They’d taken my instructions to see, and be seen—and heard—seriously.
I was going to ask Brig if he wanted me to clear the room, but before I could get the words out, Chase was there, all over him, wanting to know what had happened. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and stared into his eyes.
“Shit,” Dallas groaned under his breath, behind me, and when I turned to look at him, he winced, like hearing Chase fire questions at his friend was painful. “It is sort of obvious, isn’t it?”
It was awkward to watch, was what it was, and I was certain some of the discomfort could have been relieved by Brig answering the series of rapid-fire questions Chase shot at him—they could always claim attorney/client privilege, if needed—but Brigham Stanton was a hundred percent distracted. He wasn’t even pretending to give Chase his attention and was, instead, mesmerized by the man standing in front of one of the windows, staring down at the Strip.
“Brig,” Chase rasped, pained that he couldn’t get his friend’s attention, let alone get him to meet his gaze. I heard his voice shake as he took matters into his own hands—literally—and put them on Brig’s face, forcing him to look at him.
It didn’t work. Brig’s head might have turned, but his eyes stayed riveted on the man standing at the window. That was Eric Foster. When Brig took hold of Chase’s wrists, prying them away, never sparing him a glance, I watched Chase deflate.
Eric, for his part, had turned when we walked in, his dark brown eyes gliding over me, then Dallas, before returning to Brig, settling there for long moments. His arms remained crossed, only those deep, liquid eyes moving before he pivoted back and became, once more, a study in solid, immovable muscle silhouetted against the glow of the lights below.
Brig swallowed hard, took a breath, and then darted away, crossing the room, acknowledging no one. His singular objective only to reach Eric. Once there, he took hold of his bicep, and when he got no response, he pulled, turning his caretaker around to face him.
The man’s scowl was impressive, it would have easily intimidated anyone who didn’t know him and left them backing away from the potential threat of it, but Brig wasn’t bothered. He grinned crazily and then laced his fingers with Eric’s. When he tugged gently, Eric followed. They walked out of the room to the next closest one, which just so happened to belong to me and Chase. Eric closed the door behind them.
It wasn’t one of those Hollywood moments where everything stopped. There was no hush that fell over the crowd; it was doubtful anyone even stopped what they were doing to notice what Brig had done. In the grand scheme of things, it was a minor event…unless you were Astor or Chase.
Crushed didn’t do justice to the look on Chase’s face, and he staggered over to the bar where Kent was still pouring. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
Astor stood, with all the purpose and dignity she possessed, and walked toward the room she was supposed to share with Brig, and I followed, making it to the room just as she began grabbing things out of drawers and packing her suitcase.
“You lied to me,” I said, instead of hello, instead of asking if she was okay, going to the closet to retrieve her garment bag for her.
“I’ve been doing it a long time, playing this game,” she agreed, smiling sadly, her tone rueful, resigned. “But I did make it clear that he wasn’t my fiancé.”
“Yes, you did,” I agreed.
“I told him that I would play my part as long as he never made a fool of me,” she explained, her tone stoic, flat. “Well, now he has, so I’m done.”
“I don’t think everyone noticed.”
“I assure you it’s being shared and tweeted about as we speak.”
“Probably,” I conceded, because there were no secrets anymore.
“I’m done pretending, anyway.”
“Why do it?” I was interested. People did all manner of things for money, power, but Astor didn’t need Brig’s money, and I’m sure she possessed a certain amount of power in her own right.
“First,” she began, waiting as I laid the bag down on the bed, unzipping it before returning to the closet, “being with Brig put me in contact with a slew of influential business people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. People with money to burn, who love to throw vast sums of cash at causes, in the name of altruism. I’m not ashamed to admit that the organizations I oversee benefitted immensely from that.”
I was quiet, wanting her to go on.
“Second,” she continued, placing clothes in the suitcase, “I gained even more solid social contacts than business, and you know as well as I do, it’s not always what you know, but who.”