Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kingston
O f course Sadie wasn’t there when I woke.
It’s her MO.
I think she stole it from me.
Given the chance, I might just sneak out on her.
Because the things that happen between us when we’re naked is sex on drugs. Sex like sex has never been. It’s naked in a way that goes beyond flesh on flesh.
Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, I’d do the coward thing and run, too.
Even if I was home.
I take a taxi to that place, home sweet home, except it feels empty when I close the door behind me. Empty and sterile in a way it never has before.
Me, the man who likes his solitude. A man who knows what he likes. And my place is my haven.
Or at least, it was, until a woman with a hardcore pixie cut and a mouth that won’t quit in more ways than one—my throbbing and suddenly interested cock can attest to that—came into my life.
Shit. If I was an idiot, I’d think I’m developing feelings for her.
Which I’m definitely not.
She didn’t leave a note, but then again, she didn’t have to. I’m thinking she went after the tiara. And I’m thinking that was also the reason to put space between us.
Fine by me. I’m glad. I need that space, too.
I go into my room and throw myself on my bed, tucking my hands behind my head, trying to keep those images from the last two nights and day at bay.
“Save them for the spank bank,” I say to the room.
I wince. I have a horrible feeling that will be an exclusive Sadie kinda bank.
I try to put my brain onto the matters at hand, but I can’t. I don’t know where all this has got us. No closer to the truth. Closer to the tiara, perhaps.
And maybe that’s all that matters. I get it, she sells it and we part ways.
With that, I get up, grab a change of clothes and head to my bathroom.
What I need is to wash her off me.
If only the fucking en suite came with a Sadie remover instead of steam shower, I’d be golden.
If only.
Ever since I got home in the early hours of the morning I’ve worked, talked with my brothers—fucking Ryder informing me he spoke to Sadie which is Ryder speak for sticking his nose where it most definitely doesn’t belong—texted her, been ignored by my mother and worked out.
I’m coming down the stairs from my workout room when I notice that shift in the air, the latent heat and awareness and then, on the very edges, the softest hint of jasmine and smoke.
It’s like a sucker punch. I grip the ends of the towel I’ve slung about my neck and pause, trying to get myself under control.
How Sadie manages to throw me off center is one of life’s great mysteries.
Or maybe it isn’t.
Because I know how she affects me.
Question is how the fuck does she keep doing it, over and over again when she should be out of my system?
I wipe the towel over my face and then continue down, take the wide hall and go into the wide-open living room.
Sadie stands there, dressed in form fitting black, and she looks, in a word, spectacular.
In her hand is a glass of something, so I go over and get myself a whiskey. It’s after lunching hour and I’ve been up for hours and it gives me something to do. An excuse. Whatever you’d like to call it. But now I’m close and I can breathe her in and take in the heat of her, even as my body reacts because oh yeah, those memories are fresh.
“I’m going to think this is a habit of yours, breaking in here.”
“More entering.” She takes a sip from her glass and her hand shakes. Most wouldn’t notice that fine, almost imperceptible tremor. But I do. “I didn’t break anything. I can if you like. Next time.”
I laugh softly and lean against the bar. “Next time is interesting.”
“Is it?”
“It tells me you’d like to see more of me.”
“You have some ego, Kingston.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not. But like and will are two different things.”
I straighten and put my mouth to her ear. “Pity.”
Her sharp intake of breath is shaky and uneven, but it has nothing to do with the hum of agitation that runs through her and made her hand shake. I’m so close I can feel that, too.
But I move away and sit in a chair, gaze on her. She turns to the window and the gray outside. It wants to rain again, but so far, it hasn’t.
“Was all that just some kind of elaborate game?” I ask, taking a swallow of the Scotch I’m not sure I want, but I savor the burn, and the heat.
“The auctions?” Sadie shakes her head as a rumble of thunder rolls outside and I’m struck with the inexplicable urge to take her to bed. Again.
“You tell me you know who bought it and fuck me when I ask questions.”
She finally turns to me a moment. “Tell me you didn’t want that.”
“You know I did, but that isn’t an answer, because every time I asked you told me to trust you or you changed the subject.”
“I know what we did. And sure, I used the moment because I wanted that itch you created scratched.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“So.” I take another sip. “Answer.”
“Getting the tiara back doesn’t answer your questions.”
I nod. “Yeah, but I’ll have it and that’s a good step. Are you telling me…what?”
Sadie goes to the window and leans her head against it, and her ghostly reflection closes its eyes. Then she breathes out, and her breath fogs out the glass and the ghost. She turns to me. “Something is wrong.”
“Like what?” I look at her.
She breathes in but whatever it is she’s going to say shifts. I see that in how she straightens and I remember what Athena said about her all over again.
Yeah, we’re both experts at locking private gates.
Unfortunately, this is my life, my money she’s using, so I need to know what’s there behind her gates.
“Should I remind you that you work for me?” I ask.
Sadie’s expression turns cold, but the agitation is still there. “No. You don’t need to do that, Kingston.”
“So maybe you want to explain yourself, starting with your plan.”
She presses her lips together a moment. “Getting or not getting the tiara, you mean?”
“Let’s cut the not out of that.”
Her eyes narrow and she starts to pace, a surefire sign there are a million things going on in her head. “You’ll get what’s yours. You always do.” She takes a deep swallow of her drink, the shake a little more pronounced, and it sends ice through my veins. “But the rest of it is something we need to understand.”
“It’s more want, unless you think it’s a setup.”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I keep pivoting from one thought to another and everything is neat and simple until it isn’t and…are we looking at this in the wrong way?”
“What do you mean?”
“The amount paid for the tiara was a hell of a lot. We’re talking hundreds of millions.”
I shrug, even though nonchalance is as far from me as it’s ever been in my life. “Everyone in there can afford it and when I have it back, providing you don’t steal it from me, I can double that. After I get it evaluated.”
“You’re a fucking bastard, Kingston.”
She doesn’t say how dare you. She doesn’t say I wouldn’t steal it. No. She throws an insult.
It’s in line with how she is, so why the fuck do I get the feeling Sadie’s evasion means something?
“So you’ve told me. Do you have it?”
Sadie stills. “Do I look like I have it on me?”
Again, it’s in what she says, down deep. Or what she doesn’t say. I get to my feet, intent on getting to the bottom of her little games, finding out why she’s agitated enough I can see it. But she jumps in.
“Kingston, did you hear anything back yet about Jenson?”
“Not yet. It takes a few days. I’m not breaking any laws. Innocent until guilty is still a thing, so I’m fast tracking legal avenues. With his layers of lawyerly ways, it’s taking a little longer. He clearly knows how to circumvent certain tax laws.”
I got that report when I went through private emails on my separate server. And I almost laugh. He’s also not breaking laws, bending, but not breaking. I didn’t know the old conservative guy had it in him to play that way.
“Okay. So if we’re looking at this wrong, let’s look at the tiara. I’ve only seen the necklace and it’s beautiful. So why hide things like this away? From what I’ve read of your father he wasn’t flashing your money, but the jewels are heirloom, they’re something that should have been on display in some way, not hidden and buried beneath rumor. Did he say why?”
I shrug again and come up to her. “I’ll play, Sadie. For now. No, he didn’t say. We never knew if they were real or lost to time or just something once worn and labeled Sinclair. They were talked about, whispered about, but he and our grandfather never said a word about them existing outside something that might once have been family bling.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange?” I’m close enough I can see the slight dilation of her pupils, the tiny flutter of her pulse point in her throat, the softening of her mouth as she looks at me. And my guts twist and libido hums.
“I wouldn’t know. It just was.”
“These are things you yourself told me bring a certain something to the family and Minchini is a name to be revered. So?”
I breathe out and shake my head, and I step away a little. “For some reason we don’t know they were hidden, and it seems deliberately so. In the family there were whispers from aunts and cousins of the rumors. Never around my father, but kids hear things. You name it, we heard it. They were cursed, so were locked away.”
“Do you think your father would buy into that?”
“Fuck no. He liked money and had no time for pretty stories.”
She raises a brow and I scowl.
“Fuck you, too.”
“You have.”
I half laugh. “The tales ran the gamut from bad luck to loss in a card game, to being stolen long ago. There was one of them being melted down to solidify the family fortune, a rumor which brought the old man out in hives because of how it made his family look. Christ, Sadie, you name it, I heard it. Like they were even fake and made by Reardon, Minchini’s one-time apprentice. That was a popular one.”
“I’ve never heard of a Reardon, but if so, then it could make them either worth even more or nothing.”
I finish my drink and set the glass on the bar. “If it was true.”
“If.”
Our gazes crash and I reach out and take her drink, setting that down, too. And I close in again. “Where is the tiara?”
“The jeweler, if it wasn’t Minchini, was talented enough to pull off his style and touch.”
“Like your Athena.”
She smiles softly. “Hers is only made to look old. From the necklace, the workmanship is of the right era and…”
“What?”
Now she shrugs. “Whoever made them might have been Minchini or someone with more talent. Because they’re the best of all his jewels.”
I trace the shape of her lips. “And here I thought you only saw the one piece.”
“I did.”
“You said they.”
She moves in, brushing against me and places her hands on my bare chest. It’s an invitation and a dare. And I’ll take both.
“Maybe I stole back your tiara.”
“Did you?”
“Or maybe I just saw the photos.”
“Or you’re lying to me.” I slide my thumb in between her lips, into that hot, wet goodness. “I do know two things. You’re hiding something.”
The guileless expression on her face tells me I’m right. “And the other?”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
I move my thumb, running it slow down her chin to circle her throat with my hand, and then I take her mouth in a slow, deep kiss.
The world spins slowly when I lift up. And she’s breathing hard and fast. I’m already erect. I throb with wanting her.
“That it?” she asks, as she slides one hand up to my nape and the other down to my cock. “Or is there more?” And she squeezes me, making me groan. “I’d like more.”
“Come to bed with me, Sadie.”
“Yes.”
And I kiss her again, this time a dark, erotic kiss that leaves us both shaking. I take her hand and lead her out of the living room and to my bedroom and strip us both down.
We touch and explore each other, taking our time, an urgency building.
Right before I lose myself in her, I know this isn’t over.
I’ll get to the bottom of whatever she’s hiding.
No matter what.