Emma took a deep breath, turning back to the mirror.
She knew what Montgomery was expecting tonight. It was the same thing Margo was expecting, apparently. But it didn’t help clarify what Emma actually wanted tonight at all.
Get a hold of yourself, she mentally chided as she straightened her shoulders. She had never been nervous around guys before, and she wasn’t about to start now. It was fine, she was fine, and more important, she was in control.
She decided on the jumpsuit.
Montgomery had told Emma that the party started “when everyone showed up,” which made his request that she arrive early a bit of a conundrum. Thankfully, since she had arranged for the caterers to arrive at six and the DJ to be set up by seven, she knew she could safely arrive at eight without cutting it too close.
The house was already buzzing with activity when she arrived. The front door was open for the caterers as they filed in and out with equipment, but she still rang the bell, holding her cashmere coat close to her body as she waited.
It was a long minute before Montgomery arrived, lazily approaching the entranceway. He was dressed up in a blue velvet tuxedo jacket and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned low to reveal his smooth chest. His black pants were tight and highlighted a pair of snakeskin boots. Emma tried to discern if it was perfect or entirely too much.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he said, opening the door a bit wider so she could enter, but not wide enough that she didn’t have to brush against his body to walk into the foyer.
She began to take off her coat, but Montgomery was there before she could finish, pulling it off her shoulders slowly before throwing it over his arm. He came around to face her then, smiling as his gaze went down her body.
“You look good enough to eat.”
She laughed. The sound rang fake in her ears, a way to disguise her nerves as she stood there under his intense gaze.
“So, do you want the tour?” he asked.
“Not unless you want to give me one.”
“Oh really?” he replied.
“Well, the Crawfords are friends of the family, so it’s not my first time here.”
“Ah.” He offered her a lopsided grin. “But it’s your first time with me.”
Emma smiled back, her pulse thundering in her ears as he led her forward, his hand on the small of her back.
The foyer opened up into the living room, and Emma had to admit that Margo was right: Montgomery had transformed the place. The Crawfords had defined their home by how much they could fit within it—layered rugs and numerous sofas, coffee tables piled with books and walls covered with photographs of their extended family—but the space was now white and sparse, with only two black leather sofas facing each other. On the wall above them was a huge canvas crowded with every color imaginable, a patchwork of graffiti and dripping paint and a random stencil of JFK in the center. Wait…
Oh no. It couldn’t be…
“It’s a Max Betrug,” Montgomery said, nodding to the canvas.
Oh God. It was.
Emma tried to smile, working so hard to bite her tongue, she thought she might taste blood. From the size of it alone, she knew it must have cost a fortune. It was also just… not good. A mess of color and paint by a street artist who was revealed to be fake, a persona created to be trademarked and licensed and… there was no way Montgomery didn’t know that, right?
But when she turned back to him and saw how he was staring at it like he had impressed even himself, Emma realized that she was apparently very wrong.
Don’t be a snob, don’t be a snob.
“What about the rest of the house?” she said brightly, already moving toward the hall.
The dining room in the back of the house was buzzing with activity. Waiters with trays full of canapés were positioning themselves in the corners, with more coming up from the kitchen on the lower level. The dining table had been moved to the side and there was a bar set up, with bartenders preparing bottles and glasses.
Beyond them was the conservatory, a large glass cage that revealed the sun disappearing behind the building beyond the back garden. The room had been cleared except for a DJ booth, where a man with pink hair frowned down at a large board of slides and turntables, testing the speakers that had been placed in each corner.
The conservatory doors were open to the garden, as Emma had suggested, and everything there seemed ready, too. Tall heaters were positioned around different groups of chairs scattered across the yard with fairy lights strung above.
Emma smiled to herself. It was perfect.
She turned to tell Montgomery as much, but instead her gaze snagged on the double doors just to her left. They were open,and for the first time she noticed the freshly painted white room beyond. Emma remembered that room. Or at least a darker, more cramped version of it. When it had been Mr. Crawford’s office, it was defined by crowded bookcases along the walls and heavy green velvet curtains on its tall window. He used to have a huge mahogany desk in the center, so large that she could hide beneath it while he and her father chatted, pretending not to hear the small secret spy giggling at their feet.
