Page 61 of Ruthless Edge

"Already?" I say, mostly to myself.

She gives me a look. "We've been driving for two hours."

"Went fast."

"When you've been wrong about nearly every song's lyrics for two hours, the time flies."

I put on my turn signal, and she goes back to her binder, and I watch her shift back into work mode and try to remember what I know about ballrooms, which is very little, but I'm a fast learner.

The hotel is nice. That's the first thing, the lobby has the kind of quiet that money buys. A man in a grey suit comes toward us immediately and introduces himself as the events manager. His name is Richard. He has the handshake of someone who thinks he’s really important but probably isn’t outside of this hotel.

He looks at me when he shakes hands. Looks at Emma for slightly less time.

"Right this way," he says, and leads us toward the ballroom.

Emma has her binder open before we're through the door. The room is good. I can see that even without knowing anything about what makes ballrooms good. High ceilings, wood floors, tall windows along one side letting in the afternoon light. Windows looking out onto an impressive garden and lake, with several balcony doors leading outside. Emma's head is already moving, calculating, the way she does when she's working something out.

"What's the seating capacity with round tables?" she asks.

Richard looks at me when he answers.

I look at him. Confused.

"She asked," I say.

He pivots back to Emma, gives her the number, then immediately adds, "though that configuration, for an event of your scope, you'd really want to think carefully about traffic flow—" and he starts explaining traffic flow to Emma in the tone of someone explaining it to a person who has never been in a room before.

Emma writes something in her binder without looking up. "And the staging area for the band, is that included in the capacity count or separate?"

Richard hesitates, then says, "Well, that depends on a few factors that can be a little complicated to work through. If you want to check out the rest of the room, I can explain it to Mr. Carter."

"You should probably walk her through it," I say pleasantly. "I wouldn’t understand a thing about it."

He gives the information. Emma writes it down.

We move through the room and Richard explains things. Some of the things he explains are things Emma specifically asked. Some of them are things she clearly already knows, because I've sat through enough meetings with her to recognize when she understands something. Every time Richard gets halfway through explaining something Emma understands, I find a use for the moment. When he starts detailing the catering contract language, I say, "Emma handles all the contracts for our program, so she'll just want a copy to review. She doesn’t need it explained to her." When he talks about the quality of the linens Emma chose for the night, turning his back to Emma as he speaks to me, I say, "These are nice. Emma has good taste, though, so she'd be a better judge than I am."

Emma's mouth twitches.

"The place settings are custom," Richard says, leaning slightly toward me. "We source them from a supplier in France. Not everyone appreciates the difference, but for an event at this level⁠—"

"Emma appreciates the difference," I say. "She appreciates most things, honestly. She's also the one who secured all the sponsorship money that's paying for this, so if you want to talk about what she understands, I'm happy to go through the list."

Emma coughs.

Richard looks between us and adjusts his approach for approximately three minutes before drifting back to his natural setting.

It goes on like this through the kitchen tour, the lighting demo, the coat room. Emma asks questions, Richard directs his answers at me, and I redirect him to her, which she responds to, precisely and without mercy, and I like watching Richard recalibrate each time.

By the end of the tour, Emma has a full page of notes and The Hawthorne has everything we need. I can see her satisfaction in the way she closes the binder with one clean motion, done.

We're standing back in the lobby when a woman crosses toward us from the far hallway. Sixties, well-dressed, carrying herself like she’s important, but doesn’t care to make a fuss about it. She looks at us with pleasant attention.

"Are you the students from Ridgehaven?" she says.

"Knox Carter." I offer my hand. "And this is Emma Lawson, our event director. She put the whole program together."

The woman's handshake is warmer than Richard's. "Diane Marsh. I own The Hawthorne." She looks at Emma. "Your event sounds wonderful. We would love to host more university programs."