Nightingale Read Free Page B

and Paul. Maybe it was just the glare, but the two of them weren’t exactly smiling—more like cringing.
    “With Oomph’s recent acquisition of Polish, we will continue to bring you not only the finest makeup, but also the best lip-care products on the market,” Octavia continued.
    She raised her champagne glass, and everyone applauded. Octavia’s speech soon drifted into the land of stock speak, the way these things always did. I tuned most of it out.  
    A few minor crises occurred during the evening, most notably Paul’s father, Peter Potter, getting drunk and trying to wrest the microphone away from Octavia. But I muscled Peter into the bathroom, shoved his head under the sink, and got him sobered up enough to return to the party.  
    At least no superheroes or ubervillains decided to crash the dinner. I worried about that with every event. A villain might decide to hold everyone hostage—or worse, take all of the food and booze with her. The fear was greater now, since a museum benefit I’d recently helped to plan had ended in disaster just that way—not once, but twice—with Berkley Brighton, the richest man in the city, getting killed in the crossfire.
    Speaking of rich people, more than a few were in attendance tonight. The O’Hara-Potter engagement and merger were big news, as both families were worth a couple hundred million. Sam Sloane, Devlin Dash, Wesley Weston, Grace Caleb, and dozens of other business tycoons populated the room. The society and other reporters for the newspapers and TV stations had also come out to cover the event, including Carmen Cole with The Exposé and Kelly Caleb of the Superhero News Network.  
    I spotted Joanne James in the crowd, talking with Bella Bulluci. Joanne was hard to miss with her mane of black curls, lithe body, and sharp tongue. Bella, meanwhile, was a quiet, curvy, petite woman with frizzy hair. The two couldn’t have been more different, but they’d recently become good friends.
    Joanne and Bella had been at the museum benefit the second time ubervillains had struck, and they’d both been kidnapped. Although they’d survived, Joanne’s husband, Berkley, had been killed. I’d planned his funeral a few months ago. It was one of the hardest jobs I’d ever done, mainly because I had only a couple of days to pull together what amounted to a state funeral.  
    But Joanne had seemed pleased with my efforts, enough to hire me to coordinate some of the other events accompanying Berkley’s passing, including all of the dedications and ribbon-cuttings his benefactors were holding. The whiskey mogul had been worth billions, and he’d spread his wealth to dozens of Bigtime charities. Pretty soon, Berkley Brighton’s name would be on just about every building in the city.  
    I waved to Joanne and Bella, trying to catch their attention, but the two women were deep in conversation—one I could hear, despite the ambient noise in the room.  
    “I still can’t believe Jasper is your brother,” Bella said, “and that the two of you don’t speak.”
    “Are you on that again?” Joanne snapped. “I told you Jasper and I don’t have the same cozy relationship you have with your brother, Johnny. We never have.”
    “I’m just worried about you. That’s what friends do. They worry about each other.”
    Joanne rolled her eyes, but she linked her arm through the younger woman’s. “There you go again, being all sugary sweet and concerned and making my teeth hurt. Don’t worry, Bella. I’m fine. Or as fine as I can be with Berkley gone.”
    The two women started talking about other things, including Bella’s significant other, Devlin Dash. I waved again, but Joanne and Bella didn’t see me, didn’t even look in my direction, didn’t even know I was alive. Nobody saw me at events. I faded into the background, just like the Invisible Ingénues did. Oh, people knew I was around, but they didn’t actually look for me—unless they needed something. In addition