Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the buildup, the moment before a lie leaves my mouth.
Small lies are a reflex. A jolt. A downhill sprint with my heart racing and the wind in my hair.
Big lies are different. Standing across the street from Beluga Brew, I’m strapped in and hauled to the top of a roller coaster of my own design. Click, click, click. Before the drop. Before the freefall.
Holy shit. I’m going undercover, and I’ve got half an hour to become someone else.
The rush rises so fast it feels inherited, half Mom’s love for undercover work, half my father making a liar out of me.
Focus, Marcus.
I cross the street before I can lose my nerve.
Evie dressed me for expensive taste on a cheap bank account, which apparently is a tight button-down, a clean shave, and my hair styled within an inch of its life.
I push the door open.
Beluga Brew looks like a British pub that got bought by a wellness cult.
The bar is brass taps of nitro cold brew with a backlit wall of glass jars holding their crazy mushroom dust and lion’s mane.
Some angel investor probably gutted a perfectly modern interior just to bring in distressed wood and overpriced nostalgia.
I take a seat at the bar-height railing by the window with a view of the street and the ideal angle for him to see me flipping through a portfolio full of “my” sketches.
Alistair Blackwood is San Francisco’s self-declared patron saint of starving artists.
He says he supports the ones who catch his eye, and it just so happens the only ones who do are all hot, talented men.
Evie says I qualify as the more important of the two. My body’s always been my best costume. It helped me get the job. Now it will help me do the job.
We’ve embellished my talent so much I’m afraid to touch pencil to paper, so I leave the tip hovering just above the page. Every sheet is already filled with a masterpiece commissioned from some real artist.
Evie’s assignment repeats in my head: make contact and get him to invite me to his party. Everything else comes later.
This is my shot. My apartment. My future. One perfect lie away from cracking everything open. I dab sweat from my temple and glance at the time again.
7:44. Nineteen minutes.
I flip to the page Evie dubbed “Ichabod Thirst,” a limbless male torso with every vein and every muscle rendered in excruciating detail.
If Evie thinks it’s hot, Alistair might too. I can’t deny it took talent to bring the image to life. A stranger even cranes to look, then retreats to the counter when I catch him staring. Good. That’s the bait.
Nine minutes.
I let my pencil hover as if I’m lost in the work while I rehearse lines.
I’m going to bump into him and ask for a coffee recommendation.
Evie says to pretend I don’t know who he is, even though I’d argued every artist in the Bay would recognize San Francisco’s billionaire fairy godfather of the arts. Maybe I—
My legs are bouncing, and I force them still.
I need to be someone who both deserves and needs his patronage.
Four minutes.
Someone orders a “neuroconductive cacao latte,” and I nearly laugh. Focus, Marcus.
What if he’s not punctual? What if I got the wrong day? What if he walks in, sees me, and walks right back out?
The stranger at the counter goes still with his phone halfway to his mouth. Then the woman behind him looks toward the windows.
He’s here.
Alistair Blackwood strolls toward the café in Query’s prototype matte-black techwear, the iridescent panels shifting from navy to oxblood as he moves.
The vintage Cartier at his wrist flashes when he lifts a hand, and I recognize it the way I recognize the coat: from three candid shots, one staged charity photo, and too many hours studying him.
Two bodyguards in suits ghost him across the street, scanning ahead to clear the world a half step before he needs it.
Alistair walks into Beluga Brew, and the café rearranges itself around him. The barista shuts off the steam wand. The woman beside me lowers her sunglasses.
I stare at my sketchbook, careful not to block his view of the sexy torso creepshow. I’d expected his arrival to feel cinematic, with music fading or time slowing. Instead, it’s as sudden and brutal as grabbing an electric fence.
He heads for the counter, murmuring into an earpiece without breaking stride. Coffee won’t interrupt a busy CEO. In the blink of an eye, he’s past my spot by the front window, waiting impatiently while one of his bodyguards orders.
What was I thinking? I should have picked a table closer to the register, where he’d have a chance to see my sketchbook for more than a split second, but it’s too late now.
One stupid decision means I’ve got a single chance left to engineer my run-in with Alistair on his way out.
I lift my head too fast, and our eyes lock.
Alistair stops mid-sentence. His eyes are steel gray, refined into a weapon that pins me like a nail through paper. Every heartbeat he holds my gaze, my throat ratchets tighter until the world is reduced to the pounding in my neck.
In that instant, the greatest thing separating us becomes clear. It isn’t the money or the wardrobe or the power.
It’s that he knows exactly who he is.
I’ve never felt that in my life.
His mouth curves into a thin smile, curious, amused by some little puzzle he hadn’t expected. One bodyguard hands him his drink. The other holds the door, and Alistair gives me a small, precise nod as he steps through it.
I break eye contact but can’t help the free fall from happening now that I’ve climbed all the way to the top: a sick lift in my gut, the rush, then the shame right on its heels. He’s gone.
No contact. Not a word. Not even a polite, normal-human hello.
I blink down at my sketchbook and catch the lingering trace of expensive citrus cologne. The noise of the café returns all at once, with steaming milk, clinking cups, overlapping voices, and a gasp from my own lips.
My first ever undercover assignment.
Make contact. Fuck.
Get him to invite me to his party. Double fuck.
I lunge forward before dignity can stop me and crane over the table to peer out the window. I’m too late. My mark has already come and gone while I sat here slack-jawed over my first billionaire sighting.
It isn’t fair. There wasn’t even time to tell a lie, let alone sell one.
What do I tell Evie?
Breathe, dammit. All that matters now is whether I get another chance, but something tells me those steel-gray eyes won’t forget my face.