And that, I learned, was the dirtiest secret of all.
“Fear and desire are the same chemical,” he whispered. “You’ve just been taught to name it wrong.”
“Tonight,” he said, “you are not the object. I am.”
He was waiting in the great room, standing before a floor-to-ceiling window. Mr. M. Older than I expected—silver at the temples, a jaw that looked carved from a different century. He wore a simple black shirt, sleeves rolled to the forearm. No watch. No pretense.