The band started playing “In the Mood,” and a few brave couples strayed onto the dance floor. Witt snagged a glass from a silver tray and drained the champagne in one long swallow.

“Daddy!” He glanced up and found London, her black curls dancing around her face, her chubby arms outstretched. Dressed in a navy-blue dress with white lace collar and cuffs, she ran up to him and threw herself into his waiting arms.

He hugged her tightly, the velvet of her dress crushed against him, her legs, encased in white tights, clamped around his waist. “How do you like the party, princess?”

Her crystal-blue eyes were round and wide, her cheeks flushed with the excitement of the festivities. “It’s loud.”

He laughed. “That it is.”

“And there’s too much smoke!”

“Don’t tell your mother. She planned this as a special surprise and we wouldn’t want her to feel bad,” Witt said, grinning as he winked at his daughter.

She winked back, then snuggled her pert little nose into his neck and he got a whiff of baby shampoo. She tugged at his bow tie and he laughed again. Nothing could make him as happy as this dynamic whirl of precociousness.

“Hey, that’s my job,” Kat said as she smiled and gently nudged London’s fingers from Witt’s neck. Kissing her daughter’s crown, she said, “Leave Daddy’s tie alone.”

“How about a dance?” Witt asked his young daughter, and those little lines between Kat’s eyebrows, the ones that suggested silently that she disapproved, appeared. Witt didn’t care. He drained another glass of champagne and twirled a laughing London onto the dance floor. The child, his princess, squealed in delight.

“Sickening, isn’t it?” Trisha observed from her position near the band. She leaned against the glossy top of the concert grand and petulantly sipped from a fluted glass. She was allowed, having just turned twenty-one.