Vanderhees. He began striding toward his parents, and Selina sipped her champagne.
“If a dance opens up,” she drawled to him, savoring the parting shot, “let me know.”
Another glance over his shoulder. A bit of wariness in his eyes now.
Gold-digger, she wanted to tell him. That’s the word you’re tossing around now. Wondering if someone with money going after another person with money counts as being a gold-digger.
From the tight smile he gave her again, Selina knew Luke had arrived at a conclusion. One that involved keeping far away from her. One that cemented Holly as someone to avoid.
Perfect. The last thing she needed was a nosy neighbor.
And she highly doubted he’d be coming over to ask for a cup of sugar anytime soon.
Another task now off her hands and her path cleared a bit more.
Selina sipped her champagne again and surveyed the bejeweled crowd. Sensed the men circling like sharks, debating how to approach her now that Luke had yielded her attention.
People will see what they want to see, Talia had told her. Give them the illusion. Become the illusion. And never let them know, even when you are long gone. Even in your triumph.
Selina watched a young trust-fund-looking man decide to close in on her. She offered him that little smile, draining her champagne and setting it on the bar behind her.
The young man sauntering up, a haughty angle to his chin, wasn’t much to tempt her. But the Piaget watch glimmering in the low light, just peeking out from beneath the dark sleeve of his tux…oh, that was a beauty.
Rich men and their watches. Another thing Talia had made her study. She’d never asked Talia how she’d learned herself. Who’d taught her. Talia had never volunteered it, either.
So Selina had learned the status symbols that women wielded and the ones men used to declare to each other that they were as wealthy as kings.
But that twenty-thousand-dollar watch on his wrist was nothing compared to the ten-million-dollar painting that waited for her in this museum.
Luke Fox would certainly need a lot more champagne before the night was through.
* * *
—
Luke could barely focus on the conversation he was having. He kept scanning the room, listening for any whisper of alarm. Nothing.
His two prep school friends—Elise and Mark, now running their own joint hedge fund—were debating the merits of which reality TV show was the worst to watch. Luke drowned it out, as he often did when their conversations skewed toward the absurd. A skill both Elise and Mark took pride in. Enjoyed.
But half listening to their banter was better than his dad not-so-subtly sending Luke to the bar to get his mom champagne, hoping he’d run into at least one of the young women of which his parents had approved.
At least he’d avoided the few older women who stared at him like a piece of meat, whose devouring glances he’d never been able to stomach or grow used to.
Still, he’d never ordered a drink faster—only to wind up next to Holly at the bar.
He’d seen that creep CEO she’d been dancing with. They’d match perfectly.
He’d given his mom her champagne, then made a beeline for his friends, standing together by the window, as they usually did. As the three of them had done at every school party and event while growing up.
Their own little unit, inseparable. Even if Mark, who he’d known since seventh grade, had been secretly in love with Elise for years. But Elise, who was likely the closest thing Luke had to a best friend, had no idea.
Elise, golden-skinned and dark-haired, smiled at him as he approached, but didn’t pause her arguing with Mark.
Mark, however, seemed unaware of anyone else in the ballroom with Elise in front of him, only occasionally breaking his focus to drag a hand through his blond hair.
That focus, however, finally broke when Mark turned to Luke. “You’re quiet tonight, man.” A frown crossed his face, his brown eyes fixing on Luke with a piercing intensity different from the way he’d been looking at Elise. “Everything okay?”
Elise sipped from her champagne, watching Luke over the rim of the glass. While Mark was usually direct, Elise knew when to observe, when to wield silence as effectively as words.
After a heartbeat, she said to Luke, “You kind of look the way you did that time in junior year English when Mr. Bartleby said we had to compose love sonnets for the midterm paper.” Genius, Luke might be; poet, he was definitely