I did not offer my hand.

Evelyn’s hand stayed suspended in the air for a moment, pale and manicured, before she recovered and smoothed it over her skirt instead. She laughed, high and tinkling, glancing between Patrick and me as if she’d walked into the middle of a joke she didn’t quite understand but very much wanted to join.

“Oh, so you two go way back,” she said. “Isn’t that charming?”

Charming.

Mark barked an eager little laugh, grateful for the cue. “Yeah, our parents have houses in Newport. Summers, you know. Sean and I—”

Patrick tilted his head slightly, eyes still locked on me. Everyone else might have thought he was listening to Mark. I knew better. There was a weight to that stare I remembered from much closer distances: behind tree trunks, through cracked doors, up from under the dock as my legs dangled in the water.

He had filled out. The boyish sharpness had hardened into something more deliberate. The Valentino suit sat on him as if it had been tailored to his bones. His slicked-back, immaculate hair framed a face that could have been in a cologne ad—if I hadn't known what he was capable of.

“Rebecca Rice from the Met,” Evelyn murmured, beaming again, as though repetition could force me back into motion. “I dragged Patrick to that lecture you did on… what was it? The Itinerants? Those gloomy Russians with the peasants and the mud.”

Her hand rested on his forearm in that practiced, proprietary way. Patrick shifted just enough that her fingers nearly slid off before she readjusted. The tiny rejection sent something unpleasantly warm coiling low in my stomach.

He finally broke eye contact and glanced down at her. “They’re not gloomy, Evelyn. They’re socially conscious.” The way he stated it—droll, almost affectionate—told me he’d memorized the phrase, probably from my notes. His gaze flicked back to me. “Isn’t that right, Rice?”

My brother, sweet idiot that he was, looked between the three of us like he was watching a tennis match. “Becca works on that stuff all day.” He nudged my elbow. “Tell them about that painting with the guy and the—”

“A little on-the-nose for a fundraiser, don’t you think?” Patrick cut in smoothly. “Peasant suffering and all that. Exposure to hardship might ruin the canapés.”

Evelyn giggled too loudly, half a beat late. She watched him like he hung the moon. Or the stock prices. Patrick’s attention tracked me through the entire practiced spiel. That focus had always unnerved me, even when we were kids. Other men in this room looked through women. He watched as though cataloguing me, as though I might later be reconstructed from whatever data he collected.

“Your father must be proud,” he crooned—tone smooth as the scotch in Mark’s glass. “The Met, a speech tonight… quite an ascent for the girl who used to fall off the dock every summer.”

A faint line appeared between Evelyn’s brows. “You pushed her, didn’t you?” she teased, looking up at him. “That’s the kind of thing you would do.”

His smile widened, but his eyes stayed flat. “Allegedly.”

The summer flashed before my eyes in a staccato slideshow: water in my lungs, his hand on my ankle, the snap of a porcelain doll's neck in his grip while I screamed. Suddenly, the lobby’s air conditioning felt too aggressive, licking cold down the back of my neck.

“Patty,” Mark said fondly, clapping Patrick on the shoulder, completely oblivious to the way my spine stiffened at the nickname coming from someone else’s mouth. “He probably saved Becca from drowning, honestly. She was always—”

“Careless,” Patrick supplied. That bright, hungry glint flashed in his eyes, there and gone. “Distracted. You still are.”

I forced myself to look directly at him, past the suit, past the carefully curated tan and the watch peeking out from his cuff. Close up, his skin looked almost unreal, poreless. His cologne— expensive, citrusy, sharp—threaded through the sterile chill of the room.

The freckles on my own hands stood out sharply against the bloodless grip I had on my clutch. One of us wore our imperfections openly. The other hid his beneath Valentino and Rolex.

Somewhere behind me, a microphone screeched softly as someone tapped it. The dean’s voice boomed, calling people to gather for the remarks. Conversations around us began to knot and drift toward the podium.

Evelyn brightened. “We should get seats near the front,” she said to Patrick. Then, turning to me with eager politeness: “You’re speaking after the dean, right? I can’t wait to hear you. You’re so… passionate up there.”

Patrick’s eyes skimmed lazily over my face, down the line of the suit, pausing at the open V of the lapel where my skin showed. His gaze snagged for a heartbeat on the tiny beauty mark above my collarbone. I could practically feel it—the weight of his attention touching that spot.

“Don’t be nervous,” he murmured. “You always did enjoy an audience.”

The implication hung there, sharp and private, disguised as a compliment. Mark smiled at it anyway.They began to drift toward the gathering crowd. Evelyn latched onto Patrick’s arm again, already pointing out some dean’s wife’s dress. 

Mark fell into step beside them, glancing back at me. “You coming?”

Patrick didn’t wait for my answer. As he pivoted away, his hand brushed the back of my wrist — no accident, too precise. Barely a touch, more of a suggestion, but the contact sparked up my arm like an electric current.

He leaned in just enough that his breath ghosted my ear, his words submerged beneath the dean’s amplified welcome, meant only for me.

“Try not to be boring for once, Rice.”

Then he was gone, swallowed by the sea of suits and silk, leaving me standing at the edge with my heart hammering and the faint scent of citrus lodged in my throat like a swallowed seed.

I knew my mother would give the most pompous and grotesque speech imaginable—all about how generous and kind my father was, how his mind was always occupied with thoughts of charity. Half of it was even true. But I didn’t have the mental energy to dwell on it.

I had a much bigger problem now. One named Patrick Bateman, who was watching me from his seat as I stood on the small podium with a stupid microphone in my hand.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” I began in the practiced tone I used for art presentations. “First, I want to thank everyone for coming here tonight.”

My brother winked at me when I glanced his way. He sat with my parents, both of them radiating pride. A hush fell over the room in stages, the way a stain spreads through linen. It started near the front with the trustees and their polished wives, then rippled outward to the younger men from Pierce & Pierce, the adjunct faculty, the women in pearls clutching stemware. 

By the time I finished the line about greed dressing itself up as civic virtue, you could have heard a diamond earring hit the floor.

For one long second, I heard only my own breathing amplified through the microphone.

Then came the applause.

It started scattered and awkward. One pair of hands, then another. Someone in the back laughed, startled, as though I’d told a dangerous joke at the wrong table. A few students near the side wall clapped harder than everyone else. One older man near the podium looked offended enough to choke. My father kept his smile fixed in place with heroic effort. My mother had gone completely still—which was far worse.

And Patrick… God, Patrick was enjoying himself.

He sat with one ankle crossed over his knee, expression calm, almost bored to anyone who didn’t know where to look. I knew better. The corner of his mouth had tipped up in that tiny, private smirk. His eyes held mine with the bright, satisfied gleam I remembered from childhood—every time I broke something in public and he got to watch the pieces fall.

Evelyn leaned toward him and whispered something. He answered without ever breaking his gaze from me.

I finished somehow. I added a few closing words about art’s duty to tell the truth even when money preferred softer lies, then stepped back from the microphone before I said something even worse—something useful, something my father could never forgive.

The dean returned to the podium wearing the waxy expression of a man whose evening had sprung a leak. He thanked me with excessive warmth (which meant he hated me) and launched into a set of closing remarks so polished they practically squeaked. People laughed in all the correct places. The room resumed breathing.

The second I stepped down from the riser, my mother intercepted me.

Her face remained perfectly arranged for company—eyes bright, mouth lifted, shoulders elegant in emerald silk. Only the pressure of her fingers on my forearm betrayed her.

“What,” she said through a smile meant for onlookers, “was that?”

“I spoke honestly.”

“You spoke like a girl trying to humiliate her father in public.”

My father appeared on my other side, slower and heavier, carrying his irritation with legal precision. “Rebecca.”

That was all. My name, flat and clipped—enough to send me straight back to age fourteen.

“I thanked everyone,” I said. “I mentioned the school, the renovation, and philanthropy. I only added a few thoughts of my own.”

“A few thoughts,” he repeated. “At an event funded by the very people you just insulted.”

“They’ll survive.”

My mother gave a tiny laugh for the benefit of a passing couple, then lowered her voice again. “You sounded unstable.”

“How chic.”

“Stop this.”

Her nails bit in for a moment. My father looked past me toward the mingling crowd, already calculating damage. He had the strained composure of a man mentally drafting apology calls.

Mark appeared then, half-grinning, half-appalled. “Jesus, Becca.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t say it was bad.”

“You looked delighted.”

“I was terrified,” he confessed, and that only made his grin wider. “Dad’s going to have an embolism.”

“Mark,” my mother snapped.

He straightened and swallowed whatever else he’d been about to say.

A red-faced trustee with golf-club shoulders stepped over to praise my “courage” in the oily tone people used when they wanted to signal open-mindedness without actually agreeing. I thanked him. Another woman called me refreshing. A faculty member said art needed more fearless voices. Their approval felt thin, like cocktail chatter. None of them would have invited me to say the same thing in their dining rooms.

Then Patrick arrived at my shoulder as neatly as a blade sliding from a sleeve.

“That was excellent,” he said.

My father turned to Bateman with obvious relief, grateful for a familiar ally from the world of respectable young men in expensive wool. “Patrick. Good to see you.”

Patrick shook his hand firmly. “Richard. Congratulations. Tremendous turnout.”

My mother softened instantly. “Patrick, how kind of you to come,” she then turned to look at Evelyn. “And you are—”

“Evelyn Williams. I’m Patrick’s fiancée,” she chirped, and they exchanged handshakes—my mother’s smile tightened. “Rebecca, that was… so bold.” She laughed, clearly searching for the right category. “I kept thinking—wow. She really means it.”

“I did.”

Her smile flickered. “Right. Yes. Obviously.”

Patrick glanced at me. “That’s why it worked.”

My father gave a short exhale through his nose. “I suppose Pierce & Pierce has a broader appetite for political theater than I imagined.”

Patrick’s expression remained perfectly smooth. “I appreciated the spontaneity.”

He appreciated disruption the way some men appreciated modern sculpture—only when someone else had to clean up the mess.

My mother sensed the tension rising and turned to Evelyn, steering her gently toward safer conversational waters. “Tell me, who is your hairdresser, darling?”

They drifted a few paces away. Mark hovered, clearly trying to decide whether to stay. Patrick settled the matter for him.

“Could I borrow your sister for a moment?” he asked lightly. “I’d like to congratulate her properly, without competing with trustees and deans.”

Mark blinked, glanced at me, then at our father. My father, still attempting to salvage the evening, nodded as if this were perfectly ordinary. “Briefly.”

“Of course,” Patrick said.

He guided me toward a side corridor off the lobby where framed architectural renderings hung under discreet lighting. The noise from the reception dulled here, reduced to a civilized murmur. People still passed occasionally, but far fewer. Public enough to feel proper. Private enough for old poisons.

He stopped in front of a watercolor of the renovated atrium.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I said what I said.”

He smiled. “You always did like setting rooms on fire.”

I folded my arms. “You looked entertained.”

“I was.”

“Your fiancée looked bewildered.”

“Evelyn finds most original thought bewildering.”

The cruelty was so casual I almost laughed. “Charming.”

“I never claimed to be.”

His eyes moved over me, slower now, with the thoroughness of someone inventorying an object he once owned and had unexpectedly found in mint condition. The corridor felt warmer than the ballroom.

“You were shaking when you got up there,” he said. “Then you steadied. Somewhere around the part where you insulted everyone funding the building.”

“I wasn’t shaking.”

“You were.” He stepped closer—his voice no longer needed to travel. “Your left hand gave it away.”

I looked down despite myself. My fingers were still curled tightly around the edge of my clutch, knuckles pale.

He noticed. A small, satisfied tilt of his head.

“There she is,” he murmured. “I was wondering whether you’d become completely housebroken.”

“I work at the Met. I’m surrounded by donors every day. That requires a stronger stomach than Wall Street.”

“It requires better hypocrisy.”

A faculty wife passed the mouth of the corridor and offered us a vague smile. He waited until she was gone.

“You frightened them,” he said.

“Good.”

“You frightened your father.”

That landed harder.

I lifted my chin. “And you enjoyed it.”

“Watching you say what everyone else is too disciplined to say?” His gaze sharpened. “Yes.”

A beat passed. He looked almost pleased with me—which was somehow worse than open mockery. Childhood came back in unpleasant scraps: mud smeared across my sketchbook, him yanking my braid, his hand on my wrist checking my pulse.

“You’ve been to the Met more than once.”

He didn’t blink. “Yes.”

“To hear me.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn’s laughter floated faintly from the lobby, threaded through my mother’s smoother tones. Somewhere beyond them, glass touched glass.

“Why?” I asked.

Patrick’s mouth shifted—almost a smile, stripped of any warmth. “Because I wanted to see what survived.”

It should have sounded melodramatic. On him it sounded clinical. A diagnosis. A field note.

“And?” I asked, steady now.

His gaze dropped briefly to the hollow at my throat, then returned to my face. “More than I expected.”

The vulgarity lay beneath the sentence like a concealed blade. Clean on the surface. Not underneath.

Evelyn appeared before either of us could say more. She rounded the corner carrying two champagne flutes, relief softening her expression—as if she’d finally found the right door in an unfamiliar place.

“Oh, there you are,” she said to Patrick, then offered me one with an earnest little smile. “I thought Rebecca might need this after all the excitement.”

Patrick took the flute before it reached me. “She probably does.”

He held it a moment, looking at me over the rim, then passed it across. His fingers brushed mine—deliberate, light. Too precise to be accidental.

Evelyn slipped her arm through his. “Mrs. Rice was just saying we should all do dinner sometime. Wouldn’t that be fun? Since you all have that Newport history.”

Fun. 

The word almost made me choke.

Patrick looked at me, waiting. The polished mask had returned—the one meant for rooms where everyone lied in perfect diction.

“That sounds excellent,” he said. “Provided Rebecca can fit us in between peasant suffering and anti-capitalist speeches.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been very busy lately—”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find time for an old friend,” he cut in smoothly, “you haven’t seen since high school.”

Evelyn watched us, bright and hopeful. I couldn’t quite reconcile that with him.

“I’ll think about it.”

I pretended someone had called me over. Patrick noticed, but didn’t interfere. I moved quickly toward Mark, who was standing beside a banquet table crowded with appetizers and sweating glasses. He was chewing a toast point when I caught his sleeve.

“Can you help me get out of here?”

He nearly choked. “Sorry—what?”

Crumbs scattered across his tie. He coughed into his fist, swallowed, then stared at me as though I’d asked for a shovel and a fake passport.

“Becca, Papa wants us in the donor line. Mama is already furious. You picked one hell of a night to become a Bolshevik.”

“I picked a perfect night. Look at them.”

His eyes flicked past me. Conversation had resumed, but with that charged hum that follows a car crash no one admits to watching. A few heads still turned. An elderly woman in pearls gave me a long, frosty once-over before leaning toward her husband with obvious relish.

Mark lowered his voice. “You really hit them where it hurts.”

“I know.”

“That wasn’t praise.”

“It sounded like praise.”

He almost smiled, then caught my expression and sobered. “What happened? Is this about him?”

The fact that he had to ask almost made me laugh. “Yes, Mark. It’s about the man you introduced me to like we were all about to roast marshmallows in Newport.”

He grimaced. “I didn’t know you’d react like this.”

“You knew enough.”

That landed. He had the decency to look ashamed—for a moment.

“All right,” he said. “Migraine?”

“Too vague. Mama will send a doctor.”

“Food poisoning?”

“You ate three olives.”

“Then say I’m about to be sick in the ladies’ room and spare the family a scandal.”

“A little late for that.”

A smooth voice arrived at my shoulder.

“Your brother makes an excellent point.”

I turned too quickly—my heel slid on the carpet.

Bateman stood an arm’s length away, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a lowball with two fingers of amber liquid. He wore the expression of a cat beside a tipped birdcage: attentive, pleased, almost lazy. I had no idea how long he’d been there. Long enough.

Mark let out a breath. “Jesus, Bateman. You float now?”

“I walk quietly.”

He looked even more at ease after my little detonation. Something in him had straightened—or maybe I only imagined it, needing a reason for the way my skin tightened whenever he came too close.

Mark glanced between us. “She’s leaving. I’m trying to help.”

Patrick took a sip. “Richard will hate that.”

“I’m aware.”

“He already hates this evening,” I said. “One more disappointment won’t kill him.”

Patrick’s mouth twitched. “Optimistic.”

Mark shoved the napkin into his jacket pocket. “Could you maybe—just for a second—stop enjoying this?”

“No.”

The answer came so promptly that Mark stared at him.

Patrick set his glass down and reached for a canapé he had no intention of eating. “Evelyn thinks your sister is brilliant,” he said, a trace of mockery in his voice. “Your mother thinks she’s unstable. Your father is pretending he supports spirited women in public life. Two trustees are debating whether the Met made her radical.”

“You see why I need to leave,” I said.

“I see why you want to.”

The distinction annoyed me. He had a talent for making basic reactions sound like failures of taste.

Mark dragged a hand down his face. “Fine. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll tell them you’re sick. You go get your coat. Ten minutes, tops.”

Patrick glanced toward the crowd, then back to me. “Too slow.”

“Excuse me?”

“Richard’s coming over.”

I followed his gaze. My father had detached himself from a cluster of men and was moving toward us with the deliberate pace of someone about to do damage decorously. My mother floated behind him, every inch arranged, every inch furious. Evelyn trailed farther back, concerned in that decorative way of hers.

Mark muttered a curse.

By the time they reached us, Bateman had already slipped into perfect public mode. He touched two fingers lightly to my elbow—a gesture that read helpful from a distance and proprietorial up close.

“Richard,” he said, calm and courteous. “I was just telling Rebecca she ought to sit down. She looks pale.”

My father’s eyes snapped to me, assessing. I could have kissed Patrick for the lie. I also wanted to smash his glass into his face for delivering it so neatly.

“I’m all right,” I said. It sounded flat even to me.

My mother stepped closer and pressed the back of her fingers to my wrist, as though checking a child for fever. “Your hand is icy.”

Patrick continued smoothly, “She powered through the remarks, though I suspect adrenaline did most of the heavy lifting. Fresh air would help.”

My father studied me, then the room, weighing paternal concern against optics. Optics almost won—until I let my shoulders sag a fraction. The gesture came easily after the real performance.

Mark stepped in. “I can get her a cab.”

“Absolutely,” my mother said. “She should go home at once. Call when you get there.”

The rebuke hid neatly inside the concern. Years of practice.

My father gave a curt nod. “Rest tomorrow. We’ll talk later.”

Which meant tonight in his head, and tomorrow aloud.

Patrick retrieved his drink and stepped back half a pace, every inch the considerate family friend. “I’ll walk her out,” he said.

“That’s unnecessary,” I retorted quickly.

“It’s hardly a burden,” he replied, already smiling at my parents.

Mark looked like he might object but lacked the grounds. Evelyn saved him. “I’ll stay with your mother,” she said brightly. “She looked a little overwhelmed too.”

My mother accepted at once. She adored lovely women who knew how to hover.

So Patrick won. Of course he did.

…

The elevator ride down felt too intimate for public machinery. Brass doors closed, mirrored walls caught us from three angles, and the hum of cables filled the silence. I took one corner. He leaned against the rail opposite me as though we were on our way to dinner.

“You let me lie for you,” he said.

“You volunteered.”

“You looked grateful.”

“I looked trapped.”

“That too.”

The numbers slid downward. My reflection looked composed enough to fool strangers. My pulse gave me away. The white suit suddenly felt ridiculous—someone’s daughter, someone’s speaker, someone’s old doll laid out for inspection.

“You enjoyed that up there,” he murmured.

“I enjoyed upsetting you.”

He smiled, almost kindly. “You failed.”

“Then why are you glowing?”

That made him laugh—a short, low sound that lived in his throat rather than his mouth. “Because you reminded me of yourself.”

The doors opened onto the lobby before I could answer. A doorman fetched my coat. Rain had started while we were inside, a fine silver mist turning the steps slick and the street into smeared light. Cars edged along the curb with patient menace. Manhattan always looked expensive in wet weather.

I reached for my coat. Patrick took it first.

“I can manage.”

“I know.”

He held it open anyway. I slipped my arms into the sleeves. Refusing him here would have caused another scene, and I had already spent my appetite for spectacle. His knuckles grazed the nape of my neck as he settled the collar—a fraction too long.

At the curb, Mark’s plan dissolved. No taxi stood free. The doorman raised a hand toward traffic and received nothing.

Patrick lifted two fingers. A black town car pulled up almost immediately, as though it had been circling with instructions.

“That’s… obscene,” I said.

“It’s called access,” he replied.

“I’m not getting into your car.”

“You’re standing in drizzle wearing ivory wool.”

“I’d rather drown than get into your car.”

He opened the rear door and looked at me. “You always did choose dramatic options.”

The driver stared straight ahead. The doorman hovered. Two couples spilled out behind us, wrapped in chatter and alcohol. My choices narrowed the way they always seemed to around him—incrementally, politely, under good lighting.

“All right. I’ll take the ride. You’ll stay here.”

He considered me for a beat, then gave the driver my address.

I froze. “How do you know where I live?”

His eyes met mine, unreadable and faintly amused. “You’re in the book.”

“Whose book?”

“Mark’s desk calendar. Sloppy system.”

I believed that. I also believed he’d enjoyed looking. Both felt equally true.

He reached into his inner pocket and drew out a fountain pen. For a moment I thought he meant to hand over some polished absurdity. Instead, he took the gala program from my clutch before I could stop him, braced it against the roof of the car, and wrote in a quick, hard scrawl.

“There,” he said, handing it back. “For when you stop pretending.”

I looked down after the car had already started moving. A phone number sat beneath three words in his slanted hand:

Tuesday. Eight-thirty. Arcadia.

And below that, smaller—meaner, intimate enough to make my stomach drop:

Becca, be good.

…