Dammit, he’s withdrawing. Maybe we should have talked about this earlier. Now wasn’t a good time for him to become frosty.
We drove in silence the rest of the way. At one point, my eyes caught Liam’s in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t understand his message. He didn’t explain further, so whatever it was, he didn’t want Kit to find out.
“The trick is to stick as close to the truth as possible,” I told Kit as Liam pulled into the driveway of the Youngs’ residence. Several cars were parked in the courtyard.
We’d had to make a completely new persona for him, since it wouldn’t go over well with the company we would be in should anyone find out he was a prostitute. He’d been so excited about creating Kit 2.0, and I’d agreed to his suggestion of him being a caregiver at a cat café. He came alive when he talked about cats. It was better that he stuck to what he was familiar with than to come up with a new profession. He was more likely to mess up that way.
Liam slowed down, trailing behind a black Mercedes with a familiar license plate.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kitson Pusey,” he answered. We’d used a combination of his real name and his mother’s maiden name, so if anyone tried to look him up after, they would hit a wall.
“Age?”
“Twenty-two, although I don’t understand why I couldn’t just be twenty.”
“It’s a more socially acceptable age for the people we’ll be socializing with.”
“At least publicly,” Liam said. “Don’t let these assholes wearing a suit make you uncomfortable, Kit. Underneath, they are some of the worst people you’ll ever meet.”
“He’s right.” I reached for Kit’s hand and squeezed it. “You’ll do just fine.”
He did better than fine. I needn’t have worried whether he was up to the task. The instant we entered the ballroom, he commanded attention. He stayed by my side, and if it felt right to have my hand on the small of his back, I chose not to think about it too much. Not tonight. Not that I had the time to dwell on it, what with the many guests who made their way over for an introduction.
The guests weren’t the only ones who Kit snared with his charm and beauty. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He glowed while he performed. And a performance was exactly what he rendered. He came alive around other people. With his natural smiles and bubbly personality, he pulled people in effortlessly.
Except the one man I wanted to get close to. He noticeably kept his distance, circling the room. Between watching him to make sure he didn’t disappear and monitoring Kit, I didn’t enjoy the hors d’oeuvres as much as I would have liked.
When dinner was announced, I offered him my arm to escort him to the dining room. He placed a trembling hand on my arm.
“You’re magnificent.” I had to lower my head to whisper directly in his ear. “They’re all in love with you already. Just follow my lead.”
He smiled up at me, and those devastating dimples almost tripped me up.
“Lucky bastard.” Someone slapped my shoulder, but I didn’t bother to look who it was.
“I’m good now,” Kit said.
We sat across from each other at the dinner table. I’d have preferred him sitting next to me, but I had no control over the arrangement. He was sandwiched between a businessperson whose name I couldn’t remember, but he owned a lot of real estate in the city, and a woman with shoulder-length hair and a drunken laugh. Between the two, he didn’t have a moment to worry. They kept him in an endless stream of conversation.
While he entertained, I kept Saint Lamont in my vision at all times. The forty-four-year-old man owed my client several hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he’d been shying away from paying his debt. He avoided all the obvious places where my client frequented, but he never could resist showing up for high society events like tonight’s dinner.
“My good man, where did you find such a lovely boy?” Monty, the mayor of Blenheim, said from my right.
“Where he came from, they’re all out.”
He laughed. “All right, then, keep your secrets. Is it serious? The relationship.”
“We’re exclusive if that’s what you mean.” I clenched my fork. The mayor wasn’t the only one who kept staring at Kit. He’d been perfect for this dinner, as the Youngs were notoriously queer, enjoying thirds and even fourths in their union; their friends were mostly the same.
Relief flooded me when dinner was over, and we returned to the ballroom. Of course, it had nothing to do with me having Kit back by my side and everything to do with him having made it through dinner without mishaps.
“That went better than I’d hoped.” He tugged at my hand, his smile wide, and his eyes glittering like he’d had too much to drink. “Let’s dance.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Don’t be silly. You told me only one glass.”