Don’t eat that, sir. Poor cleaner saves billionaire and exposes his fiance. The engagement party started at noon, and by 2:00 the Briggs estate looked like something out of a magazine that regular people only read in waiting rooms.
Imani Osaze had been inside those waiting rooms her whole life. She pushed her cleaning cart along the stone pathway that circled the outdoor garden, keeping her eyes down and her pace steady.
That was the first rule her supervisor, Patrice, had drilled into her during the 30-minute orientation that morning.
Eyes down, pace steady, be invisible. Event cleaning staff at the Briggs estate weren’t supposed to be noticed.
They were supposed to exist somewhere between the furniture and the air, present enough to do their job, absent enough that the guests never had to think about them.
Imani was good at being invisible. She’d had 25 years of practice. The garden itself was almost offensive in its beauty.
Round tables draped in white linen dotted the manicured lawn, each one centered with an arrangement of white peonies and pale blue hydrangeas that probably cost more than Imani’s monthly rent.
Crystal glassware caught the early June sunlight and scattered it in small rainbows across the tablecloths.
A string quartet played something classical near the fountain. Something Imani might have recognized if she’d ever had the kind of childhood where people played classical music in the house.
Beyond the garden, a pool glittered with that specific shade of blue that only existed in places built for people who never had to worry about the electric bill.
200 guests. That was the number Patrice had given her. 200 guests from Chicago’s upper crust, real estate developers, politicians, hedge fund managers, the kind of people whose names appeared in the Tribune without a crime attached to them.
And at the center of all of it, Callaway Briggs. Imani had done her research before taking the temp gig, not because she cared about celebrity gossip, but because knowing the layout of a situation kept her from making mistakes.
Callaway Briggs, 41, self-made billionaire, though self-made in his case meant starting from upper middle class and multiplying aggressively.
He’d built Briggs Development Group from a single commercial property on the north side into a portfolio that now stretched from Chicago to Toronto.
Forbes had profiled him twice. Had He was known for being sharp, private, and according to the profile, notoriously difficult to impress.
He sat at the head table now, broad-shouldered in a dark navy suit, one arm resting on the table with the kind of relaxed authority that didn’t need to perform itself.
