It was true. Most of the friends I’d made in college were still there. Why would I leave to start all over again?
It was simple, if I could have told the truth, but only Jared knew that I put myself through school, working three jobs my freshman year and then becoming what amounted to a glorified babysitter for the son of a real estate mogul, Robert Clayton, for the three remaining years. It was, in fact, one of the main reasons that Jared had hired me at Torus. He had ferreted out a secret I had never been willing, or actually able, to tell.
My first year living in Berkeley, in resident housing, even living with three other guys, my rent was still over a grand a month. There was no financial aid for me, my academic scholarships took a bit off, but not much, and between all the various jobs and working at all hours of the day and night, I was getting no studying done. Something had to give.
I went to a circuit party with one of my roommates one night, because he was going to bank on the assets that genetics had given him. It seemed like an easy choice to make, so I thought I would too. I was gay, and the men seeking companionship for the year were all gay or bi. How could it be a difficult arrangement? Room and board in exchange for sex. These were rich men who didn’t want to procure an escort every time they were in town. A discreet arrangement suited them better. It was just business.
The man who joined me on the deck, as I stood and admired the view of the Bay, was handsome and charming, and after we’d talked for a while, he asked me to dinner. I said yes, and he was surprised when I offered to buy. I told him that from the look of his suit, he needed me to. It turned out I was wrong; he was dressed badly, yes, but only because he had no clue about fashion, and he was certain I could help him. It turned out, he’d been at the party not because he was gay and looking to be a sugar daddy, but instead because he was looking for someone tasteful and urbane who he could put on his payroll in another capacity altogether.
Pearce Clayton, his son, was twenty-five, spoiled, rich and entitled, and needed a keeper to help shed his playboy image and transform him into a capable, respectable adult ready to take the helm of his father’s San Francisco business. If I agreed to move in with Pearce and become his mentor, I would be paid handsomely. His father didn’t trust anyone in his son’s circle to corral him, as all his friends and confidants were, in his words, debauched sycophants concerned with only their own self-interests.
“You don’t think he has any real friends?” I asked him, studying the man. “That says a lot about him, yes?”
He nodded. “Wealthy men have very few real friends. Everyone has an angle.”
“That’s awfully jaded.”
“Perhaps,” he mused, smiling at me. “But it’s true.”
“Do you have friends?” I asked, checking to see what he thought of himself.
“A few who have been confidants for years. New ones are harder to trust, and since my divorce, the women that come into my life are even more suspect.”
“That’s a hard way to live.”
“It’s a safe way to live.”
I was quiet, sipping my wine and savoring the meal I was having with him in a restaurant where even the house salad was out of my price range.
He leaned forward, his gaze heavy on me. “This is why I want to pay you, Croy. Because if I’m paying you, and I know that you need the money to live, then trust is assumed, as you’ll be in my employ.”
“Of course.”
“I need my son steered in the right direction.”
“You want someone to spy on him.”
“No,” he assured me. “I need far more than a spy. I need him to see you and hear you and listen to you. I want someone to be his shadow, someone who will make sure that his choices are good ones, until he learns to make them himself.”
“You don’t want him to embarrass you.”
“I don’t want him to jeopardize my business interests.”
“Then why put him in charge to begin with?”
“Because he’s my son.”
“You don’t have other sons?”
“Daughters.”
I scoffed in disgust. Pinning his legacy on his male child? What kind of medieval thinking was that? “And you don’t want them in control of your business because, what, they might marry and give away everything you’ve worked for?”
He shook his head. “You misunderstand. Both of my daughters head their own divisions of my company. I just need Pearce to catch up.”
I cleared my throat because, okay, that was good. I liked it when I misjudged people and was then corrected. The surprise was novel. “You said you want him to make good choices. About what? Not business, because I’d have no access to that.”