A Kiss For Three

chapter 3

Adrian Cole was simple. Not easy—men at his altitude seldom are—but simple in the way attention-junkies are. You dangle curiosity; they bite. Nico Moreau was a different animal entirely.

I burned half a week pacing grooves in my office rug, pulling on every thread my methods could find. The problem wasn’t that Nico lacked a life—it’s that he lived most of it behind doors. He’s a painter; solitude is his oxygen. Where Adrian performs for light, Nico cultivates silence.

“Painters,” I muttered at my laptop, staring at neat columns of useless data. “Always hiding in shadows until someone drags the canvas into it.”

Challenges sharpen me. They don’t scare me.

The trick with Nico wasn’t charm—he swims in it—and it wasn’t business—he hates investors and critics on principle. What would open him was kinship: someone who looked like she also lived in performance but wanted, at least on the surface, to slip out of it.

Conveniently, I do. I thought of my violin—a temperamental hand-me-down instrument with a scar on the bou. The calluses are real. Not a glamorous credential, but it’s honest enough to build a mask on.

For Adrian I’d been Kate Parker, the green reporter with soft eyes and a fabricated press pass. For Nico, I built Enola—whimsical conservatory student, the kind who lives more in sound than speech. Blonde wig pulled into a ponytail. My own blue eyes left bare—he’d value candor over camouflage. Soft, pale dress with a little sway. Not calculated seduction; naive music embodied.

When I stepped back from the mirror, the difference startled even me. Kate looked buttoned and breakable. Enola looked like she might hum down the avenue and forget to check the light. Exactly the kind of soul a painter would want to sketch.

Access was the missing piece. That’s where Daniel Duhan earns his retainer. Ex-detective, now private operator; smells faintly of whiskey and always laughs like he knows a joke you won’t.

“Nico Moreau, huh?” he rasped when I called. “You know the man ghosts society on purpose.”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

Paper shuffled. “You’re in luck. Opera this Friday. Not a gala, a regular night—private donors’ boxes. He’ll try not to be noticed.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Easier to approach a man who thinks he’s invisible.”

Friday, the city wore evening like a jewel. The opera house glowed; the grand staircase looked clean enough to eat your vanity off it; patrons murmured as if volume could bruise the music. I moved with the donor current toward the boxes, ticket crisp, wig perfect, dress catching chandeliers like a quiet bell.

I found him fast.

Nico sat near the edge of a private box, posture loose, eyes alert. Dark hair a little wrecked, like he’d ran a distracted hand through it in the car. Black suit, quiet as ink. To anyone else, a man avoiding recognition. To me, a mark waiting to be read.

I slid into the seat beside him with the confidence of someone who belongs everywhere. Let the silence stand. From the stage, strings lifted a hush and carved feeling into it; voices rose under the vault until the ceiling remembered it was built for echo. Silence never rattles me. It’s where performance begins.

When I felt his glance skim me—measuring, not hungry—I broke it with a soft edge.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I kept my eyes on the stage. “The way the strings sound like they’re breathing.”

A beat. “It’s… fine,” he said, low, as if volume might fracture the bow hair.

“You don’t come here often,” I said, not asking.

He half-smiled. “Not my scene.”

Cue. I leaned slightly closer, like a confession offered to the dark. “Enola,” I said. “I told the usher I was here for business, but… not really.” I let the shy smile find my mouth. “I play. Violin. Conservatory. Sometimes I just want to blend. Pretend I belong somewhere else.”

It’s a lie woven with enough thread from the truth to hold weight. It landed. His head turned fully; interest lit like a thin wash of color.

“Violin,” he repeated, curiosity moving behind his eyes. “I paint. And I suppose I’m undercover too—trying to disappear into someone else’s world.”

Easy click. Artists love other artists because it flatters their loneliness. I gave him just enough of mine that he could think he’d found it. We kept our voices low and talked about the performance, and the weirdness of crowds who collect spaces they don’t understand, and the masks you wear until your face learns them. Word by word, the guard in his posture loosened. The box felt less like a museum display and more like a side street.

When Act II lights dipped, I palmed my phone inside my bag, tore a corner from the program, and inked a number—one of mine, rerouted. I slipped it into his hand without looking away from the stage.

“In case you want to hear me play sometime,” I whispered.

He studied the slip a heartbeat too long, then tucked it away like it might vanish if he breathed wrong. I recognized the look: the hunger for novelty you can call “muse” without admitting it’s appetite.

Before the opera ended, I stood, smoothing the soft fabric into obedience.

“Already?” he asked, surprised into it.

“Best to leave while the music’s still playing,” I said, letting the stage light kiss my face one last time.

I threaded through velvet corridors, took the stairs down like I’d rehearsed them, and let the doors close behind me with a hush that felt like applause. Night air cut clean across my cheeks. I reached up, tugged the blonde tail free, and let my own dark hair spill out—small relief, like unhooking a bra after a long party.

Out on the plaza, a limo idled; a cab raged at nobody; the city kept being itself. I stepped off the marble and into the flow of night with the sharp little smile I allow myself when a piece clicks into place.

“Another win,” I said, not to brag, just to mark the moment.