The Gift and the Guillotine

“Polished shoes, empty flutes, and a box full of lies—I’m beginning to think I underdressed for treason.”

Immediately upon entering the lobby, I made a deliberate beeline for a tray of sparkling bubbles gliding gracefully through the crowd atop the upraised hand of a server who moved with the precision of someone trained in both ballet and crowd avoidance. He barely blinked as I intercepted one of the flutes with a nod of thanks I didn’t quite mean.

No time for small talk. No appetite for it either.

I bypassed a knot of guests chuckling over some well-rehearsed anecdote, skimming the perimeter of the gathering with the same purposefulness I might apply to casing a room for exits. My focus narrowed, honed to a singular point: Charlie Claiborne. Somewhere in this sea of satin and smugness, he was meant to exist. And it was my job to find him.

It felt absurd almost immediately.

I did a slow turn, glass poised at my lips, scanning a dozen unfamiliar faces—all glossed with civility and soft lighting. The sheer volume of tuxedos and designer dresses blurred the crowd into one homogenous tapestry of cultivated elegance. The occasional handshake, the flash of a knowing smile, the clink of glasses raised in faintly ironic toasts—it was all a performance, and I was combing the cast for a lead I hadn’t seen before.

No signs. No clues. No name tags—of course not. That would have been far too useful.

After the third sweep of the room yielded nothing but vague déjà vu and someone’s overpowering cologne (not Jarod, but in the same family of egotism), I sighed. The sound was quiet but steeped in exasperation, the kind that lives behind the eyes and occasionally slips out when no one’s paying attention.

I took a generous sip of the champagne—though calling it that felt generous in itself. The bubbles bit at the roof of my mouth before dissolving into a flavour best described as “ambitiously dry.” It did little to calm the nerves crawling beneath my skin, and even less to sweeten the sharp edge of futility rising in my chest.

This wasn’t a search. It was a game of social hide and seek played blindfolded and two drinks behind.

And I was already losing.

"Need help finding your table?"

Jarod’s voice slid in, unexpectedly close—closer than comfort allowed. I turned with a start, barely masking the jolt that ran through me. His presence seemed to materialise at the exact moment I’d finally managed to forget him for half a breath.

"Table?" I echoed, the word landing clumsily in my mouth like it had been dropped there by mistake. It sounded foreign. Irrelevant. The idea of a seating plan hadn’t even occurred to me—an amateur oversight for someone navigating a room with secrets tucked under her arm.

Jarod raised an eyebrow, and with it, a slow smile. "There’s a table and seat number on the receipt they gave you before you entered," he said, his voice smooth with the kind of measured patience usually reserved for children and tourists.

"There is?" I asked, the syllables betraying my bewilderment. Suddenly I felt like a kangaroo in heels and borrowed lace—caught mid-bounce, wide-eyed and unprepared.

"You do know it’s a dinner function, right?" he added, amusement tugging at the edges of his mouth. "It would be advisable to sit for such occasions."

His tone, breezy and infuriating, only deepened the blush I could feel creeping along my throat. The kind of mortification that isn’t loud, but insistent. Warm, spreading, and very much alive.

A kangaroo about to become roadkill, I thought grimly. The image was vivid: me, splattered across the polished marble floor, while the glittering elite stepped over my metaphorical entrails in search of the entrée.

"Oh," I said, barely audible. My voice had abandoned its usual dry edge and now hovered somewhere between meek and mortified.

I fumbled with my purse, fingers darting into its depths with sudden urgency. Lip balm. Keys. A bent safety pin. Receipts from a bakery I didn’t remember visiting. And then—finally—the thin slip of paper I’d tossed inside without a second thought. The same paper that now dictated where I’d be planted for the foreseeable future.

I straightened, receipt in hand, resisting the urge to crumple it in passive-aggressive retaliation.

Because apparently, even covert operations came with seating arrangements.

Jarod's hand moved before I could retract my own. In one swift motion, he plucked the crumpled receipt from my grasp, his fingers working with a comfortable ease as he flattened it out—like some smug magician smoothing a spell. It felt like an intrusion, uninvited yet effortless. As though he’d reached into the chaos I was barely holding together and decided to tidy it without asking.

"Must be fate," he declared, flashing a grin so broad and pleased with itself I half-expected confetti to fall from the ceiling. His eyes sparkled with mischief, the kind that always danced just this side of unbearable.

The implication hit me square in the chest. No further clarification was needed. Of course. Of course we were seated beside each other.

A fresh wave of dismay crept over me like a damp blanket. Somewhere in the depths of this building lurked a sadist with a spreadsheet and a wicked sense of humour. Perhaps Leigh had slipped someone a fiver and a seating chart.

Jarod extended his arm with the kind of theatrical courtesy that might have been charming once—back when I trusted his intentions, or at least enjoyed the spectacle of them. Now it felt oddly anachronistic, like a relic from a chapter I wasn’t entirely sure I’d finished reading.

I stared at the offered arm, my lips pursing into what could only be described as a pout of dignified protest. The kind that said, Are you kidding me? without needing to speak. I could feel a thousand conflicting impulses jostling for dominance behind my eyes—irritation, disbelief, a reluctant flicker of nostalgia.

Seriously?

"Come on. You used to enjoy this, remember?" he said, the words wrapped in a tease, a ribbon tied round a memory. His elbow nudged mine—lightly, but deliberately. A gentle prod from the past, reminding me of who we’d been before everything cracked.

"I’ve tried to forget," I said, dry as old gin. The sarcasm was automatic, but under it… something else. Something not quite resentment. Maybe even fondness, blunted and buried.

Still, I took his arm.

Not because I wanted to. Not because I’d forgiven whatever it was we’d never actually talked about. But because it was easier to move forward than stand still. And because, for all my internal resistance, the weight of the evening felt marginally lighter with his elbow crooked in mine.

We began to weave our way toward the table, our movements instinctively in sync despite the years between us. Somewhere beneath the deliberate detachment, a flicker of something traitorous stirred. A zing of excitement, light and unexpected, cutting through the fog of duty and deflection.

Damn him.

Memories began to surface—slippery, potent, unwelcome in their clarity. His laughter echoing against the sandstone walls of the old church-turned-shop. The night we smuggled a brass telescope out of a farmhouse in Devonport, laughing so hard we forgot why we were running. The way he always ordered a second drink when he knew I’d steal the first.

He was right. I had enjoyed it. Once.

And that realisation landed like a stone in the still water of my chest—disruptive, rippling.

It was unsettling. And comforting. Both.

The contradiction of it all pressed in around me, reminding me that the past is never quite buried, only shelved. Tonight, fate—or foolishness—had knocked something loose.

And here I was, arm in arm with the ghost of a former self, walking straight into whatever came next.

“So, who’s your gift for?”

Jarod’s voice broke through the ambient swell of chatter and clinking glass, his tone deceptively light. The slight tilt of his head towards the package tucked beneath my arm sent a jolt of tension through my body—sharp, instantaneous. I tightened my grip on the box reflexively, knuckles blanching beneath the strain. His eyes lingered, curious but not unkind, as though he’d casually reached for a locked door without realising what lay behind it.

“Charlie Claiborne,” I managed, tone calm, steady, polished to a deceptive sheen. The name slipped from my mouth—clean, rehearsed, and utterly hollow inside.

We moved away from the relative safety of the lobby, our footsteps falling in tandem as we began the descent down the broad, modernist staircase that spilled into the main event space. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the very air thickened the deeper we went. My heels clicked with quiet insistence, a metronome counting down to some unknown crescendo.

“A gift for the organiser. I’m impressed,” Jarod said, glancing sideways at me with what sounded like genuine surprise.

His words echoed in my head, then ricocheted painfully. Organiser?

Fuck.

The realisation hit with all the elegance of a dropped anvil. My brain scrambled to rearrange the puzzle pieces. Claiborne wasn’t just some eccentric VIP lurking at the edge of the guest list. He was the man. The axis around which this entire, glittering, curated circus spun.

“Yes,” I heard myself say, voice tight but passable. I summoned a smile that probably looked more like a grimace. “I thought it would be a thoughtful thing to do.”

It was a desperate stitch of civility, flung across a widening chasm.

The words rang false, even in my own ears. Too precise. Too polite. Like using a teaspoon to stem a leak in a dam. Inside, panic was blooming—quiet but potent, a slow spread of heat and nausea curling low in my stomach.

“Thoughtful,” Jarod echoed, with that infuriating sincerity of his. “Now you have me twice-impressed.”

I wanted to laugh—sharp and hollow. Instead, I nodded, pretending his praise hadn’t ratcheted the pressure inside me up another notch. The compliment, well-meant as it might’ve been, felt like a spotlight. Like being applauded for walking a tightrope I hadn’t realised was suspended over a pit.

The façade I’d wrapped around myself was fraying at the seams. And with each step down, each passing glance and word, it threatened to unravel entirely.