So David allowed Olivia to overhaul the ball and make her changes.

The Leather & Lace Ball, under the first year of Olivia’s direction, cleared nearly a million dollars. The second year, 1.8 million. The third year, 2.6 million.

It wasn’t just that Olivia got the tickets and tables sold—she managed to sell everything: the concept, the emotion, the suffering, the humanity. People wanted to be part of the ball. They wanted to give. They wanted to be part of something out of the norm...

And Olivia, clever girl, turned something wicked—something inherently taboo—into something incredibly beneficial. She made being bad good.

San Francisco loved it. David loved it. Rumor has it that he told her if he ever fell in love with a woman, it’d be her. I don’t blame him.

As I look at Olivia, the corner of her lovely grape-colored mouth lifts, a small acknowledgment that nobody’s perfect. Two years ago David and Olivia had an argument that very nearly came to blows. Olivia wanted a bigger piece of the company pie, and David told her to F-off. Although they patched things up, David took the Leather Lace Ball from her, handing it over to a new rising star, redhead Tessa Biglione, an Irish-Italian from New York who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody’s feelings, and two and a half years after being hired, Olivia says, it shows.

According to Olivia, Tessa’s team has the highest turnover at City Events. Tessa’s team can’t stand working together. Tessa’s team can’t stand Tessa.

And right now Tessa’s team has apparently run the ball into the ground. The ball is less than six weeks away, and there are no generous corporate sponsors secured, few of the gold and platinum tables have been sold, and even regular-priced tickets aren’t moving. Essentially, there’s a venue and an event but no money and no one coming.

“I can’t have this.” David grabs a chair, drops into it. “I won’t.” He closes his eyes, presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose, and breathes deep.

Medium height, well built; fit, David is a sun-streaked forty-something who looks as if he had jumped out of a Tommy Hilfiger ad, except he’s not forty-something; he’s fifty-something, but David takes care of himself. David has a new lover, someone Olivia thinks is very good for him, but David can’t seem to let go of Tony, even though Tony’s been gone ten years. Olivia says it’s the way Tony died—awful, so awful—and I think she might be right.

“We spend”—David breaks off, swallows, tries again—”I spend thousands of dollars on this event every year. The Leather and Lace Ball isn’t just an event. It’s how I remember Tony. Most of you don’t know Tony but—” and David breaks off. For a moment he can’t speak.

He sits for a moment longer, then abruptly stands. And when he looks at us, all of us, his lips twist, and it’d be a smile if there weren’t so much heartbreak in his face. “I don’t care what you have to do to make this work. The Leather and Lace Ball funds the Hospice Foundation’s annual budget. We can’t afford to fail.”

The meeting effectively ends with David walking out. You’d think we’d all sit there, pull together the way we should, especially since it’s obvious David’s really torn up, but Tessa’s up and gone, and then various staffers—mostly her staffers—start wandering out, until it’s Olivia, Josh, Sara, and me left. Olivia’s team.

“So what do we do?” Josh says.