“For karaoke!” She folded her arms. “You’d only be humiliated in front of one old man who won’t even care who you are.”
“Fine, chicken.” Her grim-eyed response made his grin widen. “You just have to sing solo in front of the guys, Molly, and Thea. Song of my choice.”
“Done.” She set her alarm, then pulled the door shut.
Noah put his hand on her lower back as they moved to the limo, and that was when Kit realized exactly how bad a choice she’d made with this dress. That sexy vee at the back? It meant his rough, callused fingertips would rasp against her skin each time he placed his hand on her back—and no matter the dip in her stomach, the shiver that wanted to ripple over her skin, she couldn’t tell him to stop.
If she did, it would make them appear stiff and awkward in photos. That would spark far more rumors than if they acted naturally, one friend agreeing to act as a date for a family event of the other. So she’d suck it up and deal with the fact that in spite of her decision to move on, the chemistry was stronger than ever, electricity crackling over her skin.
“So,” she said once they were in the limo, the soundproof privacy screen up, “remind me of everyone in your family.”
Bracing his arm along the back of the seat, he undid the buttons on the tuxedo jacket and turned toward her, the crisp white of his shirt stretching across his chest. “My father is a criminal lawyer—Robert.”
“Not just a criminal lawyer,” Kit interrupted. “He’s a pretty big deal, right?”
“Yeah. He’s a shark.” A shrug. “Mom’s Virginia, a political lobbyist turned lady-who-lunches; she sits on countless charity boards to salve her conscience for having no moral compass.”
Kit frowned. “Why are you always so hard on your mom?” He didn’t get along with his father, but he always seemed far angrier at his mother.
A faint smile that wasn’t a smile at all. “Because I’m an entitled brat.”
“Noah.”
“Katie,” he said in the same tone. “Forget about my fucked-up relationship with my parents—it’s a hellhole of no return.”
“What about Emily? Will she be there?”
“No, she’s away at school.” A real smile at the mention of his sister. “My aunt Margaret, the one who’s spearheading this gala, is my father’s much younger sister. She lived with us when I was a child.” Shadows darkened his eyes. “Margaret didn’t want them to send me to boarding school, but she was only a kid then, still in high school, so she couldn’t stop them.”
The smile returned before she could say anything.
“But that worked out all right—met Fox my first day at the school.” He ran his hand through his hair, messing up the neat strands and exposing a hint of the song lyrics tattooed on his inner wrist. “Aunt Margaret used to visit me once she was in college and could come down without my parents knowing. After she went to Europe for her postgrad, she sent me postcards and letters, presents for no reason.”
A pause, his next words quiet. “She got sick soon after that, was in the hospital for a long time. My parents wouldn’t let me visit except during official school vacations, so we didn’t have as much contact when I was a teenager, but she never forgot me.”
As his parents had forgotten him, Kit completed silently, hurting for the gifted, lonely boy become a rebellious teenager. Making the conscious decision to follow a happier thread, she said, “How did you and Fox end up roommates?”
“The school was full of rich kids,” he told her, not seeming to realize he was brushing his fingers over her nape.
Kit let it go rather than turning it into a big deal, though it was causing goose bumps up and down her body.
“It was exclusive and out in the middle of nowhere,” Noah continued, “lots of trees and playing fields. But they had this policy that no matter who your parents or grandparents were, you had to share a room.”
“Some parents must’ve complained.”
“Sure, but the school wouldn’t budge, and it had serious high-powered parental support. In the end, most people came around, because the school pitched it as networking from an early age.”
Laughing, he shook his head. “I used to say bullshit until Abe pointed out how many of our schoolmates are now in politics, law, other positions of power. I kid you not, one of the kids I used to get into trouble with doing illegal experiments in chemistry is now a head honcho at the NSA—we had a drink last time he was in town.”
“Talk about contacts!” Kit said with a shake of her head.