Chapter 3
three
. . .
One advantage of having spent the better part of a decade walking runways around the world was that Javier had a wardrobe filled with high fashion clothing, from casual to formalwear.
Some designers considered it payment in full to let models keep their clothes, which had sounded nice when he was new to modeling, but didn’t pay the rent at the end of the day.
Javier didn’t want to think about the rent, even now.
Especially now, with maybe one month’s financial cushion for Rivera Talent in the bank.
Maybe. But he was glad that he had exactly the right outfit to wear to a gala concert.
He’d been thinking Wembley Stadium and some super popular headliner who had sold a billion albums, either recently or within the last thirty years.
But when Desmond White texted him the details, it turned out the concert in question was the London Symphony Orchestra and the venue was the Royal Albert Hall.
“Wow! You look fancy,” Maisy said when Javier came out of the tiny office in the space he rented for Rivera Talent dressed in Armani. “Off to deliver another Valentine’s Day telegram?” she added with a teasing smirk.
Javier was not amused. “Too soon,” he said, shaking his head and striding across the small front office space to fetch his Burberry overcoat from the closet.
That one hadn’t been a payment or a gift.
He’d spent his first commission payment as an agency owner on the lush coat.
He’d been craving one for years, and what better time was there to splurge than the dazzling dawn of a new business endeavor?
He wished he’d saved his money in some interest-bearing account instead. He could use that infusion of cash now to dig himself out of the hole Rivera Talent was slowly sinking into.
“I’m meeting a client at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall,” he lied as he shrugged into the coat. He didn’t know why it bothered him to admit he had a date. Probably because it wasn’t actually a date. It was more of a fake-boyfriend gig.
He caught his reflection in the full-length mirror tucked in the corner of the main office.
At least he looked damn good. He wore just enough make-up to accentuate what his mama had given him but not quite so much that his face shouted “gay!” with capital rainbows.
Desmond’s ex would probably eat his heart out when he saw his sort of replacement, but Javier hoped he’d get a chance to dazzle with his wit instead of just his looks.
“Really?” Maisy asked, making a face. She already had a perpetually awkward and confused look, which she enhanced, deliberately or not, by wearing a colorful mishmash of what she called “vintage finds” that had probably come from all the wrong sort of charity shops.
“That isn’t where I would expect the luminaries of the fashion industry to hang out on a Friday night. ”
Javier glanced in the mirror at her as he reached for a silky, white scarf to wind around his neck. “This is a different sort of client.”
“Oh,” Maisy said, her expression almost comically knowing. “So it’s come to that, then, has it?”
Javier made an impatient noise as he turned away from the mirror. “It has not come to that,” he said. “It will never come to that.” He remembered Desmond had said something astoundingly similar in the limo. It made his heart beat faster.
“We do have the energy bill to pay,” Maisy told him coyly as he crossed to the door. “It’s a bit more than we were expecting. Maybe a slap and a tickle would cover it?”
Javier winced. Maisy was joking. At least, he hoped she was joking. It wasn’t that he’d been expecting it to be easy to run a modeling agency, he just hadn’t expected it to be so hard.
“Take the rest of the day off, tía,” he told Maisy as he gripped the door handle.
“It’s past five already,” Maisy told him as he opened it.
“Then take tomorrow off,” Javier said teasingly.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” she said as he left the office with a wave.
Maisy might have been eccentric, but Javier loved her.
She’d been a stylist at his last agency while studying for her law degree, and she had taken on styling duties at Rivera Talent as well as admin work.
She didn’t always get things right, but she was unfailingly loyal, to the point of accepting less compensation than she should have, despite Javier’s insistence.
Which was more than some of the other talent he’d originally signed could say, um, Gordon.
Rivera Talent’s office was a fair distance from the Royal Albert Hall.
Javier and Desmond had been texting back and forth for the last two days to coordinate their not-date.
It took two Tube lines and a short walk in the breezy, damp, February evening to make it to the entrance of the Royal Albert Hall, but the journey gave time for Javier to get into the right headspace for his date of convenience.
Desmond was waiting inside the lobby, which was already filling with men and women who looked as expensive as Javier, but who probably weren’t acting a part. Javier didn’t care about any of them, though. One look at Desmond, and everything else faded into the background.
Outside of his office setting, in a suit that was tailored to perfection, Desmond was a snack in every way.
He seemed softer than the other day, and the hint of nervous anticipation in his eyes before he spotted him had Javier’s blood rushing to all the best places.
Desmond might have been an important financial wizard, but the anxious way he held himself made Javier want to rush in and take care of him like he’d never taken care of anyone before.
“You look fabulous,” he said as he approached his fake date. “Someone knows how to choose a suit that fits their body type.”
Desmond looked startled at the compliment. He glanced down at himself for a moment, then back up at Javier. He seemed far more interested in looking at Javier than himself. “I suppose it’s a bit self-defeating to say that Matthew picked out all my clothes.”
Javier tried not to grimace, but mostly for Desmond’s sake. The ex had really had Desmond in a relationship stranglehold.
“Where it came from doesn’t matter,” he said, giving Desmond one last sweep of his eyes. “You look amazing, and that’s all that counts.”
It was more than just the suit. Desmond was handsome as fuck in all the classical ways. He’d eased up on the hair products for the night, which gave his chestnut hair just a bit of curl. Javier wanted to run his fingers through it, preferably while the two of them were horizontal.
He sucked in a quick breath and scolded himself for those intrusive thoughts. It really had been too long, but that didn’t mean it was okay for him to go there mentally with the man who had asked him out for a very specific and delicate task.
Maybe afterward, if everything went well.
“The reception before the performance is this way,” Desmond said, seeming to snap himself out of his own thoughts after looking Javier up and down for a very long time. He gestured toward the lush, gilded staircase near where they stood.
“Lead on and I shall follow,” Javier said with exaggerated poshness.
Desmond smiled. Javier liked that smile.
Something about it was sweet and soft, and also unfamiliar, like the man didn’t smile all that much.
If the brief stories they’d shared in the limo were any indication, Desmond probably hadn’t done a lot of smiling when he was with Matthew the Ex. At least not in the last few years.
Javier made up his mind to do what he could to keep that smile on Desmond’s face for as long as was possible as they reached the top of the stairs and headed into the large room, where a modest-sized, overly elaborate party was already underway.
Another benefit of his time as a model was that Javier had been to parties exactly like that reception.
He recognized the type of middle-aged and older men and women in clothing that cost more than most people’s rent and enough jewels to solve world hunger.
He could make out half a dozen scents of high-end perfume and cologne as they walked across the room so Desmond could greet one of the organizers of the event.
He even caught snatches of the same conversations that these sorts of people had every time they got together—the stock market, international trade, golf, and how abhorrent “the poors” were.
“These are your friends?” Javier asked, leaning closer to Desmond after they’d done their duty and said hello to the host and hostess.
“God, no,” Desmond muttered back. “These are the people I do business with.” He managed to inadvertently prove his point by smiling and nodding his head to a white-haired old matron wearing a collar of diamonds to try to hide her loose, wrinkled neck. “Good evening, Lady Averley.”
“Ah, Desmond,” the matron said, sliding up to him as if there were cameras rolling.
“How lovely to see you here tonight, dear. I wasn’t certain you would make it considering you know who is certain to be here.
” She winked at Desmond as if they were old college chums and she knew everything that was happening in his life.
“How could I possibly stay away when I knew that you would be here, Lady Averley?” Desmond replied to the woman with a tight smile.
Lady Averley laughed and rested her hand on Desmond’s arm, but Javier could see the strain in Desmond’s eyes.
A twist of protectiveness raced through him.
Just because he’d dealt with these people before and knew how they played their game didn’t mean he liked them.
Men like he was beginning to suspect Desmond was needed protecting from the sharks.
“Always the charmer,” Lady Averley said. “But then, your sort always are amusing. Is this your new boy toy?” She gave Javier a lascivious look.
Yep, Javier definitely didn’t like the woman.
“This is Javier Rivera, owner of Rivera Talent,” Desmond introduced him.