“Of course. Anything to eat? I recommend the croissants. They’re made with butter our baker imports from France, and they’re delicious.”
I smiled. “Maybe another time.”
While she prepared the drink, I scanned the room for my client but didn’t see anyone wearing a pin matching mine. I always liked being the first to arrive. It gave me the chance to get used to the surroundings and prepare to meet the client.
“That’s a pretty pin,” the barista said as she took my card for payment.
“Thanks.”
I grabbed a table by the window and waited, occasionally rubbing my finger over the textured key pin on my lapel.
Elite Connections. We matched desires and exceeded expectations. That was the goal that drove us forward and made us ridiculously successful and wealthy for a mostly unknown toddler company.
We owed our success to anonymity. You couldn’t offer a concierge service to the wealthy without discretion.
And the need for anonymity had brought me to meet my new client here. I didn’t know anything about the client, but Veronika had at least honored my one request for a discreet location.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see my brother’s name across the screen.
“Hey, Wren, what’s up?”
“Hey, how’s my favorite little brother?”
“Hmm…that sounds a lot like you’re going to ask a favor.”
He gasped. “It hurts that you’d think that of me.”
I chuckled. “You’re right. If you needed something, you’d get Tom to call me instead.”
There was a short silence on the other side before he continued, “I just wanted to see how you’re doing. I missed seeing you when you came home for the holidays.”
My brother had married Tom seven years ago, just before Christmas. I never thought I’d see my former pro-football player brother back in Chester Falls or married to the sparkliest, funniest, and kindest man imaginable.
Tom was also the designer of my jacket, and he’d kill me if he saw the hole caused by the pin.
“How was the vacation, by the way? I missed hanging out with little dude.”
“You know those amazing inventions called airplanes? You can use one to come home more and hang out with your nephew. He misses you too.”
“And he said that with the five words in his vocabulary? He’s the smartest almost-one-year-old kid in the world.”
“Hey, he is the smartest kid in the world. His other dad makes sure of it. Anyway, the vacation was amazing. You know we always like to visit Lydovia in the winter, and it was a chance to hang out with our friends. Although, now that Alexi is in the US, we might see more of Charlie and Kris.”
Ahh, so there it was. He was calling to check up on Alexi, not me.
There were eight Ivy League colleges on the East Coast, all fit for royalty and within a couple of hours of Chester Falls. He could have been close to his grandparents and the place he called his second home, but no, Alexi Maxim, Prince of Lydovia, had to pickmycollege.
“If you’re hoping to get any dirt on Alexi, you’re shit outta luck,” I said.
“Why? You’re not hanging out? I thought you were friends.”
I ran my thumb over the handle of my coffee cup and stared at the foam on top of the coffee. “We’re friends, of course we are.” We’d been friends since we’d met at my brother’s wedding, but we’d drifted apart, mostly because of me.
“What aren’t you telling me, Troy?”
“Nothing. I literally have nothing to tell you. I’m busy with classes, and he’s probably busy with his classes too, so I haven’t seen much of him.”
Wren let out an audible breath. “Can you please just…make sure he’s okay? His dads are worried he’ll struggle to adjust to life there and make friends.”
