Page 3 of Prince of Lies


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“Uhh, actually.” I swallowed. “Is there any way to get a name tag with a different name? Like, I dunno, let’s say… Rowe?”

“Rowe.” The lady blinked at me. “Sir, this ticket is in the name of Sterling Chase. Is it not your ticket?” Her eyes shifted to the security personnel standing nearby.

“I… I…”What would Sterling Chase do?I stuck my chin in the air and affected the most obnoxious rich-person accent I could muster. “Of course it’s mine, my dear.” I smiled winningly. “Yes, indeed! It’s just that I like to…” I coughed lightly. “Play pranks on my friends! It’s quite common amongst billionaires like myself. Sterling Chase is a notorious prankster. Ask anyone who knows him… er,me.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, and I felt a bead of sweat drip down the back of my neck.

“B-but obviously, it’s no problem for me to simply… be Sterling Chase. Since IamSterling Chase. So sorry to trouble you.” I took my name tag and made a big show of affixing it to my pocket, then gave her a stiff bow. “I bid you good night, lovely lady.”

I quickly walked past her, following the crowd dressed in millions of dollars of couture fashion.

Sweet fucking fuck.It was possible that Joey had a point about my nervous babbling.

“Bonjour, Mika, darling!” A woman nearby gave air-kisses to another woman before flashing perfect, bright-white teeth. “How long has it been?Eons. I haven’t seen you since Joplin’s wine tasting in SoHo.”

I resisted the urge to rub my damp palms against my thighs, feeling immediately and hopelessly out of place. My magician’s tux felt too tight despite being at least a size too big, and I doubted the name on my badge was the fakest thing in the room.

This glittering, champagne-bubble world was not one I’d ever dreamed of navigating, growing up in rural Indiana. In Linden, the richest family around were the Timmonses, who owned the local chicken operation, and Bucky Timmons hadn’t put on airs despite his dad always driving a tricked-out Ford F-350 that was never more than three years old. The only things I knew about the ultra-wealthy came from reality TV and the grocery store tabloids my mother sometimes read.

Now here I was in New York City, trying to get my project funded before I ran out of money entirely, which meant connecting with people as disconnected from my reality as aliens from another planet. And, I noted, hardly any of them were wearingtheirname badges.

I ducked behind a “Support the Coalition for Children” sign propped on an easel, took a deep breath, and used my fingernail to remove my name badge—or tried to, anyway. The damn thing snagged on the shiny material of Joey’s tux. The harder I tried to pick at it, the more it refused to budge, and I was afraid I’d end up destroying the tux if I kept trying.

My pits were noticeably wet by that point, my forehead damp with perspiration, which meant my curls were probably bouncing all over the place. I needed to find the man I was looking for before I ended up looking like a demented clown and smelling like something worse than Fritos.

I stood on tiptoe so I could peek over the sign to scan the crowd, but I didn’t see anyone who looked like Justin Hardy’s picture on his website because that would be too easy.

“You’re not going to find the handsome billionaire by hiding in the corner, Prince,” I grumbled to myself. “Get out there, pretend rich people aren’t incredibly intimidating, and get this done.” I tugged my tuxedo jacket down, set my shoulders back, and stepped out into the crowd of laughing socialites with an entirely put-upon confidence.

Immediately, someone bumped into me from behind like I was invisible, shoving me into the sign and setting it rocking on its flimsy stand. I grabbed it, terrified, but ended up knocking it off its perch and overbalancing myself at the same time. My foot came down on the sign—the slippery,slipperysign—and while my other foot dangled in the air, I sailed several feet across the black marble floor, only stopping when I managed to catch myself on a support pillar and duck into a shadowy alcove behind a potted fern.

“Good. Fucking.Fuck,” I panic-panted, bending over with my hands on my thighs so I could catch my breath.

Lay low, Joey had said.Be a quirky billionaire.I wasn’t sure skateboarding across the shiny floors of the Museum of Modern Art on a charity poster was what he’d had in mind.

Who knew fundraising galas could be so damn dangerous? Who knew one human could be so freaking awkward?

I hadn’t injured myself, though, so that was an improvement. I straightened up carefully and assessed the situation. No sprained muscles. No need to call an ambulance. Not even a rip in the tux. Best of all, no one in the crowd on the other side of the plant even seemed to have noticed, so I could still blend in—

“Impressive dismount,” the deepest, sexiest voice I’d ever heard said from behind me, laughter lurking in every golden syllable. “But I’m afraid you’re going to need to find your own potted plant to hide behind. This one’s taken.”

TWO

BASH

I was supposed to be climbing Mount Kinabalu this week.

I’d been prepared for some physical discomfort, for long days navigating unfamiliar terrain and communicating in a foreign language, but I relished the challenge and unpredictability of extreme adventures. Climbing icy peaks, diving out of airplanes, and rafting turbulent rivers pared a person’s existence down to their most important qualities: intelligence, courage, strength of will. That was what made them fun.

Then I’d made the mistake of answering my mother’s phone call.

One brief convo later—“Sebastian, darling, the Dayne family has donated hundreds of thousands to the Coalition for Children over the years. Your father and I are in the South of France and can’t possibly attend, but it wouldn’t do for us to snub the organization at their largest annual fundraiser. Can’t your trip wait?”—my expedition to Borneo had somehow morphed into a world-class guilt trip.

Oh, there was still physical discomfort, alright, but in the form of a stuffy tuxedo. And there were communication challenges, too, like explaining (repeatedly) that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, an amazing new investment opportunity, or to get anyone’s kid a job at Sterling Chase just because I happened to sit on the board of directors. My existence had been pared down to what was most important inthisworld: my bank balance and my connections… and it was the opposite of fun.

In fact, this gala was a fun wasteland, where everything was black and white, cold and flat, and nothing new or exciting ever happened.

As I stood in a small alcove off to the side of the MoMA’s elegant reception room, trying to coax my brain cells back to life after a mind-numbing conversation with Constance Baxter-Hicks about her topiary garden, her eligible, gay nephew Patrick, how much Patrick loved topiaries, and how desperately she’d like us to grow topiariestogether, I decided I’d reached the upper limit of my boredom tolerance. Since I wasn’t leaving for Borneo, better to get some rest so I could focus on work in the morning.

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