“Thank you so much,” she said as she hurried back out into the living room.

Jimmy stepped forward to take her bag.

“Oh, don’t you look nice,” Nora said.

“Really?” Jules looked down at herself anxiously.

“Oh yes,” Nora said. “Very sophisticated. I especially like those pearl earrings.” Her voice was a little too placating, but Jules decided to take what she could get and thanked her yet again.

“I’ll tell John about this,” Nora said. “He won’t half laugh.” She took Jules’s hand and squeezed it. “Enjoy your party.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jules muttered, and she and Jimmy hurried back down to the car.

“We’ll be cutting it a bit close,” Jimmy said as Jules slapped on lip gloss in the back seat. “But we ought to get you there in time. It’s just that Ms. Carlisle is—”

“—particular about this kind of thing,” Jules finished for him. “Believe me, I know.” She put away her lip gloss and spent a risky couple of minutes with her mascara wand before deciding she looked good enough—well, except for the dark circles beneath her eyes—and then she went to work on her hair.

Thick, wavy locks were a nightmare to arrange at the last minute. There was only so much she could do with a brush and a few bobby pins, but by the time Jimmy pulled up to the Ritz, she’d managed an acceptable—if slightly sloppy—bun. Hopefully, it would pass for shabby-chic sloppy instead of I-practically-got-dressed-in-the-car sloppy. Either way, it was too late to do anything about it now.

Time to enter the fray.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The Music Room was…pink.

Seriously so. Pink chairs, pink tablecloths, wide stripes of pink on every wall. It was like stumbling into the world’s fanciest gender-reveal party. At least the elaborate holiday décor provided some relief: holly, ivy, ornaments, and gold ribbons were everywhere. Two splendid Christmas trees didn’t hurt either.

The room was also filled with flower-festooned round tables. A string quartet played unobtrusively in a corner. The food hadn’t been served yet, so everyone was still standing in little groups, chatting and laughing through their teeth as they sipped from glasses of wine or the occasional cup of tea. All very civilized.

But make no mistake, blood was in the water. It always was. When you got this rich and this powerful, you lost any sense of proportion. Or so Jules had observed over the past few years. The more these people had, the more they wanted. At this level, it was rarely about material possessions. It was about dominance. Being the best.