“Very well.” It mattered little to him, and as the waiter fussed about with clean linen and water glasses and a long, rambling recitation of a wine list, he found his eyes lingering idly on his dining-room companion. She was tucking into an enormous meal with so much enjoyment he stifled a smile. She hadn’t skimped on quality, either. On her table he identified the remains of a caviar starter, oysters, a steak smothered in fresh mustard greens.
“Sir?”
He blinked, looked up. “A glass of whiskey and water, please. And those oysters—” he gestured at the young lady’s table “—are they grilled?”
“Rockefeller style, sir.”
“I’ll have those, and the new potatoes in cream.”
“Very good, sir.”
The waiter swanned off, and Laurence was left to feel annoyed at the fact that he’d have to log manually into his email, since his rarely used personal line had none of the many apps he used to keep his work organized. He hadn’t used it in a couple of weeks and he felt a rush of physical relief as he switched it on and began to scroll.
He was halfway through a report on viewing statistics for a motorbike ad when the waiter came back with a bread basket, dropped it off with little ceremony, and headed over to the young woman’s table.
“Are we all set, then, ma’am?” he heard the waiter say solicitously. Laurence listened with about half an ear; he was curious to hear what such a voracious eater’s voice sounded like.
“I am, thank you.” She spoke quietly, almost inaudibly. Her voice possessed a low husk that, despite himself, made him look up; it was familiar, in that elusive way that nags until, finally, the brain identifies. He registered wide eyes in the clearest shade of brown he’d ever seen, a full bow-shaped mouth painted berry red and a dimpled chin before he looked back down at his phone.
Pretty, he thought idly. He’d look up again when she stood, see if the body matched the face. And there it was, that sense of déjà vu. Who could she possibly be? He’d gone to university abroad, so that was out. She looked far too young—and too broke—to be a client. Perhaps one of the many interns who filtered in and out of Laurence & Haddad each summer? No, it couldn’t be that—he avoided them like the plague.
“Shall I charge it to your room, ma’am?”
“Oh, yes, please.” Again, in that soft, cultured voice. “I’m in Suite 700.”
“Ah, the penthouse. Very good, ma’am.”
At that, Laurence did look up. He knew for sure that the woman wasn’t staying in Suite 700, because that was his room. Brazenly, she signed the bill with a flourish and took a long last sip of champagne with every indication of pleasure before looking up.
She had the gall to shoot him a shy smile and lowered her lashes, touching the napkin to those soft, full lips.
Laurence was torn between being amused, annoyed and appalled. If the menu was any indication, she’d just charged at least a few hundred to his room, and the little grifter hadn’t even blinked. He half considered going after her, but his phone buzzed just at that moment. His last impression was of subtle but definite curves, shrouded in soft faded denim as she headed toward the door, hips swaying gently. Laurence cleared his throat and looked away.
He glanced down at the message, and what he saw was enough to drive all thoughts of beautiful, dinner-scamming women from his head.
* * *
“What the hell do you mean, you’re in Dubai?” Laurence hissed.
On the other end of the line, Aurelia Hunter—his girlfriend—yawned, and loudly. Laurence did the mental calculation; Dubai was nine hours ahead of New York. Most important, it was much too far away for her to show up that evening in formal dress as expected. “Aurelia!”
“Hold on.” Aurelia sounded irritated now. He heard rustling—bedclothes, probably—and her soft, dulcet voice speaking to someone else. Then she came back, sounding only slightly more awake. “What?”
“You’re. Supposed. To. Be. Here,” Laurence said, emphasizing each word. “What do you mean, what?”
There was an incredulous pause, then Aurelia began to laugh. Loudly. “Are you serious?”
He was serious. He also was convinced that he now was missing something very, very important. “This is hardly a laughing matter,” he snapped. “We’re seated with the Muellers during coffee, Aurelia, and you know how important that account is—”
Her laughter finished on a gasp. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“Not unless you choose, very kindly, to fill me in. Why are you in Dubai?”
Aurelia’s voice changed from incredulous amusement to something he was more familiar with—studied coolness. “I see you didn’t get any of my messages. I know you didn’t return any of my calls.”
“Obviously not,” Laurence snapped. He fumbled for the phone and opened his text notifications. Immediately messages began flashing up on the screen—messages that he hadn’t checked. He squinted down at the screen, mouthing the words as he read them, then swore eloquently.
“Charming. I see you’ve seen it.”
Laurence hated being taken by surprise, but this was outrageous in the extreme. He swore again. “You’re—ending this?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Laurence.”
“Via text message?”
She snorted. “How else was I supposed to do it? You’ve been ignoring my calls all week. Not much of a boyfriend, you are,” she added sarcastically. “And as good as your assistant is at making you look genuinely busy, she isn’t that good. I’m not going to fall for the ‘in a meeting’ line more than three times.”
“But—why?”
“I met someone.”
Laurence stared at the screen, struck dumb. His arrangement with Aurelia Hunter had lasted a year and had been quite a satisfactory one. As the head of a massive tech company she’d inherited from her father, she had no time to date, but plenty of occasions for which a date was needed. A chance meetup at a networking party led to a deal—he’d beau her around to her events, and she’d come to his, smile for photographs, be an escort he didn’t have to worry about...or call.
That last detail had apparently been his downfall.
Aurelia spoke into the silence. “I’m sorry. It—it’s kind of been happening for a month and came to a head a week ago. It—it’s different. I don’t want to do this anymore. I sent you a letter so you could make arrangements for the rest of the season.”
Laurence scrolled through the letter, biting back another litany of curses. Were he calmer, he might marvel at Aurelia’s tone; she sounded softer than he’d ever heard her, both in the email and now on the phone. She’s really in love.
He’d be happy for her, he supposed, if she hadn’t screwed him over so colossally.
“That’s all well and good,” he said sarcastically, “and I hope you’re enjoying your desert getaway, but this is appalling, Aurelia. I’m courting a huge client tonight, I’ve got events coming up and—”
“Go solo.” She was definitely awake now, and possibly enjoying this? He heard the flicker of a lighter, and Aurelia drew a long breath. He pictured her as she exhaled; probably swathed in something outrageously expensive, playing with the tendrils of hair on her shoulders. “And if you do find someone else to do this with, answer her calls, emails and texts, okay?”
“You really don’t understand how badly you’ve messed things up for me, do you?” Or she had, until love had snatched all reason from her. Clients liked doing business with folks who were settled, committed. Couples were comforting. It made them feel as if their accounts were safe in the hands of someone who understood relationships, understood what it meant to make someone happy, to care for someone.
Laurence did not understand relationships, or want to—he’d given that up long ago. But he knew what they looked like, and he knew what he needed to play that role. The idea of pursuing a woman for romanti
c reasons was out—he had no time or inclination for that. Aurelia had been an ideal compromise. No strings, no sex, none of the messy aftermath. Still, the faithless woman had—
“Look, Laurence—”
Laurence hung up, then scrolled to her name and blocked her. It was childish, he knew, but he had a problem to solve, and Aurelia was no longer relevant. He could explain away her absence tonight, but the rest of the season still lay before him, with the galas, the dinner parties, the weekends away—
He swore under his breath again. She’d met someone. Women! They really were the most ridiculous creatures.
* * *
If Kitty Asare knew one thing, it was that lies were much more convincing when she half believed them herself. So, she recited them to herself over and over again as she stood shivering in the ladies’ lounge at the Park Hotel. It was cold—colder than she’d anticipated, but then again, all she was wearing was a black lace thong at the moment.
She unzipped the small rolling backpack she’d brought with her and extracted the silk dress inside, then held it up critically to the light. Last season’s, of course, obtained from one of those designer-dress renting sites. It didn’t look too terribly off-season, she told herself. It suited her lanky frame and deep coloring, and had enough oomph for tonight’s soiree without looking out of place. It was also in her favorite color, a deep Lincoln green with a hint of brightness that made the rich tints of her skin glow.
Blending in was essential, since she wasn’t actually invited. All that mattered was that she’d manage, for the fourth time that month, to run into Sonia Van Horn at a New York social event.
She was counting on Sonia’s being in a good mood. The kindly older woman was definitely a low-watt bulb, but she was the current chair of the board of the Hunt Society, a social club that Kitty had been trying to get into for a year and a half. The small, unobtrusive group of the ton on the outskirts of Long Island was made up of a number of appallingly horsey middle-aged people, but it was one of the oldest, finest clubs in the state, and Kitty was determined to begin moving intimately with that group, or at the very least get an audience with them. There were simply too many potential contacts there to ignore—contacts with fat wallets who liked the convenience of contributing to a cause without getting their jewelled hands dirty.
Quality over quantity, she told herself as she shimmied the dress over her slender hips. As founder of a foundation that helped foster children transition to real life, Kitty had learned over the years that cold-calling and mass-mailing brochures were not enough. The charities she’d studied that did the most were either established by wealthy patrons or fronted by them, with endowments in the billions. A onetime donation was not nearly as beneficial as a lifetime supporter, and Kitty wanted those lifetime supporters.
She yanked the zipper up, trying to get her shivering under control. The dress fit okay, but narrow straps held up a draped bodice that was just a hair too big—Kitty would have to remember to stay upright.
Rich people, she thought with some disgust, and as she did, she saw the strong line of her jaw jut out from beneath the skin in soft relief. She’d have to take deep breaths, settle her face before she went in. She knew from experience that the grasping, greedy bunch inside would have spent months—and millions—planning their jewelry, their impeccably tailored wardrobes. Makeup and hair would have been done by professionals hours before, and they would have been ferried to the Park Hotel from their Manhattan penthouses and Long Island and Connecticut mansions to a party where champagne would flow like bathwater. Kitty, of course, had no such resources. She’d done her hair herself, cringing at the heat while she hot-combed her hair as close to her scalp as she could, and her dress would need to be dropped into a mailbox before noon on Monday if she wanted to avoid a fee from the rental company. There was no such thing as a fairy godmother, not for Kitty Asare. She had to make her own transformation.
Not that I care, she reminded herself. She didn’t want to be one of them. Years ago she’d reached for the moon and fallen hard, and Kitty, if nothing else, was someone who learned from her mistakes. Hope was futile; so was depending on people.
She didn’t need any of them. She just needed their money, and she needed plenty of it. Kitty had an encyclopedic memory for names, faces and stories, and she used them shamelessly. Acquaintances became donors much faster than strangers did—and though the glitter of these people were nothing but pretty facades to an aching emptiness, their money was extremely useful.
Other than that, the thought of the opulence and the waste all left a bad taste in Kitty’s mouth. There were people only a few zip codes away who had nothing tonight, not even a bed to sleep in. There had been a time she’d been one of those people, and she’d been angry at the injustice of it, but now she chose to use what she’d learned over the years to take some of that money and funnel it to where it was really needed—to support the underrepresented, the underserved.
People like the girl she’d been.
Kitty took a deep and steadying breath. She could not think of that, not right now; thinking of what she lost and how she lost it made her stomach clench and eyes water, even ten years later. She would not be able to maintain her composure if she dwelled on it too much.
Focus, she told herself.
She looked the part, she’d dressed the part and she’d fortified herself with a meal fit for a king. She smiled, thinking of the meal she’d charged to the penthouse. t was immature, but it felt like sticking it to the Man, just a little, in a gloriously Robin Hood–ish manner. There had been another diner in the room, ordering a meal as lavish as hers had been. He probably didn’t even finish it, Kitty thought with a mixture of wistfulness and disdain. He’d been shrouded in shadow from the soft lighting in the room, but she’d been able to make out broad shoulders, smooth skin, fine, tailored clothes. Someone accustomed to that sort of life. Probably handsome, too—they always were.
A glance at the time reminded her that she needed to head over to the Grand Ballroom, and now. Experience had taught her it was much easier to sneak into an event of this magnitude a bit late, when people were liquored up, guards were relaxed, and groups were moving in and out—groups that it would be easy to slip into. She looked in the mirror. She should have taken pleasure in her appearance; the dress skimmed over her slim figure, and her makeup was done to perfection. However, her eyes looked wide and anxious—too anxious. There was an odd prickling beneath her skin, as if something were about to happen.
“For God’s sake, they’re just people.” Kitty picked up her beaded clutch. She’d stow her overnight bag with the concierge until the event was over and then stumble out to the subway to head back to Queens. She straightened her thin shoulders, set her face and clattered out the door, moving seamlessly into the group of well-dressed, heavily perfumed people heading for the ballroom.
* * *
The soiree, Kitty knew, was a “little dinner and dance” for clients of an advertising firm that Sonia’s husband worked for. Enormous floor-to-ceiling prints and electric screens showcased what she supposed were the focuses of the firm: whiskeys, wines, a couple of luxury cars, perfumes, watches... Most of the women in the room wore gowns and cocktail dresses in deep greens and maroons and golds, echoing the runways of that year—she’d at least got that right.
Her mouth went dry as she identified several people she knew—well, not personally, but she knew of them. Page Six, the society columns—TMZ, even. She needed to find Sonia, and she needed to do it now. She pulled out her phone and shot the older woman a quick text message:
Hi, heard from a little birdie that you’re at the Laurence & Haddad event tonight! Are you anywhere about? Would love to say hello. :)
She hit Send, knowing it was probably futile. The fifty-two-year-old matron barely knew how to turn the thing on, and Kitty was fairly positive she wouldn’t have it out at an event like this one.
&nbs
p; Suddenly she felt tired, and prickles of what felt suspiciously like embarrassment heated her neck, bit under her arms. It was the dreadful, suffocating self-consciousness of a person who didn’t belong, and it would choke her, if she let it. Audacity was probably the defining characteristic of girls who were successful at this, and normally she had plenty. Tonight she didn’t know what was wrong with her. Perhaps it was the heavy meal she’d had earlier. She tossed her head and lifted her chin, determined to overcome it, then she saw him.
The man from the dining room.
She’d seen him for only a few minutes before clearing out of the room to dress, but she certainly had noticed him—it was hard not to. Now that he was standing and she could see him from head to toe, she felt that same, almost involuntary, prickle of excitement, beginning at her scalp and blossoming down.
He was big and solidly muscled; the simple black tuxedo he wore created sleek lines from broad shoulders to a narrower waist. He was drinking champagne from a glass and surveying the room with a critical eye; he looked as if he did not quite approve of something.
She would not call him handsome; his features were too irregular for that. However, he was undeniably attractive, something that was unsettling for Kitty. She remembered the dark, heady gaze he’d directed at her from his table, and she swallowed, then gathered her wits and began to walk toward him. When she was close enough, she stopped and used the full battery of her eyes on him. “Hello,” she said simply.
When the man turned and looked at her, Kitty experienced such a surge of unexpected warmth that she felt quite weak. The warmth was chased by panic when she looked at his face. She was now able to make out features, far sharper than the hazy impression a candlelit dining-room had left. Close up...
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