Nightmare Messiah

Monday III

         The trip to the tailor went uneventfully. Isaac paid good money to have Gage measured and have a custom made suit made for the boy in a short period of time. They had gone shopping, more precisely window-shopping, because the only thing Isaac had really purchased was the suit and accessories from the tailor. It had been a good way to waste some time. Isaac pointed out preselected sets of clothing hanging on manequins in store front windows that he thought Gage might look good wearing. Every so often he had the boy stand obediantly nearby, pose, and show himself off for someone that Isaac thought would make a good potential customer. He always gave them his business card that only had a private number on it and his name. Isaac Delaney was an expert of giving out as much information as possible in the least incriminating ways.
         That evening they had picked up the suit from the tailor, shoes, a vest, and a tie. Isaac had even splurged on a set of cheap yet expensive-looking cufflinks. Since Gage didn’t know the first thing about wearing a suit, the tailor helped him put it on, and they left the store in style, with a bag full of the boy’s other clothes. The moment they got back to the house to pick up Maddy, all hell broke loose.
         Well, Gage thought of it as hell. It wasn’t as if there was a firefight going on in the house. Down in the lounge he was greeted by whistles and catcalls from some of the resident girls. Ruby smiled at him blearily and said something entirely ridiculously that she probably hoped was a compliment. Gage rolled his eyes, but took it all in stride. He even held out his arms and turned a full circle so that the girls could get a look at the full ensemble. It was only a plain black and white tuxedo, really, fitted especially for his body shape and size. So it was sort of a flattering look for him. Isaac had insisted he wear a vest under the suit jacket, and he had picked a steel blue with a matching tie. He said it looked good with his eyes, brought out the color. Everyone else pretty much said the same thing. Particularly Maddy.
         She came down the steps wearing a sleek black evening gown. Her hair was pinned up with baby’s breath. Gage paused to stare at her, because he couldn’t recall ever before seeing her look so beautiful. In fact, he couldn’t recall ever really thinking of Maddy as beautiful. While he and Isaac had been out shopping, she had spent the better half of the afternoon prettying herself up. A whistle slipped over his lips so low that he hadn’t even heard it himself. There was no better way to describe how Maddy looked other than stunning.
         Of course, she thought that the whistle had been a jibe and frowned at the boy. She stepped over just to swat him upside the back of the head. She didn’t need to say anything, her attitude was more than enough. “Ow, hey! What?” Gage wasn’t entirely sure what he had done wrong. “You aren’t on the rag are you?”
         “Gage Sterling! That is no way to talk to a lady!” Maddy was instantly defensive and she even crossed her arms over her breasts huffily, turned her back on him. The other girls stifled giggles, or at least tried to. Ruby laughed outright.
         “Well, you know,” Gage said, trying to sound reasonable. “If you are, maybe you shouldn’t be coming with us tonight.”
         “I am not on the rag!”
         Isaac had just stepped upstairs from the parlor in time to hear all that and he rolled his eyes with a dismal sigh. “Get it out of your systems now, girls,” he said. “The moment we leave this house, your attitudes had better be changed or I’ll be picking someone else to wear your pretty dresses.” More often than not he simply included Gage into the entire girls clause.
         Gage only grinned and stepped over to lean against Isaac, who naturally wound his arm around the boy’s waist with a smile. “I am getting it out of my system, boss. And hoping she doesn’t wing a shoe at my head.”
         “She won’t do that, baby. Wouldn’t want to upset me by messing up that pretty face of yours.” So saying, he pulled the boy in close enough to kiss him soundly on the lips. Maddy huffed and stepped over to lean on their pimp’s other side. Likewise, he slipped an arm around her waist and also kissed her soundly on the lips. “Are my two favorite girls ready to woo millions of dollars out of the pockets of overachieving rich debutantes?”
         He always did that, made certain to mention that Gage and Maddy were his favorites in front of the rest of the girls. Some of them pouted and glared with an internal sense of blood-thirsty rivalry. Others smiled appreciatively, dreamily, with hopes of some day replacing them but never fully expecting to do so. “Yes, sir,” Gage responded with a suddenly adopted sense of subserviant upper-class respect. Any other time he would have joked around, played a different part, but tonight he needed to pretend to be someone else. He needed to act the part of someone he had never been – clean, rich, sophisticated, and agreeable. The agreeable part he knew like the back of his hand. The other three traits were something he was going to adapt to along the way. It was easy to pretend to be something and someone he wasn’t. He’d been trained from an early age to be a flawless actor. This was just another night on the job, money in the bank. It should be easy.
         Maddy smiled and inclined her chin daintily. She leaned away from Isaac and held up her hand, which was perfectly manicured with filed and painted nails. “Indeed, darling. I am at your service.” While neither of them talked so properly amongst themselves, they slipped into their roles with expert ease.
         Isaac took the girl’s hand with a pleased grin and tucked it in against the crook of his arm. He then gestured for Gage to proceed them, and the boy obeyed without skipping a beat. He did, however, glance over to wink at the gathered girls who were still getting ready to stalk the town in search of potential clients for the evening. He even blew them all a kiss before racing up the stairs and out to the garage. With flamboyant flair, he opened the door and bowed to his companions as they passed. He heard Isaac chuckle appreciatively and almost heard the grin in that sound.
         Every so often, Isaac hired a driver. He knew a guy who knew a guy, as the business worked, that owned his own limo and rented it out from time to time. The guy who owned the limo was also the driver on those occasions. Gage and Maddy had been inside the limo before, but never to be taken to a fancy party at some elaborate and ridiculously expensive mansion. Neither of them actually knew the man’s name, though they might have heard Isaac say it before. That didn’t necessarily mean it was the man’s real name anyway. “Good to see you again, Frank,” said Isaac. The man only nodded and opened the door for the trio. Frank, as he may or may not have actually been named, never said anything. He only ever nodded and took directions. Likely he thought it wasn’t any of his business to know anything about Isaac’s business. A smart man if that was the case. All he needed to know was that this was just another night that would put some extra money in the bank.
         Isaac helped Maddy into the back of the limo first, then he got in, and then Gage slid in behind them. Frank closed the door and let himself into the driver’s seat. The limo pulled away from the drive and soon enough they were on their way to infilitrate high society. Maddy was filled with a sense of girlish glee, he could see it in her eyes. She was excited about the possibilities, and quite likely dreaming up a fantasy of meeting a nice rich man who would buy her away from this lifestyle permanently. Hell. They all dreamed of such things from time to time.
         Whenever he was alone, any car ride for Gage was a silent one. But with Isaac it was a different story. Isaac loved to talk, to give direction, to make certain that his two companions knew their roles down perfectly to the letter. Gage restrained himself from talking too much. He viewed the limo ride as practice time. Silent, agreeable, clean, rich, subservient, interesting, alluring... He could be all those things and more, and tonight he intended on putting on his best performance.
         The mansion was precisely that in definition. It was a large estate outside of the city surrounded by high brick walls, iron gates, and an electronic perimeter that was monitored 24/7. They passed through a checkpoint gate and the limo drove up a long winding lane. There were trees everywhere on the property, a forest perimeter around the main house that was surrounded by at least seven acres of well-manicured lawn. When Frank pulled the limousine to a stop and opened the door, Isaac was the first to slide out. He offered his hand to Maddy and let her walk at his side, her hand tucked neatly into the crook of his elbow. Gage slid out after them and tipped a smile to the driver while Isaac gave the man instructions, made arrangemens on when they’d be picked up later. Pimp and whores walked as a unit of disguised sophistication that none of the other guests could have pegged as being what they truly were under their respective masks. Isaac and Maddy took the lead and Gage followed only a few paces behind them like an obedient lapdog or servant. That wasn’t particularly too far from the truth.
         They walked up a short flight of marble stairs onto a landing that lead to the main doors of the mansion. One of the doors was opened and a large man in a suit not unlike Gage’s own waited by the door to check in visitors. Isaac handed the doorman a slip of paper that was more than likely the invitation to the party. The suit took the invitation, looked it over, asked for the name, and checked off Isaac Delaney and guests before stepping aside to permit them access inside.
         Inside was a work of architectural art that Gage couldn’t have ever imagined on his own. The main hall was large enough to fit Isaac’s entire house in, or so Gage suspected. He resisted the urge to whistle appreciatively and expended a lot of effort in doing so. Men and women in expensive finery passed across the tiled marble floor in front of a flight of stairs that bordered the walls on either side, a carpeted horseshoe design that lead up to the second level. Most of the activity, where all the other guests were gathered, was taking place in an adjoining room immediately off to the left of the main hall. He happened to hear one woman whisper to another as he passed them that the name of the room was the parlor. He had to restrain another noise when he heard that, because if he compared Isaac’s parlor to this one, he would’ve said that even this room was big enough to fit the entire house in.
         The men walked around wearing black tuxedos for the most part. There were a few in white and some in varying shades of color, but nothing gaudy or flashy. All of these people were sophisticated sorts, people that Gage always suspected were too uptight and haughty for their own good, but being amongst them had him thinking differently.
Part of him felt out of place. He knew he didn’t belong here. Upper-class society was not where he belonged. While he had imagined a set of behaviors based solely on his own imagination, he realized almost immediately that all of his talent at acting wasn’t going to help him much in mingling with the crowd. The only definite separation of class he could immediately discern was the fact that there were men in white suits with bow ties and white gloves walking around carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oevres. They were also the only people present that weren’t talking to anyone else. That much was easy to figure out. They were the servants, hired staff of the evening. Everyone else was likely a guest.
         Isaac stopped with Maddy near a table that had been set up with other hors d’oevres and a pyramid of champagne glasses. He turned to whispers something in her ear and then let her wander off after he pressed a kiss to her cheek. Then he turned to loop an arm around Gage’s waist and pulled him in against his side to speak in whispered confidence. “Do you see the man standing by the piano?”
Gage searched the crowd, narrowed his eyes a bit to focus on the glossy black grand piano that was set near the wall on the other side of the room. He saw a tall man in black tuxedo that didn’t look much more important than the rest of the crowd. That man had broad shoulders and cleanly shaven face. Underneath all that finery he was probably very muscular, nothing of a body-builder type, but certainly a man who worked out every day on fancy machines. Gage wasn’t sure if his hair was black or brown, but it was cut short and neatly combed back and styled against his head. The man’s face was cleanly shaven, likely pampered to perfection by frequent visits to a day spa. Maybe he had a spa in his own house. The only thing that really made that man stand out from any of the rest was the fact that he had a bright red handkerchief, likely silk, tucked into the front of his suit jacket. Gage noticed that none of the other male guests were wearing a red handkerchief as an accessory. He decided immediately that he hated the man, but in seeing him he nodded to confirm for Isaac that he did indeed see him standing there.
         “That’s Gideon Langston,” Isaac said. Oh. Shit. Gage turned his head to look at Isaac and blinked. He felt his brows raise on his own forhead, and Isaac knew exactly what that expression said. Isaac chuckled, amused by the reaction. “He doesn’t look like much, I know. You don’t like him?” It was that obvious, and even Gage knew it. Isaac grinned, knowing he hadn’t needed to pose that as an inquiry, but he actually wanted to hear the boy say it. When a tray passed by with champagne on it, Isaac grabbed two glasses and handed one to Gage.
         A muscles in his jaw ticked, and he hesitated in his response, but Gage took the glass when it was offered to him. The thought crossed his mind that at the very least he could get totally drunk and not have to worry about it later. He looked back across the room at the man standing by the piano and studied him again while taking a drink of champagne. “He looks like an ass,” he finally said.
         Isaac chuckled again. “Sip the champagne, darling. Don’t guzzle it.” Gage hadn’t exactly realized that he had drank down half of the champagne there, and he frowned just a touch at the reprimand. Isaac turned to look across the room as well, pretending to be engaged in idle conversation, but the sharkish smile on his lips was unmistakable. Inwardly he was surveying and putting prices on people’s heads. Not prices for their life, but prices he was estimating in regards to how much any of them might pay for a night spent in the company of one of his whores. “He does look like an ass, yes. But I’m sure you’ll change your mind once you get to know him.” After saying that, he discreetly thumped Gage on the rear with the flat of his hand and walked away. That was a silent instruction for the boy to work his magic, to mingle and see if he could capture Gideon Langston’s interest.
         Gage sighed and frowned. He felt so out of place in this crowd, and even more so while watching Isaac meander away from the table. He glanced once more over at the man standing by the piano and lifted the glass to his lips to chug down the rest of the champagne. He twisted to set the glass on the white-clothed table and then started to walk the permiter of the room, toward the servant with the tray of drinks so he could snag another along the way.
         Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Maddy. She made it seem so easy. There she was chatting pleasantly with two gentleman by the bar. A bar had been set up to serve stronger and more specific drinks to the dozens of bodies that flooded the parlor. It seemed like more of a ballroom as far as Gage could tell. But then he noticed a set of double doors on the other side of the room that opened up to an actual ballroom. He hadn’t noticed before, but now he heard the quiet thrum of music. That room was much more dimly lit than the main room he was in at the moment.
         A woman in a sparkling red dress passed through one of the two open doors. She was the only girl at the party dressed in red. He noticed that, which made her stand out immediately, but there was something else about her that caught his attention. That long blonde hair, neatly combed and allowed to drift freely over her bare shoulders, was familiar. He felt a nagging sensation at the back of his mind and tried to process it while watching her disappear into the ballroom and quickly drinking down that second glass of champagne he’d just picked up. He completely forgot about Gideon Langston and why he was here. Suddenly he was overcome with a desire to follow that woman and find out who she was.
         Gage left the empty glass on the table and grabbed another champagne from a different tray on his way across the room. He dodged around the many gathered conversations and avoided knocking into anyone. It was almost as if he were invisible, he thought. Nobody else seemed to even notice that he was there, walking past them, stepping into the darker ballroom and being enveloped by the soft music performed by a small group of orchestra members in the corner on a low stage. He looked around the room and searched for the red dress. He figured that would stand out most of all, even with little light to see by. There weren’t very many people in the ballroom either.
         There were several open balconies in the ballroom, open double glass doors that lead out to half-moon platforms that overlooked the gardens below. Errant breezes teased shear white curtains into a ghostly dance that seemed to move in time to the music performed by the string quintet off to the side. He swore for a moment that he saw the outline of someone small tangled up in the dance of the windswept curtan, but when he checked again there was nobody there. He walked further into the ballroom to inspect the other balconies.
         He caught a glimpse of sparkling red when he passed by one of the open glass doors. He had almost passed her by completely, but there she was. The girl was standing in the shadowy corner of the balcony, leaning forward against the stone edge and looking down at a small hedge maze. Figures, Gage thought. The rich ass even has a hedge maze in his backyard. But there she was and suddenly he was unsure of himself. Did he actually want to step out into the open air and talk to her? Or did he just want to stand there and look at her backside all evening? He couldn’t do that, though. There was a reason he was here and fraternizing with some strangely familiar girl wasn’t on the agenda. But he had all night to work his way into Gideon Langston’s little circle and attract his interests. He could afford a brief detour, right?
         Mustering up a little courage, he sucked in a deep breath and crossed the threshold from the ballroom and out into the night. He’d never had to gather his courage before, and realizing that was disconcerting. Why was he so nervous? Gage Sterling had never been nervous before. Talking to people and getting them to like him had been part of his job, his entire life, for several years now. Why was this situation any different from the rest of them? Inwardly he mocked himself for being an idiot and reminded himself that it was just another day on the job and this woman could be another stack of bills to deposit in the bank if he played his cards right.
         “Hey,” he said, stepping up to the ledge next to her. Immediately he plastered on that charmingly irreistible smile that made him one of the best whores in the business. It was second nature for him to smile just that way. “Nice party, huh?”
         At first the girl didn’t seem to register his presence at all. For a long moment she was entirely silent and unmoving. A trickle of paranoia swept through his nerves, and he wondered for a second whether or not the girl was even really there. But then he heard her suck in a breath and let it out as a long and dismal sigh. She pushed back against the ledge and straightened her posture. “Yeah,” she said dolefully. “Great party.” She sounded so sad and dispirited. Hell. She seemed to reflect some of the things even Gage was feeling deep inside, emotions he never revealed. But there was something else about her voice, a soft and alluring voice that was neither high nor low-pitched. It was a perfectly effeminite voice that had been soothed in honey and bathed in summer twilight. She had a fatigued bedroom voice, the kind you hear from a woman after three hours of sex and a hot bath. And it was a voice he had heard before.
         Even when she turned to look at him he knew he should have recognized her, but he was having the damnedest time recalling specifically how. “Don’t I know you?” he asked. Wow. That had sounded ridiculously cheesey, like a lame pick up line.
         The girl laughed as if she had picked up on his own internal thoughts instantly, or maybe she had simply thought the same thing. Regardless, she still managed to smile. She had a smile that shined. Maybe it was just the faint trace of gloss on her lips, no lipstick, but when she smiled she created silence, as if the entire world around them had stopped and sighed to appreciate her beauty. And she was beautiful. There was no denying that. Gage felt small and ugly beside her, though they were fairly evenly matched in height and size. She had milky white skin that had been dusted by a faintly shear powder, but it was her eyes that shined the most. Pale blue eyes that seemed to be undecided on whether they should be blue or green and had fallen into agreement on being both colors all at once. He’d never been so enraptured to be in anyone’s presence as he was in hers at that moment. It felt as if time had stopped.
         “Yeah,” she said. The moment she spoke time started moving again. He blinked, a little suprised to hear her speak at all, and even more stunned by the fact that she had confirmed his suspicions. “You’re Gage, right? You probably don’t even remember me.”
         Oh wow. He suddenly felt the entire world crash down around him, heard the discord of crashing waves seeking to smother him. His perfect, glorious moment of admiration shattered into a thousand pieces. He felt the rise of heat and color in his cheeks. The moment became awkward and embarrassing quicker than he would’ve liked. In fact, he hadn’t wanted it to be uncomfortable at all. “Uh, yeah,” he said, trying to recover from the shock. Shit. He didn’t remember her, and yet she was so familiar. If only he could place her. “Right. Gage Sterling.”
         Again the girl laughed, quietly and briefly, but she also lifted a hand to try to hide her mouth behind her fingers. She probably didn’t want to embarass him or make him think she was laughing at him. He’d seen plenty of girls do that. “You never told me your last name,” she said after she lowered her hand. He was enthralled by her lingering smile, an amused smile but still so alluring. Maybe it was her genuine reality that pulled him in. There didn’t seem to be anything fake about this girl at all. “I’m Julia.”
         “Julia,” he repeated stoically. He ran that name through his mind and tried to match it up with something, anything. There had to be a file in there somewhere with her name and her face. How could he forget a girl like this?
         “Remember? Last night?”
         Hearing her say that connected like a stone fist slamming against his gut. “Oh shit,” he muttered, and in that instant the mask he had chosen to wore that night was obliterated from existance. Julia. This was her! This was the mystery girl he couldn’t stop thinking about all day. Five hundred dollars. A bottle of whiskey. He remembered waking up next to her, but before that he couldn’t recall anything at all. This was her?
         She giggled and it sounded like muffled windchimes caught on the breeze that drifted by. That breeze teased at her hair and muted jasmine lifted up into his nostrils. He drew in a deep breath of that scent and knew immediately that this was no deception. Jasmine and rose oil. That’s what it was. A faint scent that got stuck in the memory and refused to depart. He connected that scent to the color of her hair instantly. And as soon as the connection was made, he closed his eyes and saw a glimpse of the night before. He remembered the feel of her skin, her limbs tangled up in the sheets and wrapped around his body. She was soft and fragile like a rose petal, and he had handled her as gently as one.
         “It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to remember.” Her voice pulled him out of his reverie and he drew in a deep and calming breath. For the first time ever he felt absolutely horrible for forgetting someone he had slept with. She might have seen the pained expression in his eyes when he looked at her. She tilted her head and still she smiled. “It’s what you do, right? I’m sure you forget a lot of people.”
         People. She said people instead of girls. Like she knew that he also slept with men. Maybe he was just being paranoid and jumping to conclusions. He should say something. “I’m sorry.” That was lame, Gage. Just as lame as everything else he had said so far. “I mean, yeah.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “It’s just what I do. I forget people.” Shit. He should have said something other than people.
         “That’s what they pay you for, right?”
         He had never been this uncomfortable talking to anyone about the subject. Come to think of it, he couldn’t recall ever talking to any of his clients about it at all. He wasn’t comfortable thinking about it that way. He didn’t want to think of her as just another client, another mark, money in the bank. Though he had thought about her as that this morning, somehow it didn’t seem right now. It felt terribly wrong to think that way. Get ahold of yourself, Gage. “Y-yeah.” Dismayed and dumbstruck, he lifted the glass of champagne to his lips and drank the entire contents down quickly.
         Julia laughed again quietly and reached out to touch his arm. Even through the suit jacket and the shirt underneath he could feel the warmth of her fingertips. It was like an electrical current surging from her skin, bypassing fabric, and connecting to every single nerve in his body. She smiled. “It’s okay, Gage. I knew when I saw you that it wasn’t anything special. I knew what you were when I met you.”
         As reassuring as she tried to make those words sound, it only deflated Gage’s ego. It wasn’t anything special. Yeah. He needed to be reminded of that, actually. He was a whore. That’s what whores do. They sleep with people for money and it’s never anything special. Why, then, did he feel so miserably crushed about it?
         He wasn’t aware of Julia’s expression by that point. He had turned to look out over the edge of the balcony himself, pretended to be fascinated with the hedge maze. “Well,” she said. She sounded so sad still. “It was nice seeing you again, Gage Sterling.” He heard her take a step toward the doors. And though he felt he should turn back and say something to her, a stubborn streak kicked in and forced him to stay as he was. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you around.”
         So that was good-bye, then. That was it. He listened to her heels click against the marble tile floor and fade away into the ballroom. He frowned at the empty champagne glass as if it were to blame for everything he was feeling. Disappointed and sad as her voice had sounded. He’d never felt this before, a twist of knots in his gut that burned all the way up into his brain. When all he heard was the dull thrum of the mini-orchestra inside and the whisper of the breeze through the leaves, he tossed the champagne glass over the edge of the balcony. Maybe he had wanted to hear something else. The shattering of glass on the stone walk below perfectly emphasized everything he was feeling, and that only made his temper worse.
         He let out a long-suffering sigh and tipped up his head to look out over the gardens below. Maybe it was a hallucination or a trick of the eyes, but he swore he saw a glimpse of white dash into the start of the hedge maze. There was no one else out in the gardens tonight, and white was pretty easy to pick apart from the dark green of shadowed grass and shubbery.
         A little girl in a pale white dress dashed into the hedge maze. He heard a playful giggle interrupt the silence in the air. Focussing his attention, he squinted to get a better look. The girl raced through the maze as if she had done so a thousand times before, weaved her way toward the center without pausing for a second. In the center of the maze was a gold box that shined in the dark like a beacon. Once she reached the center, the girl ran up to the box and set a dirty porcelain doll down next to it. She turned to look up at the balcony. She lifted a finger to her lips in a hushing manner. Then she turned toward the box and lifted her hands as if to open it. He blinked.
         The little girl was gone. The doll was gone. The gold box was gone. “Shit,” he hissed to himself. “Screw this. I need something stronger.” He decided on whiskey and turned around.
         “How about cognac?” Gage blinked, startled when a short glass full of some amber liquid was thrust at him. The hand holding the glass out to him belonged to a man, obvious by the girth of the fingers. The voice also belonged to a man. It was deep but smooth. When he looked up at the face the hand and voice belonged to, he blinked again. Here was Gideon Langston, smiling and offering him a glass of cognac. He hadn’t even heard the man sneak up on him!
         “Uh.” Brilliant, Gage. That wasn’t the best way to start off with the charm. He instantly realized that probably made him sound rather stupid. But he could blame it on the fact that he had been startled. He cleared his throat, fashioned on a professionally charming smile, and took the glass from the man’s grasp. “Thanks.”
         “Gage, right?” The man had a glass of cognac himself, and he took a sip.
         “Yeah. That’s right,” he replied. “And you’re Gideon Langston.”
         “That’s right.” Okay. Gideon’s smile wasn’t so bad. There was something aluring about it. Something that sucked him right in. It was a smile he could both trust and fear at the same time. In some strange way that was appealing. It sent a shiver down his spine. “Isaac told me I’d find you out here.”
         Isaac knew he’d come out here? That was a surprise. Then again, he should have expected as much. Isaac kept an eye on him like a hawk to a mouse, no matter where they were, and he never knew where Isaac was! Gage recovered rather quickly from that bit of news, though. He only smiled. “Yeah. Well, I needed some fresh air.” He looked away from the man, past him, and took a sip of the cognac he was holding. It was all part of the game. Pretend to be coy and distracted. Don’t tell Gideon why he had really come out here.
         Out of the corner of his eye he caught Gideon’s smile. The man stepped away from the balcony door and over to the edge to look out over his own expensive gardens. “You could’ve picked a better spot. This view’s terrible.”
         Maybe he had been wrong with his first impression. That wasn’t a statement he expected some rich, yuppy bachelor to make. He had expected the man to comment on the expensive beauty that was his entire estate or something. Most people were proud of their luxurious properties, as if it made them better people than everybody else. “Really?” He turned to face the man and then looked out over the hedge maze again. “What’s wrong with this view?”
         Gideon turned back to smile at the boy. There was mischief in that smile. He’d seen smiles just like that a hundred times before. “You’re not down there,” he said.
         Okay. Now that was more like something he expected from a rich asshole. Gage grinned and tipped down his chin with a mute chuckle. Though he couldn’t blush on a whim, he could at least pretend to be doing so by taking another sip of the cognac. Well, that reveals the mystery of Gideon Langston’s preferences, he thought. “I take it you weren’t interested in Maddy then.”
         “Ah, Madeline,” Gideon said with an exaggerated sigh. “She’s very pretty, and delightful, but no. Not really what I’m looking for.”
         Time to work your magic, Gage. He could hear Isaac in his head telling him that, and he could almost feel the man’s eyes watching him from across the room. Whether he was in the ballroom, watching from a strategic location, or not. That wasn’t important. He plastered that winning smile of his permanently onto his face and stepped closer to lean against the balcony ledge close to the other man. He rested the glass of cognac casually on the edge and tipped his chin up to look at Gideon’s face. “And I am?” That wasn’t a question he needed to ask. It was merely all part of the game.
         From a distance it hadn’t been quite as obvious, but Gideon Langston was taller than Gage by at least five inches. Under all that finery he was probably built like a brick wall. He was pretty sure he’d be finding that out sooner than he might have liked. He suspected this man was going to end up hurting him. He was pretty good at figuring that out before he ever got to the bedroom with a person, and he was always right. Money in the bank, Gage. Remember. It’s all for the money.
         Gideon bared a grin that could have been quite frightening. It was an expression that belonged on a gorilla, one that just warned any other man of dangerous times ahead. A cold shiver raced down Gage’s spine, and then a spike of heat shot up it when the man settled his hand lightly on the small of the boy’s back. “You are exactly what I’m looking for,” he said calmly. There wasn’t any hint of seduction to the man’s voice at all. Most men liked to toy with Gage and whisper sweet nothings in his ear. This man, this Gideon Langston, spoke in a way he would to an interviewing applicant. It was all business and completely lacking in the type of business that Gage Sterling was more accustomed to discussing. He felt, for a moment, that Gideon Langston was simply looking to hire the boy as a gardener or another servant to carry around trays of champagne at the party they were currently removed from.
         The man took a sip of cognac casually and let his fingers dance up the path of Gage’s spine. He shivered from the feel of those fingers by reflex and wondered if it was a sign of things to come. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this man would actually be gentle with him. He’d never been wrong about a customer before. Never. At that point he was uncertain of himself and at a loss of words. He didn’t know what to say to the man, so instead he leaned in against him.
Gideon let his arm wrap loosely around the boy’s shoulders and smiled victoriously. “We’ll be getting to know each other soon,” he said. “But for now I want you to go back to the party. Enjoy yourself. In one hour I want you to go into the front hall. Take the first flight of stairs on the left up to the second floor. Walk down the hall immediately to the left at the top of the stairs. Enter the room at the end of the hall and wait for me there. We have some arrangements to make.” After those instructions were made, Gideon stepped away from the boy and turned back toward the balcony doors. “In the meantime, enjoy yourself. Relax. The night is still young.”
         He watched the man depart while leaning heavily against the balcony ledge. He held his breath for quite some time. He could still feel an echo of Gideon Langston’s fingers dancing up his spine. Even in the tuxedo he felt naked in the man’s presence. Only when he was completely out of sight did Gage feel dressed again. He was swallowed up by a strange feeling of being the prey in the presence of a predator. It was a sensation that frightened him and excited him all at once. Maybe this business arrangement wouldn’t be so bad afterall. But he couldn’t shake the oppression of dread that slid through his veins.
         One hour. He had one hour to worry about it all, to wonder what Gideon Langston had in store for him. He could have handled the situation much better than he had. What had changed? What had made him clam up? Had it been meeting Julia? He frowned and sighed, finally remembered to breathe again. “Jesus christ, Gage. Get ahold of yourself,” he muttered. “Your slipping you stupid bitch.” Those were words he suspected Isaac would have said to him, accompanied by a good hard slap to knock some sense into him. Gage lifted the glass of cognac he still had and gulped down all of it with haste. He just needed to get drunk again. That was the problem. He was too sober.