Behind him, looking far less comfortable in his blazer and jeans, a silhouette that could only be Neil. The blazer, I suspected, was Clarissa’s influence. He still wore his hair long and loose, still looked every inch the biker.
Darrell put his arm around Natasha and pulled her close. Neil swept Clarissa right off her feet and into a kiss, and Jasmine and I awwed in unison. Whatever problems they were having, the four of them still made insanely cute couples.
I exchanged looks with Jasmine: And we’re on our own. It wasn’t like I minded—I was used to being the single one. But I was glad she was there with me.
Inside, there were waiters with trays of champagne flutes and canapés, a band and many more people than I’d been expecting—at least a hundred. Everyone seemed to be either a leggy blonde in her twenties or a white-haired, rotund man in his fifties—the high society types Darrell knew from charity fundraisers. I could see now why Natasha had wanted Connor to even things out a little—it could have done with Connor and about twenty of his friends. Speaking of which…I looked around, but couldn’t see him anywhere. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t stand out. He probably couldn’t be bothered, I thought with relief. Relief and maybe just a tiny hint of disappointment.
“What about him?” said Jasmine’s voice in my ear. She gently turned my head to show me who to look at. He was in his early forties, at a guess, with black hair dusted with only a little silver at his temples. Short for a guy—barely taller than me—but in better shape than most of the other guys there, with an ex-athlete’s physique. Attractive, in an older man sort of a way.
“What about him?” I asked. Did she mean what do you think he does? “I don’t know, is he a CEO or something? Something corporate?” I craned my neck round to look at her, and that’s when I saw her expression.
She hadn’t meant “What about him?” She’d meant “What about him?”
“Are you kidding?!” I said, as loudly as a whisper would allow. I turned my back to the man. “He’s old enough to be my—”
“Don’t exaggerate. He’s barely over forty. Anyway, I thought you might like that.”
“A sugar daddy?!”
“Safe. Responsible. Knows what he wants in life. Tell me that isn’t close to your wish list.”
That threw me a bit, because it was eerily close to my boyfriend features list. “But he’s….”
“Don’t think of it as him being old. Think of it as enhancing your youth. Just think how amazing you’ll look in ten years’ time, at 31, when all his friends’ wives are 41 or 51. Of course, they will all hate you.”
I stared at her. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”
She smiled, and I saw that she was—or at least as serious as she ever got about anything.
“I am not going to talk to him,” I told her. Then wondered why she kept glancing over my shoulder and smiling.
No. Surely she wasn’t—
“Hi,” said a voice behind me. A voice that I just knew went with silver temples.
“Hi!” said Jasmine, doing her big-eyed, honored-just-to-speak-to-you look. “I’m Jasmine. This is Karen.”
“I am going,” I said between gritted teeth, “to kill you.” And then, because I was too polite to do anything else, I turned around and smiled at him, just as Jasmine knew I would.
“Kurt Barker-Ross.” I got the impression that I was meant to react to that, but I had about as much knowledge of New York high society as Neil did. I settled for nodding politely.
“Karen’s a musician,” Jasmine told him. Then, before I could stop her, “A cellist.”
I saw him do the thing. The instinctive reaction all men have when they find out you play the cello. He stared at me, and I knew he was picturing me with my legs spread. I saw a smile touch the corners of his lips and could feel myself bristling.
“Let me get you another one of those,” Kurt said, taking my glass.
As he turned to pluck a full one from a waiter’s tray, Jasmine whispered in my ear. “Be nice! Maybe he’ll ask you to play in his basement, like Natasha!”
“That was completely different!” I whispered. But then Kurt was handing me a full glass and, to my horror, Jasmine excused herself and left.
Kurt smiled at me, and I told myself that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. I had no intention of dating him, let alone sleeping with him, but everyone was always telling me I needed to get out more. If I could brace myself and carry on a conversation like a normal human being, even if I didn’t particularly like the guy, that was good practice. Right?