Chapter Six
Sadie
M y skin prickles and even though it’s cold, a bead of sweat threatens to trickle down my backbone.
“Your mother? I don’t swing that way.”
“Neither does she.” The cool amusement on Kingston Sinclair’s face belies the steel and displeasure beneath the words. “You’re avoiding my question. Think very carefully before you respond.”
“Or?”
“I’ll get someone else.”
He folds his arms and the figure he cuts in the suit is utterly mesmerizing. He makes it hard to draw an even breath. Kingston is equally at home in suit and in jeans and that pure female part of me is there for it.
What the hell is he like without clothes?
Impressive, I bet.
When we kissed, I touched him, ran my hand down his chest, over hard delineated abs, and…and even though the soft merino wool sweater he was hot, hard, and I swear not even an inch of fat.
What the fuck am I even thinking?
I don’t like him or anyone of his kind.
“You can…” I trail off. Turning him down, pushing him to hire someone else isn’t part of the job description.
I’m having fun, yes, by toying with him and I’m not meant to start until I got the green light, but going a step too far will screw everything up and I’m not into losing money.
“Can what?” he asks me, voice soft, that steel cold and hard at the center. “Because I don’t like being fucked about, Sadie. And there are others.”
“I’m the best.”
“Most notorious,” he says, countering. “And notoriety isn’t important.”
He’s playing me right back. Kingston Sinclair isn’t a man to put up with games unless he wants something. But everyone has a limit. So I pick my words carefully, because I’m in trouble if he goes with someone else.
“But my skills are.”
“Again, there are others. So. My question.”
About his mother. I use my carefully handpicked words. “I don’t know her.”
I don’t know Faye Sinclair. I’ve met her, talked with her, agreed to a job she’s paying me for, but having him pay me too, getting paid double for the same thing, is so delicious, so delightful I’m in love with the idea. But know her? No. I don’t know her. So I’m not lying.
Kingston isn’t a man to underestimate. Those striking dark blue eyes with the hints of coppery-gold spark fire, and a low smile curves his hard mouth that can kiss so sweet, like he knows I’m working a loophole.
He probably does. He’s exceedingly smart.
Kingston straightens and opens the door to his car, and gestures in.
“A strange man picking me up on the street? What’s next? Candy?”
He laughs suddenly. “You like candy.”
“Everyone likes candy.”
“Talk to my brother, Mag about that one,” he mutters. He lifts his gaze past me to the sleek, modern apartment scraper behind me. “You coming? Or you hoping to sign autographs?”
“You’re an ass.”
“Probably, and I’m not a strange man. We’ve kissed.”
“That doesn’t stop you being strange,” I say, looking from the inviting comfort of the back seat of the car, and to him. “And that’s not happening again.”
“I didn’t say it was. We’re not done, Sadie. Get the fuck in.”
Behind me, voices rise and I narrow my eyes at him but slide past him and into the car. He follows.
Through the tinted windows, the darkness of the park with its golden muted lights moves past, and I’m way too aware of the man next to me. He takes up too much space. He makes me too aware of him, of every shift and breath and that dark, expensive leather and spice of him with its undercurrent of smoky sweetness winds around me.
I pick at the material of my dress on my thigh.
“Nervous?”
I stop. “Should I be?”
“I don’t know. Depends on what you’re up to here.”
“Where are we going?”
He’s looking at me. I can feel the burn of his gaze and I shiver. “I get why you don’t like those people, and I don’t give a shit if you like me or not—”
“I don’t.”
“But what I don’t get is your playing with this offer. Perhaps you think I’m not a man of my word. That’s a mistake, because I am and if I say I’ll walk, I will. There’s only so far my amusement at your little game will get you.”
“Maybe I want to see the kind of man I might be working with.”
He sighs and we head to the Brooklyn Bridge. “Your beloved morals again.”
“Let me guess, Brooklyn Heights.”
“I can take you to Canarsie if you’d like.”
“The less time in this car with you the better.”
“Your winning personality led you into a life of crime, I see.”
I look at him. “Meaning?”
“There’s no way a little Grinch like you could hold a real job.”
And I start laughing, so hard I think I’m going to cry black tears of mascara. This man is unexpected. “You’ve discovered my dark secret. Yours?”
“Me? I had to become a billionaire real estate mogul because eating baby souls is expensive.”
“Brooklyn Heights it is.” I close my eyes and settle back, not saying anything more until we pull up, because if I don’t watch myself, I just might start liking him.
Brooklyn Heights is the most affluent in Brooklyn. The beautiful buildings and tree lined streets are dotted with upscale bars and restaurants, along with the neighborhood haunts. It lacks the pomp of the well-heeled of Manhattan.
Kingston leads me to a basement bar on the corner of Love Lane and Henry Street.
This is anything but a dive. It’s intimate, expensive, and one of those places that get popular via word of mouth.
Kingston leans back as cool jazz weaves through the place, there to lift the ambience. This is the real deal, no BTS dressed in jazz sounds.
“I’d think,” he says, strong fingers curling around the low ball glass of Japanese whiskey—I can’t remember which one he ordered, only it’s expensive, because of course it is—as he studies me, “that you would snap up this job without the games.”
“And why would you think that?” I pick at one of the olives on the little plate between us, my Empress gin cocktail sitting untouched next to me.
He smiles and takes a sip. “Jewels. A rare piece that carries a story with it.”
“A rumored piece,” I say. He knows he’s got me. Smug bastard. “It might not be worth a thing.”
“But you want to find it, don’t you? And, you want to find that out yourself.”
And damn it, he’s right. I do.
A Sinclair jewel? Something that until recently hasn’t been seen? The whispers in the different worlds I’ve moved through are the final piece, the tiara, is meant to be the best, and worth the most if one was to split them up.
The whispers also talk of if the Sinclair jewels did still exist, then they were so elusive they might well be ghosts.
I doubt Kingston knows, but there have been attempts to break into different Sinclair enclaves to find them. Nothing came of it. Anything Sinclair I steered clear of, because their reach has always been vast, and retribution not worth it.
So, to take this route, to work with a Sinclair—or two of them in this case, even if the man with me doesn’t know that—and have a chance to get my hands on the tiara?
It’s too delicious, too tempting, to resist.
I want my hands on it.
I want to see all the Sinclair jewels up close.
Maybe get my hands on one for myself.
I know I could, if I do it right, have one replicated and replaced.
I’m thinking that should be the tiara.
The price that thing will fetch…I breathe out. That price is worth the entire sky.
Kingston leans forward. “From that look on your face, you’re planning on a lot more than a simple yes to working with me.”
“What look?”
“The one you had right before you slipped your cooler than silk expression back in place, Sadie.” He slides a finger along the condensation of my glass, his flesh so close to mine it makes my breath stutter in my throat. “Been out of the game a little too long?”
I meet his gaze. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
“No,” he says, “I’m not. And you’d be wise not to plan anything other than the help I’m going to be paying you for. Got that?”
“Like it’s the clearest glass.”
“Good.” He drops his hand, fingers skimming mine, sending a delicate thread of electricity through me. Then he leans back in his chair. “What drew you to this life?”
“The paid vacations and healthcare.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You should watch yourself there, Sadie, or I might start liking you.”
“We can’t have that.”
The laughter dies. “No, we can’t.”
I take in a shaking breath and follow it with a deep swallow of my herb and floral drink that’s like a spring morning in the countryside. Or what I imagine one would be like. I’m not really one for the countryside. “How do you know this place?”
“Montague’s?” Kingston looks about at the mix of people in there, some sharing bites and some small meals. Rich people, the well-to-do, all glossy and confident and having a quietly good time.
But it’s not like Billionaire’s Row or the Upper East and West sides, or, god forbid, Park Avenue. These people are a mix of various tiers. Various dress. There’s a realness here I somehow prefer and I look back at Kingston, who’s now looking at me.
“This isn’t the kind of place that’s in Time Out New York.”
He smiles lazily. “You’re thinking of my youngest brother. I don’t give a fuck about on trend or old school places for the rich and bored.”
“You like this?”
“I hope so. I own Monty’s. And half the block.”
“Of course you do.” A man of many hats, one who can spin different and varied pies all at once, and spin them right into pie stores that rake in money.
“At least my earnings are above board.”
“At least I don’t crush the little person to get ahead.”
“You like fighting. I should warn you, the particular brand you practice might get you unexpected results.”
I take another sip. “Like what?”
“Turning me on.” Kingston doesn’t smile as he says this.
And I shiver.
“The clock,” he says, “has stopped ticking on your time. I’m going to need an answer as I’ve already given you past the two hours, Sadie. Let me know, or I walk and your chance is gone forever. What’s it going to be? Yes or no?”