Page 3 of Catching a Con Man

Fuck.

Ade

Tyler Quinn was a beautiful enigma, and one I was determined to understand. He looked so adorably out of place in this room full of other billionaires, and I understood that feeling. I’d been groomed from about the age of five to walk in high society, but I was still decades younger than most of the people in this room. And it seemed that Tyler was another ten years younger than me.

There was another reason I had to suspect Tyler. Holden Quinn was my godfather, and though I’d not seen him in the last couple of years, he was living childless in the Swiss Alps with his very lovely husband when we had last spoken. So this young man claiming to be his grandson either had some ulterior motive or Holden had been hiding a hell of a lot more from us than we ever thought. I unbuttoned my jacket and sat, leaving Tyler with his hand outstretched. If Tyler even was his real name. He sat down, seemingly unbothered, and took a long sip of his water.

“Those crystal glasses really are something, aren’t they?” I leaned in, dropping my voice low so only he could hear. “Astounding what ten thousand can get you nowadays.”

“Pounds?”Tyler spluttered loud enough for the rest of the table to turn around. I knew Gloria and Derek from their business dealings with my father, and Gloria’s spa days with my mother, but I hadn’t met the other couple at the table who seemed to keep to themselves. I gave them all a casual smile and pulled gently on Tyler’s cuff to bring him closer again.

“Yes,” I said. “Such a good deal. You should see what my father has in the cupboard at home. A diamond-carved glass worth a hundred thousand pounds. He only drinks out of it on weekends, of course. Wednesday drinking from such a glass would be entirely frivolous.” I was messing with him. My family had sponsored the ball, and I doubted the glasses were more than ten pounds apiece. That, and I knew that Holden had turned down my invite for him or a representative. But I had got the measure of Tyler with his reactions. No descendant of Holden, with his opulent modernist taste in homeware, would have baulked at expensive glassware.

“My grandfather abhors showing off his wealth,” Tyler replied. “That’s why he’s not here tonight.”

I had to give it to him. Tyler was good at recovering. Holden was indeed reclusive, but he showed off his wealth to those close to him. The hot springs he’d had artificially created outside of his house in the Swiss snow were proof enough of that.

“Ah, yes, Holden Quinn. How is the old man? I haven’t seen him in…well, I don’t really know much about him,” I lied. “How’s his wife?”

“She’s…wonderful,” said Tyler.

“And where is it she’s from, again?”

“Uh, well…” Tyler was saved from answering by the servers carrying wine, as well as a waiter with a tray. They would serve food table-side so that no one had to order in advance, which had worked out brilliantly for my unprepared faux-friend.

“I’ll have the red…and so will my companion here,” I said to the waiter. Tyler gave me a look but didn’t argue. The waiter was a young, attractive man I’d clocked earlier and tipped generously in exchange for information. In this world, gossip was more important than money. I had so much money I didn’t know what to do with it, but information? That could open so many doors.

As he poured, the waiter leaned in to whisper in my ear on the opposite side of Tyler.

“He asked to be moved next to you, sir. Said there was urgent business you both needed to discuss.”

I smiled and passed him a ten-pound note with a wink. He smiled back with a blush and I realised he might be interested in more than my money. I was cautious around strangers at the best of times, but tonight my attention was entirely on Tyler-not-Quinn. Whatever look-in the waiter might or might not have had otherwise was irrelevant.

“What would you like to eat, sir?” asked the waiter, now at a normal volume.

“I’ll take the chicken liver parfait, and so will Tyler — unless you’ve chosen anything else off the menu sent in advance?” I asked.

“N-no, that would be fine,” he stuttered.

“Oooh, perfect choice!” said Gloria. “We’ll have the same.”

The servers served the food and left. Tyler was examining the wine glass carefully, like it might bite him if he drank from it. “A beautiful Bordeaux from a little family-run chateaux in France,” I said. “I dread to think how much it cost the organisers.”

Gloria tittered from the other side of the table, then lifted it to her nose to sniff. Tyler did the same, and I took that moment of distraction to really look at him. He had striking ice-blue eyes and hair that was a little too long to be gelled back like it was. I knew I’d love to see him without the styling, pushing his hair out of his eyes.Or my hand holding his hair back as he…I cut the thought before it could go anywhere. One didn’t keep hold of billions of pounds without being able to compartmentalise. But still. He must have been a decade younger than my thirty-five at least, and a foot shorter than me. I couldn’t mess around with young men. Especially when they were keeping as many secrets as he was. I knew his last name was a ruse, but I had no idea if his first name was even Tyler.

Still, he was, as I’d put to him oh-so-subtly earlier, delectable. If he hadn’t been lying about his identity for some unknown reason he really would be completely irresistible. As it was, he wasalmostirresistible.

After Tyler had drunk a sip of wine and given it a knowing nod, I picked up the inside set of cutlery and watched as he copied my actions. So if he was a con man, he was an inexperienced one.

“Sorry, wrong cutlery. Work from the outside in, I always forget. Oh, and it seems you do too,” I said.

Tyler blushed and quickly picked up the right cutlery. “Grandfather never was one to stand on ceremony.”

“New money, never as refined,” I joked. For the first time I thought I saw Tylerbristle, like I’d offended him. And even though I was trying to rile him and knock him off balance, I had to fight the urge to apologise.

“So,” I started once we’d finished our first course, and the waiters cleared them away. “I heard you wanted to talk business with me. The grandson of the great Holden Quinn, it truly is an honour.”

“Well, you see, it was…it was your father I’d hoped to meet,” said Tyler.

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