Rahul knew he shouldn’t ask the next question on his lips, but he couldn’t help it. He was a collector of data, if nothing else, and he had to know. Adjusting his position a bit on the cold wooden bench, he said, “Right. Um… who are the Hindmans, exactly?”
Caterina stared at him silently, unmovingly, for a long minute. The chill wind picked up a strand of her hair, but she didn’t smooth it back down. Finally, she closed her eyes for just a moment. “This is going to be a lot more challenging than I had thought,” she mumbled, as if she were talking to herself.
“What is?” Rahul asked, frowning.
Caterina opened those luminescent brown eyes he’d spent ten minutes and a lifetime staring into that morning. Propping one elbow on the table, she said, “Rahul… the Hindmans are the most connected, most powerful family in the US, and probably among the top five most powerful in the world. People like us always want to know the Hindmans. Surely you’ve heard of them. Paul and Amelia? They have two daughters and a son who go to boarding school in Switzerland? One of their daughters recently launched a fashion line partnering with Chanel, and it’s become iconic. There are memes on the internet about the Hindmans.”
Rahul wanted to say yes, of course he knew exactly who they were. If he could say the names of the children, that would be extra impressive. This was why he’d told Grey and Leo he thought tiny computers embedded in people’s brains would be a good thing, the technological advance we all didn’t know we needed. Instead, he shrugged. “Sorry.”
Caterina exhaled slowly. “Okay. Well, never mind that. You’re a quick learner, right? You have a photographic memory?”
“Eidetic,” Rahul said automatically. “ ‘Eidetic’ is the correct term for exceptional visual recall. But I can also remember other things that aren’t visual for much longer than most people can, yes.”
Caterina narrowed her eyes. “Right.” Then she straightened her shoulders. “I mentioned a proposition, before.” She nodded her head toward the building they’d left.
“Yeah.” He’d almost forgotten that, swept up in the trance of being led away by Caterina LaValle, like he’d been in his dreams a million times before. (In his dreams they always ended up playing chess on the green, Caterina laughing as she castled him while he was in check. Which wasn’t even a valid chess move.) “Okay, yes.”
She frowned. In the distance, a lone winter bird cawed. “ ‘Yes’ what?”
“Yes to your proposition.”
A brief look of amusement flickered on her perfect face. “You don’t even know what I’m asking yet.”
He could see, from her perspective, why she’d find it amusing that he wanted in without more information. But Caterina couldn’t see into his heart. He’d seen her without her mask on. He’d seen the real her no one else knew. And he’d follow that Caterina anywhere, no questions asked.
Now Rahul leaned forward to rest his elbows on the wooden slats of the picnic table. “Unless you’re going to ask me to murder someone—which I am 99.87 percent sure you’re not, as I don’t think it aligns with your previous actions, which are the most consistent predictors of future behavior—I’m going to say yes.”
The amusement morphed into a faint smile. If Rahul were a painter, he would spend eons in his room, painting it to get it right. “But don’t you want to hold back a little? Maybe think about something you might want from me in return?”
She was talking about social bartering, something Rahul would never, ever understand. “But why would I do that?” he found himself saying, instead of keeping it to himself like he’d learned to do with most people. “I want to spend time with you. I want to give you whatever you want. To pretend anything else is the truth would be disingenuous.”
Caterina studied him, a look between alarm and intrigue on her face. There was a sudden break in the clouds, and a thin, weak beam of winter sunlight hit her brown hair, dappling it with gold. “You’re quite possibly the oddest person I’ve ever met.”
Rahul nodded. The way she said it, as a matter of fact rather than judgment, didn’t embarrass him. “I’ve heard that sentiment expressed in much meaner ways.”
Caterina leaned forward. “But wait, what you said just before. You don’t hold back the truth… ever? You just say what you mean. You never lie.”
“Well… I would like to lie to preserve people’s feelings. To protect people I care about. But things don’t always work out like that.” Rahul shrugged and polished his glasses with his tie before popping them back on his nose.
He’d barely finished speaking when Caterina said, “Go to the Hindman Foundation Gala with me.”
And his eyebrows shot up into his hairline.
CATERINA
He sat there with his eyebrows invisible for a long time. Finally, Caterina reached forward and touched his hand. He reacted as if she’d pressed a live wire into his skin.
“Are you all right?” she asked, frowning. “What’s the matter?” He looked ill.
“It’s—I’m—so, you’re saying you want me to be your date. To the biggest event in socialite land.”
Caterina shook her head and tapped her fingernails on the hard cover of her Italian textbook. “No. Not my date. My… escort, or companion, I suppose. I’m trying to prove a point to someone.”
“Alaric,” Rahul said. “I saw him talking to you. He got that look on his face he always gets when he’s trying to make someone feel inferior.”
Caterina went still. “What look?”
Rahul waved a hand. “I don’t know how to describe it. There’s a little smirk at one corner of his mouth, and he uses his height in a certain way, looming over the person.” He shrugged and shifted his feet on the stiff grass. “I’m not the best at reading people, in case you haven’t noticed, though, so I’m probably wrong.”
Caterina shook her head slowly. “Au contraire,” she said, “you might be the only one who’s ever noticed that.” Why hadn’t she ever noticed that? She’d gone out with him for two years. That was plenty of time for her to realize he was manipulating her or others, trying to make them feel less than. Had she been so focused on the superficial—his looks, his well-placed family, the presents he bought her—that she’d forgotten to pay attention to Alaric the person? The idea didn’t make her feel very good about herself, so Caterina quickly changed the subject. “In any case, do you think you could keep Saturday the fourth free? That’s in two weeks.”
“Well, sure,” Rahul agreed immediately. “But, um, I don’t know how to dance. And you might have noticed that I’m not exactly gala material.”
“I have noticed,” Caterina replied as her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out without looking at it, swiped to silence it, and slipped it back into her pocket. Whoever it was could wait. “And that’s why I need to tell you the condition of my proposition. I’m going to give you a makeover so you’ll fit in better. So Alaric can see I’ve moved onward and upward.” So you won’t embarrass me and completely negate what I’m trying to accomplish, she didn’t add. There was no reason to be cruel.