Keeping the Wolves at Bay

Mr. Conti gently guides me by the elbow to turn me to him and says, "Your job tonight is to keep young girls looking to marry me and their mothers away from me. I have a few people I need to speak to about business and I do not wish to be interrupted. Do you understand."

I nod and say, "Yes. That should be fairly simple."

"Don't underestimate some of these gold diggers," he warns.

"I prefer the term socialite. This week has taught me that it's not easy spending that amount of useless wealth," I say, actually feeling a little defensive of the term gold digger for the first time.

Mr. Conti looks at me like I'm crazy, "Don't look at me like that. I will keep the women away from you, but you need to refer to them with respect."

"Okay," he says, drawn out and confused.

"So what first?" I ask. 

"Do whatever you want. I need to go talk to that gentleman over there," he says pointing at a man in a pinstripe suit.

"He's with his wife, so I need to come," I say.

"What makes you think that?" he asks curiously.

"While you talk to the husband, any friend of the wife's with a single daughter might come over to talk to her in the hopes of interrupting your conversation for an introduction," I explain. I don't know how he didn't think of this on his own. It's probably happened to him in the past.

"Sound reasoning,' he says with a nod and I hold back a laugh. He puts out his arm and I hold on as we walk to the couple.

The night continues in this fashion for most of the cocktail hour. The couple of times I've left his side to get a drink, a woman immediately replaces me at his side, interrupting whatever conversation he was in. He might not be my actual date but these women don't know that and it's starting to annoy me. 

I'm grabbing him a gin and tonic when a woman approaches me at the bar and says, "I can bring that to Cass."

I look up, surprised that she calls him by his name and that she knows the drink isn't for me. She must see the look of surprise on my face and says, "Oh, Cass and I go way back. He won't mind."

"You can walk with me to come say hi, but I'm going to bring the drink back to him," I say. I can tell she wasn't expecting me to push back.

"Look, it's cute that you think you're important to Cass because he brought you to one event but trust me, he's going to be mad that you stopped me from talking to him. Like I said we go way back."

"I'm not stopping you. Feel free to come with me, I'm going right now if you want to join," I start walking without waiting. Sure enough she follows behind and I'm a little curious to see what's going to happen.

I arrive at Cass's side and hand him the drink saying, "I met a friend of yours at the bar. She says you go way back so I told her she should come over and say hi."

He looks past me at the beautiful woman and I see him subtly tense. He's not happy to see her so I do my job. I grab Cass around the waste and stand at his side. He plays along and hangs his arm over my shoulder saying, "Ah yes, you're the Mayor's daughter? Or no, sorry the Alderman's?"

"My father is the Attorney General," she says in a clipped tone.

"Ah well, I look forward to learning his reasoning behind supporting the development of high rises to replace rent controlled buildings in Fuller Park," I say sweetly, knowing full well that the public and the press have been hassling him on this for weeks.

Cass doesn't need to say anything. He kisses the side of my head in a show of affection and the woman walks away.

I step away from his side. Facing him, I say, "This is turning out to be a full time job. I was hoping to look at the silent auction items but I doubt I'll get a chance. I can't afford anything but I heard talk of a yacht trip through the Mediterranean. How crazy!"

Cass looks slightly amused at my little outburst. He surprises me by grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the auction.

"You don't have to do this, I know you're busy," I say.

"I need a break from talking. Pretending to care about the auction items will give me just that," he responds. I shrug, accepting his explanation and let him lead me to the auction. 

I walk from one item to the next, completely astounded by the bids. Someone bid $15,000 on a two night stay in Aspen! That's enough to pay someone's rent for a year and that's the lowest bid I've seen so far. Everytime I see a more outrageous bid I can't help but compare it to something it can digest. 

I'm looking at a $60,000 bid for a pair of earrings when I say in outrage, "That was the cost of my university tuition!"

"A year's tuition for a pair of earrings seems a little high," he responds calmly, not really caring. I guess when you have as much money as he does it's hard to feel the impact of not having enough.

"I'm from Canada. I paid 60K for all four years. Someone here is going to waste this money on a pair of earrings they'll wear a handful of times when they could flat out pay for someone's education. That would have a more direct impact then however this money gets spent," I say, getting a bit too passionate.

"The money's going to charity," he points out.

"Yeah, but who knows how it's getting spent and I looked it up, this charity has a reputation for being a little shady with how they spend their contributions," I counter.

"So if I was to offer to bid on something for you right now, you would say no?" he challenges.

"I would say no," I respond, sure in my answer.

"So you wouldn't want the trip to Milan?" he asks.

"I would love to go to Milan, but no, I would not bid on it," I respond. I check the highest bid and continue, "I wouldn't be comfortable spending 100k on a weeklong trip when I could easily do it for 10k and donate the rest of the money. The trip at 10k wouldn't even be a budget trip, I would be able to do a lot with that budget."

He looks at me assessingly for a moment then says, "That's a very unique perspective in a room like this."

"Not living in a penthouse means I quite literally have a different perspective than everyone in this room," I joke.

He smiles and looks like he's about to respond when his face transforms back into its normal cold expression.

"Jessica," he says with no emotion.