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“How did you convince him to go without you?” I had asked.
She had smirked. “I’m a princess.”
Sterling fetched a large red velvet box from the dresser. This one contained a necklace made of platinum, with circular brilliant blue stones—not sapphires, nor aquamarines, but a wintery, pure blue—with three small diamonds dotting the underside of each one, alternating with a small round-cut diamond trimmed by a blue-stone bead. “I saw it a few weeks ago. It reminded me of you.”
A few weeks ago had been a different world. “Does it still suit me?”
“More than ever.” He slipped it against my neck, kissed my skin lightly.
“Flatterer,” I said with weak humor as his hands slid over my left hip.
“The truth is the truth,” he assured me.
I looked at my reflection. “What is the stone?”
“They are called benitoite. And you look beautiful wearing them. Even if I hate this dress.”
It was a wretched dress. “What a coincidence, I hate it too. Who’s the one that accepted the invite to this conservative black-tie event?”
He bit my neck very, very lightly. I reached up and pulled my fingers through his hair and along his shaven jaw.
If I’d thought the art gala events were stuffy, tonight’s event promised to be even worse. Sterling had, in fact, pulled out his most conservative and traditional tuxedo: classic black single lapel, peaked collars, black waistcoat, white shirt, black bowtie, and shoes so polished they were mirrors. Everything Sterling wore was tailored to within an inch of its life, but this tuxedo was a full twenty-four hours beyond its sell-by date. The harsh color and sharp lines paired with his pale skin and angular features made him look too severe. His only testament to rebellion were the mother-of-pearl cufflinks.
My dress of muted mauve and green-tinged tawny gold gently hugged my curves and left my shoulders exposed. Mint had said it toed the line, but I’d refused to wear the dowdy forest-green thing he’d initially suggested. I did have to wear opera gloves, and I’d been schooled in the absurd etiquette of said gloves. The French manicure was for the occasions when I had to remove my gloves. And I had to wear spiked heels, except they were boring, and had been custom-dyed to match the dress.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said, turning me around in his arms. “Things will be different this time with my parents.”
Cerys and Garrett would also be at this party. By rights I should have been a nervous wreck, but apparently I only had a finite capacity to feel emotions of any kind, and all circuits were busy feeling other things.
The “exhibition” part was exactly one painting that the host had recently acquired for a small fortune. The concert part was chamber music with an elite quintet that was in the US doing a tour and had been hired to serenade the event. It struck me as more than a little ridiculous.
Because I was supposedly quite the art aficionado, I had done my homework and researched the particular painting, the artist, and the general period in art history. This painting was in a completely different league from the uterus painting, so I didn’t feel like a complete tool for watching several hours of video lectures. I still had mixed feelings about attending what was basically the painting’s social debut.
Burian had been right: trading cards for the ultra rich.
We stepped out into the living room and I suppressed a wistful sigh. Everyone else was settling in for a night of pizza and nighttime gameshows from Asia. Burian was setting up some extremely elaborate board game thing involving what looked like a castle gate complete with working trapdoor, and Cye played with a little cannon that lobbed little balls at the trapdoor.
I wanted to sit around and eat pizza and watch foreign gameshows while playing with that castle-game.
“We’re leaving,” Sterling told them.
“Wow, you two look like a couple of stuffed marlins fit to hang over a mantle,” Jun said. “Where’s the fancy funeral?”
That summed the whole thing up.
In the elevator, Sterling rubbed his head like it hurt.
“So who is our host?” I asked his reflection. He had not yet told me why we were going to this shindig, nor why it seemed to aggravate him.
“Nobody I do business with. He’s into politics.”
“Then why are we going?” Sterling didn’t touch human politics, and his father avoided it as far as I knew.
“I went to school with his son, Rory.”
“So the son is a friend of yours.”
Sterling shifted with annoyance. I knew that look by now. Someone had a hand on his collar and he couldn’t bite his way free, so he had to submit. “Did your parents ever make you tag along with them to something and there was one other kid there, and the adults expected the kids would play together and entertain themselves?”
