"That is all I can honestly promise today," she said. "A chance to be considered, and someone who will listen."
"That may already be more than you know."
"I know exactly how valuable it can be," she replied. "I wish someone had offered it to me when Adrian was little."
Bell returned to the table twenty minutes later, carrying the careful expression of a man who had rehearsed several possible explanations and rejected all of them. He informed Serafina that the dessert service was beginning and asked whether she required anything else. She thanked him for his attention, then turned to Everett with a question about Marlo's favorite dessert. Everett answered that his daughter preferred chocolate cake in theory but usually ate all the frosting before reaching the cake itself.
"A sensible system," Serafina said.
Bell blinked. Everett had never before seen the banquet manager uncertain whether a joke was allowed to be funny. He looked toward the service stations, where several colleagues were trying not to stare. Everett knew he had already stretched the hotel rules well beyond what a temporary worker could expect to survive, and he told Serafina he needed to return to work.
"Of course," she replied. "Thank you for sitting with me."
"Thank you for listening."
She hesitated before answering. "I think I needed that as much as you did."
When Everett reached the service corridor, Bell followed him through the swinging doors. For a moment Everett expected a reprimand about boundaries, guest privacy, and the importance of remaining invisible. Bell merely studied him and asked what the conversation had been about. Everett said that Serafina had been alone and that they had talked about family.
"Family?" Bell repeated, sounding as though Everett had said they had discussed the construction of a spaceship. "With Serafina Vale?"
"She's a person, Mr. Bell."
"I am aware of that. I'm also aware that people have lost contracts by handling her meetings badly."
"Then I'm glad it wasn't a meeting."
Bell rubbed his forehead. "I don't know whether you're impossibly brave or you simply don't understand who she is."
Everett glanced through the corridor window at the ballroom. "Maybe I didn't have enough reason to be afraid."
Bell let the matter go, partly because the luncheon was already running late and partly because Serafina had personally asked him not to trouble Everett. But the incident changed the way several staff members looked at the temporary worker. A young server named June asked whether the billionaire had offered him a job, and another wanted to know whether she had been angry. Everett kept the conversation private. It was one of the few things he could give Serafina without feeling he was receiving something in return.
He spent the remainder of the afternoon carrying trays, collecting dishes, and helping the kitchen staff clear the final tables. The double pay no longer seemed like the only good thing the day had brought, but he did not let that distract him from the job. His shoes rubbed against a blister, and his shoulders ached when he lifted the last rack of glasses. At four forty-five, Bell signed the timesheet and told him the wages would be processed as promised.