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The food smells delicious, and I'm suddenly ravenous, but I don't want to admit it.

“Come on,” he says. “I'll get the wig ready while you eat.”

Oh, will he?

“You know how to do a wig?” What doesn't he know how to do?

“I have two sisters,” he says with a shrug. “One of them was very into playing dress-up.”

I file that away. His sisters. Of course.

“Sit here, love.” He pulls out a chair for me. I swallow hard. I wish I didn't like it when he called me love.

I'm still dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, and he's changed, no longer in his suit from earlier but in a charcoal-gray one that looks expensive and bespoke and fits him like a glove.

A slinky red dress hangs next to an olive-green sheath dress on a hook at the top of the bathroom door.

“Those are my choices? Where'd you get them?”

“I have my sources.”

Indeed.

He pushes a container toward me without comment, and I open it. Pasta, simple and good. The kind that requires no ceremony. Thick cuts, fragrant Bolognese, grated cheese.

“This looks delicious. And I’m hard to please when it comes to Italian food.”

“Boston does it right.”

The window behind him shows a sky turning the color of old pewter and the city below it doing whatever the city does at this hour. Indifferent, marching to the beat of a different drummer. Cargo in, cargo out.

“Thank you,” I say, pulling the pasta toward me because my mother raised me well. He nods. We sit in silence, which is somehow no longer uncomfortable.

“Eat, then you'll get dressed.”

I nod and begin to eat. My throat tightens at the first bite of pasta and sauce. It reminds me of my Mama's cooking, the only thing that could ever make me homesick.

“What kind of event is this?” I ask, swallowing down the lump in my throat. “Charity? Black tie?”

“Aye. Both.” I watch him pull a red wig from a bag and shake it out. It's long and silky and stunning. “The kind of people we're looking for will be there. I can guarantee it.”

I eat quickly, conscious of the ticking clock. “Did you eat?”

“Aye.”

He hands me a glass of wine. It pairs perfectly with the pasta. “This is like some kind of weird date.”

He bends and kisses my cheek. “If you say so.”

My cheeks flush hot when his breath is in my ear. I set the glass down, and the pasta sits in front of me, half finished.

Black tie means a cover, a role, being someone I decide to be in a room full of people who may or may not know my face.

“You're sure we should go?”

“Positive.”

“What did you… do with the tracker?”