y hair and makeup appointments were right before Lily’s. After the fiasco on spa day, Aunt Olivia had decided that I should forgo the massage.

Campbell’s last-minute alteration to our plan had me on edge, but I just kept telling myself that it made sense. We wanted the senator arrested. We wanted the truth about the hit and run to come out. We wanted a conviction—for the accident or the theft. But if that proved a bridge too far, the biggest scandal we could possibly generate would have to do.

“Sit still, sweetie.” The man tying my hair back into God knows what kind of knot had issued the exact same order eight times. Each time, he dragged the endearment out a little bit longer.

I tried to turn to look at him, but he had a strong enough grip on my hair that the effort was futile. I sat still.

Right about now, Sterling Ames is arriving at the club.… In laying out the plan for today, a particular Symphony Ball tradition had proved most useful. Apparently, the one piece of wisdom that had been passed from one generation of Squires to the next was that when you were the parent, and it was your daughter’s turn to play Debutante—you did not want to stick around for the last few hours of preparations.

Although it wasn’t official, a large number of the fathers were, even as I sat here, gathering in the men’s grill at Northern Ridge for drinks.

“There.” The smile was audible in my hairdresser’s voice, but it wasn’t until he spun my chair sideways, angling my body toward the mirror, that I could see why. A makeup artist had already had her way with my face. My eyes looked larger, my lashes impossibly long. My hair had been swept back from my face, smoothed, curled, and piled on top of my head. A single tendril—closer to mahogany than the color of mud—hung down on each side, framing my cheekbones.

I looked like my mom. For the first time in months, I considered ending our silent standoff and giving her a call.

Afterward, I told myself.

What I said to the stylist was: “I’m going to get some air.”

Get some air, sabotage a car that cost as much as an Ivy League education—­same difference. Campbell had made an alteration to our plan, but my role was largely unchanged.

Wearing jeans and a button-down shirt—a must, Lily had assured me, so that I could get dressed later without damaging my makeup or hair—might have been less conspicuous had the rest of me not been ball-ready. Whatever the makeup artist had put on my lips, I was fairly certain at this point that the color could withstand a nuclear bomb.

Sadie-Grace—who hadn’t had her makeup done yet and nonetheless looked ten times better than us mere humans ever would—met me behind the portico. The two of us might not have been the ideal people to blend into the background today, but it just so happened that I had an inside source.

One who used to be a valet.

Campbell had assured me that the senator would be driving his 602-horsepower Lamborghini Huracán. Nick had assured me that whenever one of the members broke out a car like that, the valets knew better than to park it out front.

They parked it where they could all ogle it themselves.

Unfortunately for them, the sheer number of Debutante fathers descending on the men’s grill in hopes of escaping ball preparation meant that there wasn’t much time for ogling.

And that meant that Sadie-Grace and I—temporarily—had the car to ourselves.

It felt wrong to monkey with an engine that could have doubled as a work of art, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I was mostly through with what I needed to do when things went south. I heard the footsteps, but not in time to divest myself from the inner workings of the Lamborghini.

Someone’s here. Think of a cover story. I scrambled, but before I could say a word, the person who’d approached spoke.

“Uhhhh… hey, guys.”

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. This was bad—but it could have been much worse. “Hey, Boone,” I said, trying to act like I hadn’t just been caught red-handed.

“You look nice,” Boone told me. “And possibly felonious. Felony-filled?”

“Felonious,” Sadie-Grace said quickly. “I think. And she’s not. I’m not.” She paused for a breath—her first. “Hi.” Sadie-Grace turned the full force of her smile on Boone.

In the past nine months, the closest Boone Mason had gotten to asking Sadie-Grace out had been on Casino Night. She’d thrown up on his shoes.

“Hi back,” Boone said. There was a long pause, and then he leaned up against the car. “Need another lookout?”

Thank goodness, I thought, for inept romance.

Four more minutes, and I was done. Sadie-Grace and Boone were… otherwise occupied.

Really? I thought. Now? After all of the times he’d managed to flirt—badly—with every other girl in the near vicinity but couldn’t manage to do so with her and all the times she’d been completely oblivious to—or possibly anxious about—his interest, they were making out now?

I cleared my throat. Sadie-Grace’s left foot, which was tracing ecstatic little circles on the ground, caught Boone’s right one just as he attempted to shift his balance. One second the two of them were standing there, and the next, he was on the ground and bleeding from the eye.

“Eep!” Sadie-Grace turned to me. “I told you! I break boys!”

More footsteps. I ducked behind the car—and pulled the eep-ing Sadie-Grace to do the same. Boone, who I could only assume was still bleeding, climbed to his feet as one of the valets approached.

“I’m glad to see you are all taking care of my uncle’s car,” I heard him say. “But I have a lady friend coming to see it.”

I could practically hear him winking.

“Man-to-man, can you look the other way? I fully intend to work my magic, and I’m going to need a moment.”

Boone’s “moment” bought us time for me to hand him three notes—one for him, one for Walker, one for Nick.

“Don’t deliver them yet,” I said. “And don’t open yours.”

Boone eyed me carefully. “Dare I ask what kind of shenanigans are afoot?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” I said.

Sadie-Grace placed a chaste kiss on his cheek and a hand on his chest. “Neither would I.”