WHOLE ENCOUNTER with that young man had irritated Kitt, but it also intrigued her. Maybe it was those deep-set blue eyes. Vaguely like Danny’s. To get her mind back on business, she sought out her friend Jeff, summoning him with an impatient jerk of her head.
Jeff Smith, Congressman Wilkens’s aide—brilliant, sharp-featured—was thirty-five but retained the ranginess of a fifteen-year-old. He ran marathons a lot. He biked a lot. He cross-country skied a lot. He did everything an unattached and self-indulgent male could do to keep himself distracted from the basic superficiality of his life. And he worshiped Kitt. He bounded across the room in six lanky steps.
“You called, Your Ladyship?” He folded his long arms across his concave chest.
It was Jeff who had warned her that Masters might show up at this reception, smelling of money, competing for the congressman’s favor, aiming to water down or even kill the new media regulation bill.
“Which one is Masters?” She didn’t look at Jeff, continuing instead to check out the possibilities with sharp eyes.
“Marcus Masters, of Masters Multimedia fame?”
“No, Mohammed Masters, the waiter,” she retorted.
“Kitt. Listen to me.” Jeff spoke each syllable slowly, carefully, as if she had become suddenly addled. “Do not hook horns with Masters. That man will chew you up and spit you out.”
“I’ve been chewed up and spit out for lesser causes. And I don’t intend to hook horns or anything else. I just want to size up the competition.”
Jeff sighed. “Have it your way, Joan of Arc. It just so happens I got introduced to Mark Masters right before you arrived.”
“Great! Where is he?”
“Over there,” Jeff inclined his head subtly toward the hors d’oeuvres tables where the young man, still glowing red, was standing alone, absently wiping his hands with some napkins.
Kitt was bewildered. “Him?”
“Yep. That’s Marcus Masters.”
“But that can’t be Masters. He looks so…so young,” she protested.
“Well. You don’t exactly look twenty-eight yourself, sweetie, but that doesn’t get in your way.” Jeff poured on that adoring look that made Kitt squirm. She enjoyed Jeff as a friend, nothing more. “Who would guess that a cutie pie like you is actually a dangerous legal shark?” He batted his eyelashes.
Jeff could be such a sycophant. But he had a point. Not that she considered herself any kind of cutie pie, but she was kiddish looking. Who was she—with her size four figure, her freckles, and her bangs in her eyes half the time—to fault anyone for looking young?
“But…but look at him,” she argued, mostly to herself. “That guy can’t possibly have a multimillion-dollar media empire.” Using Jeff as a shield, she peeked at him. The guy did have a fairly heavy five-o’clock shadow, and his shoulders were most impressive, but his face was as unlined as a statue of a Greek god. “That…that kid can’t possibly be the one who wrote those huge checks to the congressman’s campaign fund.”
“Well, he is. That’s Marcus Masters from Masters Multimedia in Los Angeles, California, developers of the promising—” Jeff cocked an eyebrow at Kitt “—well, some of us would claim, the threatening—LinkServe model.”
Kitt felt a little clammy. A little ill. “Damn,” she muttered.
“What’s the matter, sweetie? You look like you ate a rotten mushroom.”
“If only it had been poisonous.”
Jeff responded to her melodramatics with a skeptical frown. “Come on. It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, yes, it can.” Kitt sipped the limewater, giving Jeff a pained look over the rim of the glass. “I just cut Mr. Marcus Masters, of all people.”
“Cut him?”
Kitt nodded, looking around for a hole to swallow her up, or at least a handy couch to dive behind.
“Cut him?” Jeff repeated.
“Yes,” Kitt hissed. “Blew him off. Gave him the cold shoulder.”
“Cut him?” Jeff insisted on mocking her choice of words instead of sympathizing over the mistake she’d made.
“The guy tried to make conversation, tried to apologize for this—” Kitt waggled her stained sleeve “—and I gave him the Miss-Manners-Please-Excuse-Me-You-Clod treatment.”
Jeff looked intrigued. “Why’d you do that?”
“He was flirting with me.”
Jeff touched his long fingers to his lips in mock horror. “That cad!”
“You know what I mean. He was acting like some kind of stud, and I thought he was just another lowly intern or something. Look at him!” Kitt whined. “He looks like a…a kid!”
Jeff grinned. “And you crushed his poor little ego.” He took a second to size up the younger man. “Well, if you rejected him, I guess I don’t feel so bad about the heartless way you treat me. Why oh why do you do all this rejecting, Kitt dear?”
“Danged if I know.” Kitt knocked her bangs aside with a punishing swat. But deep down, she did know. It was all mixed up, having something to do with her old anger toward Danny, and hence, toward all good-looking men.
Because he had no knowledge of Kitt’s past with Danny—no one in her present world did—Jeff had his own theory. “I’ll tell you why you do it.” He tried to take her elbow, but Kitt shrugged him off. She headed for a couch by the windows to collect herself.
Jeff followed and continued, “You’ve never gotten over being the only girl stuck out on that farm with no mama and all those brothers picking on you day and night. Here. Sit.” Jeff pressed her shoulder, lowering her to the prim little love seat. “Compose yourself. When you feel better, I’ll introduce you to Masters.”
“I think not,” Kitt said, keeping her face turned toward the high window. She glanced at Jeff. “New plan. How long is Masters going to be in D.C.?”
Jeff walked around, seated himself facing Kitt, facing the room, and arranged his long legs as best he could in front of the spindly settee. “The grapevine says a week. Word is he actually drove here. Besides his interest in the outcome of the media bill, he has relatives in D.C. or something.”
“A week! That doesn’t give me much time. But, okay. Can you make sure Wilkens invites us both—me and Masters—to that dinner at Gadsby’s next Tuesday? Maybe during dinner I can work in some facts about the bill, convince Masters it’s not as big a threat as he thinks. And I’ll pray that he won’t remember this.” She indicated the sleeve.
“I wouldn’t count on that, sweetie.” Jeff gave the room at Kitt’s back a veiled glance. “He’s checking you out right now. It’d be hard to forget your yard-long mop of red hair.”
“My hair is not
