* * *
In a nearby upscale restaurant, Alex ordered a complicated meal and then proceeded to show her which utensils belonged with which item. Janna had always been a quick study at anything she set her mind to, so before long she'd learned the necessary table etiquette she had been missing.
"It's really not that difficult, just another hoop to be jumped through." Alex saluted her progress with a glass of intricately flavored red wine.
"And why was it so important for you to jump through all these hoops?" Janna asked, hoping his openness would continue. "If your success is on the same level as Brice's, surely you have enough money that you'd be able to tell the high society hounds to go fuck themselves."
Alex almost spits out the sip of wine he was taking and barely swallowed before he burst out laughing. "Goddamn, Brice sure has his hands full with you." After he recovered his breath, he replied in earnest. "Sure, I could tell them to 'go fuck themselves,' but I'd have to be willing to sacrifice the advantages that come with being able to mingle in their midst. And not just business advantages."
Janna sensed he wasn't being entirely forthcoming. "I have to learn to navigate Brice's world if I want to become a part of his life, but you came from outside that world. Why is it so important to you to be accepted in it?"
Alex's brow furrowed, and a dark look came into his eyes briefly, before he could hide it behind carefully schooled features. "I told you about my upbringing. I realized early on that if I wanted to avoid living my life in a house more appropriately called a shack, drinking myself to death on moonshine and never working a steady job, I'd need money. But in college, I realized, with the help of men like Brice Masterson, that having money wasn't enough. I had to know the right people, cultivate influence, cut the right figure if I wanted to claim a level of success that matched the money that started rapidly accumulating in my bank accounts."
"They didn't accept you." Janna noticed the haunted look in his eyes. It was too similar to the look in hers after Donna Goddard had torn away her confidence at the fundraising dinner. Perhaps this went toward explaining the bad blood between Brice and Drake.
"No, they didn't, not initially. And I'm sad to say that I resorted to some pretty nasty tricks to gain respect. But after college, I recognized that, although I didn't fit in with the trust fund frat boys, I couldn't go home either and expect to resume a quiet life in Tennessee. I had too much money, and that kind of money needs management to hold it together, keep it growing. That meant mingling with others who possessed wealth and knew how to maintain it. And for that, I needed the same kind of seemingly-effortless polish that the guys from Old Money University had. So I made sure I acquired it."
Janna realized that talking about these things couldn't be easy for him. She smiled and reached across the table to grab his hand. "Thank you for being so open, and for helping me fit in. You're a good friend."
"Good friend?" he asked with a smile. "I'd love to be your friend, Janna."
Although his expression was genuine and gracious, for a moment Janna sensed an underlying unharmonious note to his tone. She pushed it out of her mind, sure that Alex meant the words he said and chalked it up to her own hang-ups.
After finishing their lunch and returning to the confines of Drake's limo, Janna watched the buildings and people go by beyond the tinted windows. She soon realized they weren't headed back to the hotel, but in the opposite direction.
After glancing at her watch and finding it was nearly three in the afternoon, Janna asked Alex where they were going. "Don't worry," he assured her. "One more lesson, then I'll return you to the hotel." Before long they pulled up in front of a large Queen Anne style mansion, settled atop a hill with views of the surrounding city.
"This is amazing," Janna breathed as Alex led her toward the massive double doors. "Is it yours?"
"It is," he said with his devilish smile, opening the doors. The furnishings were opulent and most even seemed historically appropriate.
"More camouflage?" she asked as he led her through a sitting room and into what appeared to be an office. It was outfitted in black walnut and dominated by a stone fireplace, in front of which sat a pair of armchairs. Across the room was a massive desk, and along the walls stood several bookshelves crammed with enough books to fill a modest public library.
"No, not really," Drake answered as he settled into the chair behind his desk and motioned for Janna to pull up a seat beside him. "I've always loved this style of architecture, so when I happened to drive past this beauty one day, I made sure to locate the owners convinced them to sell." Alex pulled out a laptop and opened it before turning to Janna and pulling her gaze to his stormy gray eyes.
"One day isn't nearly enough to tell you everything you'd need to know about Brice's world, but at least I can give you a crash course. You're a quick study in table manners, and you already possess an eye for style even if you don't have the wallet to back it up. But the most important skill to arm yourself with when crossing into enemy territory is information gathering. You need good intel for this kind of mission. So I figured I'd try and give you some."
"Intel?" Janna asked, confused. "What do you mean exactly?"
Alex smiled, slipping an arm around her shoulder to pull her closer to his computer screen. "You gotta know who you're up against, and all their secrets. The dirtier, the better."
He pulled up a slideshow, the first slide of which contained a picture of Keith and Donna Goddard, with a text box outlining pertinent facts. Janna gasped as she read her way down the list.
"Keith is gay? How do you know this? And why is he married to Donna if this is true?"
Alex grinned, she supposed at her shock and perhaps naivety. "Keith's Old Money, really Old Money. It wouldn't do to buck tradition. So he stays in the closet, and Donna is happy to play his beard. It keeps her in furs and diamonds, and enough money to put some of her boy-toys through college if they're smart enough not to squander her 'gifts.'"
Janna wasn't sure how to feel about the revelation. It was sad that some people felt forced to live a life that wasn't their own, to please anyone other than themselves. She felt slightly revolted, prying into the sordid secret lives of the Rich and Shameless, but at the same time, as anyone who's ever paged through an Us Weekly can attest, there also existed a strange sense of attraction. The push and pull of good gossip. Attraction and repulsion. Unable to help herself, she bent forward, eyes eagerly trained on the screen.