I looked back at Ethan, his gaze on Tate, and saw a strange look of covetousness on his face. That's when the gears clicked into place.
I knew Ethan wanted access to my father and those of his ilk. Our attempt to keep the raves out of the press was a handy means toward building that connection. But the raves and the story aside, Ethan wanted access to Tate. Access that Tate hadn't, at least until now, been willing to provide.
"You should say hello to our young mayor," Ethan said.
"I've already said hello," I said. I'd met Tate twice before. That had been plenty.
"Yes," Ethan said. "I know that."
Slowly, I slid him a glance, my eyebrows raised. "You know that?"
Ethan sipped his champagne. "You know that Luc researches his guards, Merit, and that he did his background on you. I've reviewed that background, and I can read the Tribune as well as anyone."
I should have known. I should have known they'd have found the article, and I should have known Luc would have given it to Ethan.
I'd been home for a long weekend during my junior year at NYU. My parents got tickets to the Joffrey Ballet, and we'd run into Tate outside the theater, where a Trib reporter snapped a shot of Tate and me shaking hands. That's not the kind of thing that would have normally been picture-worthy, except for the fact that it almost perfectly mirrored a Trib picture of us from six years earlier. The first time around, I'd been fourteen with a bit part in a big ballet production. Tate had been a young alderman at the time, two years into law school. Probably to make inroads with my father, he'd delivered flowers to me after the performance. I'd still been in costume - leotard, tutu, pointe shoes and tights - and the photographer caught him in the middle of handing over a paper-wrapped bouquet of white roses. The Trib reporter who caught us at the Joffrey performance apparently liked the symbolism, and both shots ended up, side by side, on the local news page.
I suppose I couldn't fault Ethan for thinking ahead, for milking every drop of opportunity, but it stung to play middleman again.
"Humans are not the only political animals," I muttered.
Brows lifted, Ethan glanced over at me. "Is that a review of my tactics, Sentinel?"
Shaking my head, I looked back at the crowd and, surprisingly, found appraising blue eyes on me. I smiled slyly. "Why, no, Sullivan. If you have the perfect weapon, you might as well use it."
"Pardon me?"
"Let's see how well I can act, shall we?"
Before he could ask what I meant to do, I put on my brightest Merit-family smile, straightened my spine, and sauntered over to the mayor's throng.
His gaze following me as I moved, Tate nodded absently to those around him, then steered his way through the crowd and toward me, two men in stiff suits behind him.
The entourage was not a turn-on, but I appreciated his decisiveness.
Tate didn't stop until he reached me, blue eyes sparkling, dimples perked at the corners of his mouth. Political upstart or not, he was undeniably attractive.
We met in the middle of the room, and I guessed, given his quick glance behind me, that Ethan had followed me.
"Ballerina," he whispered, taking the hands I held out to him.
"Mr. Mayor."
Tate squeezed my hands. When he leaned forward, pressing his lips to my cheek, a lock of soft dark hair - worn a little longer than generally thought appropriate by Chicago's more conservative voters - brushed my cheek. Tate smelled like lemon and sunshine and sugar, a weirdly ethereal combination for a city administrator, but delicious all the same.
"It's been too long," he whispered, and a shiver trickled up my spine. When he pulled back, I glanced behind me, saw enough fire in Ethan's emerald eyes to feel vindicated, and indicated him with a negligent hand.
"Ethan Sullivan, my... Master."
Tate was still smiling, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. He'd been excited to see me, for reasons lascivious or otherwise. He was clearly less excited to meet Ethan.
Perhaps he had been avoiding encounters with the city's Masters. And here I'd gone and forced it. On the other hand, there's no way my father wouldn't have mentioned that we were planning to attend the party - that was information he wouldn't have been able to keep to himself. That was warning enough for Tate, I decided.