“Nothing weird. It looks like she checked every single ‘interest’ box. Art, music, theater,andfashion, plus everything else under the sun.” He peered up at Adrian, a grin tilting the corners of his mouth. “Fortunately, you’re a total snob. I’m sure you’ll fit right in at whatever bullshit charity events she wants you to impress people at.”
Adrian bit down an objection, contemplating the potential arrangement as he finished his dinner. Maybe it wouldn’t be worse than his relationship with Nora. She’d paid the bills, handled all the business of selling his paintings, and demanded very little in the way of emotional engagement. In return he’d managed the house, let her dictate their social life, and—until two weeks ago—been so absorbed by his art that he failed to notice her cheating on him. It could have continued indefinitely if she hadn’t saved someone else’s nudes to their joint photo account.
Tom stopped typing and shut his laptop.
“I’ll think about it,” Adrian promised him. “Maybe I’ll contact her tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Tom conceded. Too easily.
“What?” Adrian said with deep alarm. He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling his heart rate pick up along with his anxiety.
Tom beamed at him, his dark brown eyes cheerful again.
“You have drinks with her tomorrow at seven to discuss a date to the theater. She’s open to paying a thousand a week. Her name’s Caroline Sedlacek.”
Chapter Three
Caroline—if she was using her real name; Adrian wished he had not—was late. She’d left it to him to choose the place, which made sense if she’d just moved to the city. He’d selected this lounge because it was attached to a hotel, where nobody local could happen to see him meeting someone off a sugar-baby site. He took a seat where he could see the entrance and keep an eye on the crowd at the bar. When Adrian ordered a glass of ice water, his server gave him a dirty look and promptly abandoned him.
As Adrian waited, he caught himself shifting uncomfortably in the plush velvet armchair and willed himself to stillness. He barely remembered this part of dating. He knew he’d been on bad dates in his twenties. He had been stood up. Women had gone to the restroom and not come back. It had been years though. He wasn’t used to sitting alone in a freshly ironed shirt in public anymore, feeling painfully on display and a little tawdry.
This wasn’t really dating, he reminded himself. This was business. It wasn’t terribly different from bringing over a painting to some lonely divorcée’s mansion and staying a few hours to praise his patron’s interior decor. He’d been willing to do that if it helped close a sale: go socialize with someone buying art, role-play Sandro Botticelli to their Lorenzo de’ Medici for the benefit of their ego. Still, he thought,I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.
Adrian was about to leave a couple of dollars on the table in compensation for the water and the space he’d occupied when Caroline finally arrived. She entered in a rush, shaking precipitation off hair that looked golden blond rather than platinum in the dim light of the bar. She halted at the host’s station, scanning the room and giving him a chance to absorb the fact that, no, her profile picture wasn’t old, and neither was she.
She was very tall for a woman, almost as tall as he was—and at six feet, he never felt short—but her shoulders were tight and bunched together. She wore a cheap blue floral sundress over a long-sleeved white T-shirt and black leggings, an outfit that didn’t quite work for either the scene or her spare, leggy frame. Caroline turned until her gaze landed on him, and after a visible deep breath, she approached, her big white running shoes squeaking on the polished tile of the floor.
He didn’t have to make a decision about standing, kissing her cheek, or shaking her hand, because she dropped into the seat on the other side of the table before he could slide his feet back underneath him.
Up close, he could tell he wasn’t mistaken about her age. Her thick straight hair was cut off in a matronly bob just above her shoulders, which did nothing to flatter her round cheeks and pointed chin, but she had to be at least ten years younger than him. Maybe more.
Caroline’s large green eyes—vividly lovely, though ringed in too much black pencil—narrowed at Adrian as he realized he had yet to speak. He instinctively sat up straighter. The entire effect of her presence was that of an angry adolescent cheetah: long limbs and natural grace inexpertly deployed. She nearly vibrated with agitation.
She waspretty, he belatedly noticed, because nothingabout how she was dressed or the entire situation had prepared him for that. As pretty as any woman he’d ever gone out with on purpose.
I hate this a little bit less.
“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” he asked, not realizing until the words left his mouth that he would sound like he was complaining that she’d been late. Not that it really mattered; she didn’t look apologetic, despite her evident nerves.
“There’s nowhere to park around here,” she said, her voice carrying a thick, syrupy Texas accent he rarely heard outside the movies.
“You drove? To Copley Square?”
She didn’t dignify that with a response, looking him over the same way he had appraised her. Adrian hoped that her inner critic was kinder than his own. He should have led with a compliment, because he ought to have been thanking his lucky stars that he found her attractive.
He closed his eyes. This wasn’t starting well. He would have been a lot smoother with the fiftysomething socialite Tom had promised than a woman he might have looked at across a bar under different circumstances.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, dusting off his manners.
“Sure,” she said. “Thank you.” Her expression was still guarded, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her for that.
Without any prompting, she dug into her large yellow shoulder bag. It was nice, but too old for her, something a woman twice her apparent age would carry. She came out with a credit card and passed it over to him. He looked at it uncomprehendingly for a long second, absorbing only that her name actuallywasCaroline.
Oh, right. She was going to pay for things. That was thereason he was here. Shame prickled along his cheekbones.
“What would you like?” he managed.
Her lips pursed. She wasverypretty, just poorly styled, and her mouth was full and heart-shaped. If she was at all impressed with him so far, she wasn’t showing it.
