Find Me Alastar

We walk down to the marquee to find waiters circling the room with glasses of champagne, and a

doorman with a seating schedule at the entry. We walk over to him.

“Hello.” He smiles.

“James Williams and Emerson Mathews.”

He goes through his list and James glances at me. We are so not going to be on this list. This could be

embarrassing.

“Ah, yes, table twenty-one.”

“Thank you.” I smile gratefully and we make our way to the back.

“Oh, man. We are on the shit table,” James whispers, annoyed.

I smirk. “What did you expect? We don’t know a soul here. We are the losers, here by default.”

“Speak for yourself. One of these society girls will be my bitch tonight,” he murmurs as he takes two

champagnes from a passing tray.

I smirk as I take mine from him. “I kind of think you will be the bitch in the equation, to be honest.”

He raises his eyebrows and smiles cheekily as he looks around. “That will work, too.”

We sit at the table and people watch for a while as the sun continues to set. Large fire lanterns are

now being lit around the perimeter.

“This is ridiculous wealth, right?”

“I know,” James mutters. “Come on, let’s go check it out. We are being unsocial.”

We stand and make our way back out of the marquee and head up the stairs to level two. A cocktail

bar is situated front and center, and waitresses are walking around with trays of appetizers. I take a

lobster ball. “Even the snacks are flash.” I smile as I eat it in one go.

We stand for a few moments when two guys walk over. One is tall with dark hair. The other is blonde

and really short. “Hello.” They smile.

“Hi,” we reply.

“This is a great turn out, isn’t it?” The blonde man says.

“Yes, fantastic,” James replies, excited that someone wants to talk to us.

They start to talk while I glance around at our opulent surroundings. This really is something else. I’m

on my fourth champagne when the tinkering of the dinner bell sounds and everyone starts to make their

way back down to the bottom level to the marquee. James has been talking to these two men for about an

hour now. He is being so pathetically nice I may puke any moment. Instead, I have remained relatively

silent. Honestly, I just don’t have it in me to even make the effort to talk to men at the moment. We take our

seat in the packed dining area and introduce ourselves to everyone we are among. They all seem nice

enough, and we enjoy our beautiful meal.

Dessert is just being served and the table is in conversation when a good-looking older guy gets up on

stage. The crowd all clap loudly. I glance over to see James is smiling broadly while clapping.

I tap him on the leg and he frowns at me in question.

“Aren’t you supposed to be taking photos and stuff?” I whisper.

His eyes widen. “Shit, yes. I forgot I’m working.”

I giggle. “You’re an idiot. How could you forget?”

He shuffles around and retrieves his camera from his bag before he stands and walks closer to the

stage.

The elderly good-looking man holds his hands up and everyone laughs. I don’t know who he is, but

everyone else seems to. He’s clearly very popular. I smile into my champagne glass.

“Thank you everyone for coming tonight. Welcome to the annual sixth Art Collaboration Fundraiser.

To date this team has raised thirteen million pounds” He smiles broadly and the crowd all cheer and

whistle.

Wow, that’s impressive. They must work hard. The waitress places a piece of cheesecake in front of

me, and a huge slice of mud cake in front of James. I smile and immediately swap them over so I have the

chocolate cake.

He holds his hand out to the side. “May I present our committee?”

Everyone claps loudly.

I shovel my first mouthful of chocolate cake into my mouth as I look up to see the team of six walk

onto the stage.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

The blood drains from my face.

“We have Magdeline Rushmore. Star O’Shea. Roberta Mumford. Amanda Marx. And last, but by no

means least, Rachel Runner.” The crowd all cheer.

Are you fucking kidding me? I sit and stare at the stage in shock.

He’s here. Alastar is here.

No!