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“What am I getting paid?” I asked, cutting to the more important issues. It couldn’t all be about the clothes.
There was a pause, as if he hadn’t expected me to ask. Well, if I was going to be stuck working here for a while, I was going to set myself up, and others. I still needed that house for my mother. It wasn’t like I could collect after the building had blown up.
“What do you want?” he asked, sounding slightly amused.
“There’s a house I’m looking at. I think it’s receiving multiple offers, so I can’t give you an exact price yet, but I need to get a bid in soon.”
“Done. Text me the address and it will be handled. I’ll be there at nine.”
I stared at the phone. That had gone way easier than expected, and I had just the dress.
He pulled the car up in front of a mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The moon was low on the horizon, and warm lights spilled from the squared lines of the home, the glass windows showing right through to the back of the house. The two-story entrance teased at my brain as if it were something long forgotten. I’d seen so much architecture like this that it was probably just familiarity.
The valet opened my door, and as I stood outside the house, people flowing in and out around me, that feeling of knowing this place grew even stronger. This wasn’t a familiarity with an architectural style, but as if I knew this specific house.
Kaden walked over, laying his hand on my back.
“Where are we?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible, which was hard when I was nearly choking on the boulder lodged in my throat.
“Some musician’s house. Our mark is going to be here tonight.”
Breathe. Just keep breathing.
“Is our mark the musician?” There was no doubt that I still had a heart in my body, even if its only purpose was to pound away at my ribs.
“No. Some executive that’s supposed to be in attendance.” His gaze was intently focused.
When I was sixteen, I’d sat in my room while my mother slept one off, and watched a show on homes of the rich and famous. I hated home shows, but I’d watched for one reason: I wanted to see where my father lived. I’d watched as he, his wife, and his daughter gave a tour of their home. They’d laughed and made bad jokes as they moved from room to room. My sister’s suite was bigger than the entire apartment we’d been living in at the time.
The final shot of the episode, the one that was forever scarred into my mind, was their saying goodbye from the front of this house. My father had one arm wrapped around my sister’s shoulders and another around his wife’s as the shot panned away. In that last second, right before the camera cut away from them, my father had looked at my sister like she was the crowning glory of his accomplishments. That was the very last time I’d watched anything about him.
My mother barely remembered me. My boyfriend didn’t answer my calls. If my father, of all people, was here, he’d be the last to cling on to my memory. He’d been trying to forget about me since the day I was born.
“Is there an issue?” Kaden asked, his voice a little softer than I was used to.
My father was my past. He didn’t deserve to have any sway over me or what I did.
“Not at all.” I’d go in, do what I had to, and get out.
Kaden didn’t look convinced.
I took the first steps toward the house, refusing to acknowledge there was a problem, because there wasn’t.
The place was so packed that any worries of being discovered eased. It would be easy to disappear into this crowd. Still, I scanned it, looking for familiar faces to avoid. No reason to take any chances. If they were here, they didn’t appear to be in this room.
Kaden nodded toward the bar area. “See that man standing in the corner, surrounded by beautiful women?”
I scanned the area he indicated and found an attractive man in his early forties. He looked as if he were holding court, deciding whom he’d bed tonight and then discard come morning.
“He’s very wealthy, on the board of five different tech companies, each of which he helped start.” He pointed across the room to an older lady, elegant gray hair piled upon her head and with cheekbones that would mark her as a beauty until the day she died.
Kaden leaned closer, talking softly. “That woman runs a cancer charity. The only reason she socializes at all is to encourage donors. That man needs to write her a substantial check by tonight.”
“So I need to go tinker him?” I asked, trying to keep my focus on Kaden’s words and not his nearness.
“No. They have to interact. You need to bring them together.”
Two? I had to coordinate dual tinkering? Didn’t he know I was a newbie?
