Cupid smiled tiredly. “Thank you.”
“I’m just sorry you had to use it like that.” And then, because he couldn’t stop his perpetual need to explain and cover his ass, he went on with, “Matthew and I were together for more than five years. We worked together for part of that time at Pickering Jones. As with most relationships that flame out, things were good at first. Then Matthew was fired for alleged embezzlement that is still being litigated. I refused to resign in protest, and that’s when everything started to go downhill.”
“Tale as old as time,” Cupid said, finishing his toweling off process, then moving so he could put the now glittery towel across the seat, like he was concerned about spoiling the leather.“Boy meets boy, boy falls in love with boy, boy gets fired, then throws a fit because other boy won’t leave what I assume is a lucrative dream job for boy.”
Desmond almost laughed. “Some parts of that are right.” The lucrative part, at least. Dream job? Not quite. “We’ve been done for months,” Desmond went on. “Since before Christmas. If you think hiring a singing Valentine’s telegram is bad, you should have seen what he did at New Year’s.”
“Do I want to know?” Cupid asked, one immaculately shaped eyebrow raised.
“It was a pun having to do with ‘dropping the ball’, and I changed all the locks and security codes in my home the next day.”
Cupid’s eyes went wide. “Did he assault you somehow?”
Des’s gut did another, strange lurch. Everyone else he’d told the story to had laughed. Cupid sounded like he would defend his honor.
“No,” he answered, “but he was…insistent until I was able to get him dressed and out of the house.”
“God, this guy sounds like a creep,” Cupid said.
Des’s gut shifted again. “Everyone said we were perfect together.”
“Everyone is a wanker.”
Desmond smiled. His heart beat too fast and hard against his ribs. He was out but not particularly proud, and he never, ever did things like this, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Would you like a drink of some sort, er, Cupid?”
Cupid laughed. “It’s Javier, actually. Javier Rivera.”
Javier reached across to shake Desmond’s hand.
“Desmond White,” Des said. Javier’s hand was cold, but it was large with graceful fingers, and his handshake was firm and businesslike. “I thought I’d detected a slight accent. Spanish?”
“Sí,” Javier said with a smile. “Well, sort of. Mum is British. I’m from Oviedo originally, but I’ve been in the UK since I was eight and Mum decided she’d had enough of my dad’s philandering ways.”
Desmond nodded as he let go of Javier’s hand. “I can make you a coffee, if you’d like.”
Javier’s beautiful, dark eyes widened. “In a car?”
Desmond grinned. “It’s not a car, it’s a limousine.” He might have been showing off a little as he shifted toward the back and pushed a button to reveal a compact Nespresso machine. “If you don’t mind my asking, what is a man like you doing covered in glitter, aiding and abetting nefarious exes in Valentine’s Day shenanigans?”
Blessedly, Javier laughed instead of being offended. “Trying to save my agency,” he answered over the annoying noise of the machine.
Des turned to glance at him as the rich scent of coffee filled the air. As he did, he caught Hassan’s eyes in the rearview mirror…just before the man pushed the button to raise the privacy partition.
Des’s face burned hot. Whatever Hassan thought he was doing, he was not that kind of man. Matthew was the sort to seduce an innocent, unsuspecting passenger, not him.
“Agency?” Des asked, followed quickly by, “Milk and sugar?”
Javier seemed amused by the whole situation. “Both, please,” he said, staying formal and polite. “And I own a modeling agency. I never would have branched off into singing telegrams, but the client, Mr. Evers, is a friend of one of our models, Gordon. Well, one of our former models. The two of them arranged the whole thing between them, and fool that I am, I allowed it. Then Gordon canceled at the last minute, so—” He gestured to his damp, impressive, glittery body.
“So, you don’t usually do singing telegrams?” Desmond asked, preparing Javier’s coffee, then handing it over to him.
It was a sign of how chilled Javier was that he took the cup gratefully and cradled it in his hands. The way he sat, slightly hunched and still looking a bit drowned, made Desmond want to crank the heat up even more. He would hate it if Javier Rivera caught a cold.
“Unfortunately, we need the money,” Javier said, breathing in his coffee steam, then blowing on the cup as if it were a ritual, before taking a sip. “I wasn’t really part of the decision to take the assignment, but because Gordon was under contract with me at the time, and because he’s a halfway decent guy, I said yes. Then he called out this morning because he found himself another job and another agency, and like I said, we need the money, so….” He paused, then said, “I shouldn’t bore you with my problems.”
Something tense and frustrated flickered through Javier’s expression. Desmond studied the man with fascination. He had obviously been a model himself. He had the sort of alluring, model attractiveness that Des had seen in a hundred fashion magazines before, not that he made a habit of reading fashion magazines. He might have recognized Javier if he did. Either way, there was no denying that the droopy Cupid sitting across from him was drop-dead gorgeous.
“I can imagine that running a modeling agency would be a challenge,” he said as Javier drank his coffee. “Anything in the arts or creative industries is a massive challenge these days.”
