Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sadie
T hat was stupid. I can’t get it out of my head and I can’t one hundred percent get behind it because sex with Kingston could become as important as breathing air.
“Hey.”
I look at him, halfway to getting dressed. I hold my top. “I know, I know. I get it. That was sex. And I’m with you. I’m getting out of here and back on the case and then I’ll be out of your life.”
“Sadie?”
“Yes?” I scowl at him.
And he smiles. It’s a heartbreaker of a smile. He hooks a finger into my lycra laced top and pulls it away, flinging it down. “I’m not asking you to be out of my life.”
“Kingston.” I close my eyes. “You don’t want me.”
“I think we know that’s a lie. Open your eyes and come back to bed.”
“We have a ticking clock.”
“And we have the fake and not much we can do unless you’ve got a big, bad confession. Do you?”
I do. My father is there, suddenly in my head, or rather, his visit. It would be so easy to tell this man about it, the way I felt like I was ten. The manipulation that crawled over me. Or the fact I didn’t listen to Athena telling me his parole was coming up.
I didn’t think he’d get out, I could say. Hell, maybe I could tell Kingston my charming father, the man who tried to make and break me down into an image of him, had been nothing but nice, contrite, and vices closed in.
Nice and contrite and it was all a threat without a single word of malice.
I could say that Trevor Masters turned up and I felt like I was a scared child again. One whose eyes had finally been opened.
I could tell him every sordid thing I’d done, the kind of crimes he’d made me complicit in that I worry that stains won’t come off my skin. That they’d sunk deep and down into my bones.
Shit, I could even tell him how I got my hands on my birth certificate and when I could, legally changed my last name to my dead mother’s name. A woman who’d run away, died in childbirth, or was a drug fiend my father saved me from. Take a pick because Trevor liked to change the story to suit his mood and every single one was true in that moment because he had that gift of turning anything into the truth.
I don’t even know what happened to her. And years ago I stopped looking. No death certificate existed but that didn’t mean anything, just she didn’t die in childbirth. And…forgive me, I’ve stopped searching, stopped caring. I have myself. And Athena. And I don’t need or want anything else.
I could say all this.
I don’t.
I don’t say a word. I take in that smile, the naked torso, and the offer in his eyes.
If anyone could make me believe in a better world then it would be him.
But I made my own world.
And Kingston doesn’t make me any kind of offer except here. And now.
“No confessions,” I say. “Not one. Except I don’t want to go. Not right now.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Are we on the same page?”
I smile and go to him and he pulls me down over him and kisses me.
I’m ready to take the offer of sex. It’s warm and real and there.
But he doesn’t move to touch me except hold me against him, and stroke my cheek as he kisses me again.
“What…what are you doing?”
He laughs. “Holding you. Until my mother calls back and until I get word on Jenson, and you go and find the tiara, then I can think of other things to do with our time.”
“I’m going to—”
“Stay here. For a bit. Please?”
And, so I do.
We laugh and joke and I let myself take this sliver of happiness. Because that’s what it is.
I stretch. “This is nice,” I say quietly, much later.
“Yeah, it is.” He slides his fingers through my hair. “Sadie, I—”
Kingston’s phone rings.
“Hold that thought.”
“It’s your thought, Mr. Billionaire. I’m not paid to hold your anything.”
He just gives me a look that makes me laugh. I don’t know why I feel light inside. But then he glances at his phone.
“Shit, I need to deal with this.” With a groan, he answers. “Yeah? Okay, okay, give me five.”
Kingston gets up and pulls on jeans, puts the call on mute, and comes back and kisses me.
“The fairy tale is ending?” I ask.
He sighs. “For now. I really have to take this or else I’d tell them where to go. We’re not finished. Stay here. Please?”
I don’t answer, and he leaves, pulling on a sweater as he does so.
When a door closes, one I’m sure is his office, I get out of bed and into my clothes so fast I could win a medal. I race out of the bedroom and down the hall and open his door. I cross the landing to the elevator and keep pressing the call button until it arrives.
Like a small, scared child, I’m running away. It’s what I do with him.
The doors close and I let the air out from my lungs. I’m not staying to hear him tell me this is just sex. I have things to do.
And I didn’t tell him I have the tiara. My father turned up, and I got scared. I mean, I—
I stop.
I have the tiara and it wasn’t my father’s unexpected visit stopping me from telling Kingston.
Suddenly my legs give out, and I slide down the wall of his private lift and hit the bottom.
It’s not my father. Not at all.
Sure, I went in there, upset about Dad, but…that isn’t why. I’m planning on giving it to Kingston. My promise to the low life isn’t needed now, and I only wanted to see what information I could get from him.
No.
When it came down to it, I didn’t tell Kingston because I don’t want this to end. And it’s coming to an end. His birthday is coming fast. I could get Athena to make another fake. We could continue the chase for it. Or I could try and drag out the sale.
I don’t want this to end because I like him.
Oh. Fuck. I have feelings for him.
I probe them. Carefully, like with a bad tooth. But like a bad tooth, they hurt and feel too big, too there. And I don’t know what to do.
For the first time, I don’t know what to do.
Yia-yia will tell me to be honest. To let him in. She damn well likes Kingston. She told me he was arrogant and shifty and all the things I am. And then she floored me and said he had a good heart.
I haven’t let myself near that.
Not until now.
I glance up. I’m fast approaching the lobby. I grab the rail and pull myself up, legs still shaky.
I didn’t lie about trying to get to the bottom of the rest, because I know he wants that. But I’m going to need to get that tiara from where I hid it away. Get it and do the right thing for once, because come what may, I like him.
Maybe more than like him.
And maybe…maybe that isn’t a bad thing.
“The one thing you were never good at, Dad,” I say as I step into my apartment, closing the door with the scratch marks on the locks, “is B and E.”
My father comes out of my bedroom. He’s been through my place and he hasn’t bothered to hide it.
I’m such a fucking idiot to think I took care of things.
Because he has something in his hands. And it turns my blood to ice.
“I gave you a lot of money,” I say in a deliberately unconcerned tone. “Breaking in and trashing my place is a crime. And you’re on parole.”
He laughs. He’s older, gray. Fit from no doubt working out in prison. But he always liked to look good. He probably has a piece who he sucked dry while in there. Men like him always find a way to land on their feet, even behind bars. I really want to hate him. But it’s complicated.
One thing I know is I don’t like him. At all.
“You wouldn’t turn in your dear father, would you, Sadie?” He smiles and lifts the tiara, studying it. “Because I know all your secrets. Ones the police would be interested in.”
I don’t bother asking how. He doesn’t have evidence because I’d have heard from him long before this. “That isn’t yours.”
“Isn’t yours either.”
“It could be.” He runs his fingers over the intricate stonework. “Fetch a good price.”
I want to snatch it from him, but I don’t. “It won’t. It’s fake.”
“I don’t believe you.” He grins then. “I followed you. Sadie, I recorded you. It’ll be in the papers soon and I’ll be a hero.”
“You’ll turn your daughter in?” What am I saying? Of course he would. Trevor Masters only loves one thing more than money and the grift. And that’s Trevor Masters. “You’d have to turn that in, too. And these rich people aren’t really into handing out rewards. Also, it’s fake.”
“Sadie, this is your father.”
“Yes, I know. And I gave you money. If you want more, you’ll have to give me time.”
He puts the tiara down on my desk, next to my computer, which he’s opened. But he hasn’t got into it. I can see that. It’s locked. Not that he’d find anything.
“Why do I need time? Your boyfriend is a billionaire.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He hired me to find the real tiara.”
“You’re ripping him off?”
“When I get the real one, yes.”
The lie comes quick and easy.
But he shakes his head. “You underestimate a parent. You’re involved with him and the tiara, if it’s real, is worth nothing compared to his fortune.”
“Dad, he’s not giving you money. He won’t. I used him to get information on finding the tiara. The real one. When I do, I’ll switch them out and you can have the money.”
“You’re sleeping with him to get your hands on the real tiara? I taught you better. Milk them.”
“Are we done?”
He reaches for the tiara, then looks at me and leaves it. “I’ll be back, kid.”
The moment he leaves, I start to shake. He didn’t believe me. I know that. At least, not completely. But he said something about parents and power and that clicked something into place. I grab the tiara and wrap it, shoving it into my bag. I pull on my coat, sling the bag on my shoulder and head out, hailing a cab.
Faye Sinclair looks up from her computer when her housekeeper shows me into her pretty office. It’s feminine and the ornate seventeenth century French desk is real.
If she’s surprised to see me, it doesn’t show.
“Do you know who my father is?”
She sits back. “No. I—”
“Trevor Masters. And he’s just like you’ve read.” I sit without being offered a seat. “He’s out of prison. Trying to extort me for money. And he thinks Kingston might care enough to extort even more from him to keep me from prison. For stealing the tiara.”
She rests her elbows on the desk.
“But you knew that, didn’t you?”
“The tiara part?” Kingston’s mother is just as smooth as ever. “It’s missing, so…”
I shake my head. “Missing. Not stolen. Because it wasn’t stolen, was it?” I wave a hand. “No need to answer that. There are some things I don’t get. Like why you wanted Kingston to hire me.”
“You’re the best.”
“There are others. And I don’t think that’s it. But I did work something out from what my deadbeat dad said.” I breathe in, then let it out, slow. “I underestimated you.”
“People do,” she says. “And I wanted Kingston to hire you for his own sake. He needs the right woman.”
I stare at her. “I’m not the right anything.”
“The reason you know so much about it all, the letters, everything, why your sons have had the added threat of the company over them, is you. They underestimate you and your power. You own most of the shares that keep it in private hands.”
“You’re good.”
“And right.” I get up. “Don’t play games with Kingston. He loves you, but he won’t forgive you. So, here.” I pull out the wrapped tiara and an envelope. “The tiara is a little early, but under the circumstances, I don’t think it should be in my hands. Or Kingston’s.”
She glances at them as I place them on the desk. “The envelope?”
“The money you paid me. I don’t want it.”
“I didn’t ask you to betray him.”
No, she didn’t, she just asked me to slow him down. He’ll see it as betrayal. None of that is why I’m giving the tiara to his mother and not to him. And it’s really simple.
I don’t trust him.
Kingston is ruthless, out for himself and a cynical bastard, and I’ll never forgive hm if he hands it to my father in some weird act to keep me safe.
“I know,” I say. “But I don’t want it in my hands. He asked me to sell it for him. I think it’s foolish.”
“You can’t stop him when he sets his mind to something.”
No, but if wants to see me outside this, then I’m not fencing it. I don’t want something that can be used as an excuse. I want him to see me for me. And what am I even thinking? That there’s a chance? I’ve lost my mind.
“I need to go.”
Suddenly Faye is on her feet. “Take the money.”
“I can’t. It’s…it’s not right.”
She smiles. But I frown.
“You do know he’ll want to have it evaluated,” I say. “And you don’t want that, do you?”
What if it’s actually fake, or not worth what he thinks it is? That’s something that’ll rip him apart. To be played with. And me… I swallow.
“God,” I say, “you made me your accomplice. He won’t forgive me if it’s not the real deal. He’ll think…”
Her smile doesn’t fade. “You care.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do, Sadie. You know what I see? A woman with so much to give and the man you want to give your heart to. You love my son.”
Horror sinks down into my marrow. “No. No, I don’t.”
And I turn and leave, like the hounds of hell are at my heels.
Kingston is waiting at his door twenty minutes later.
“You texted?”
I glare at him. From my father to his mother to this. I’m stretched tight. About to snap. And I don’t know why.
I don’t want to be here, I do know that. I’m a coward. But the text was a demand. Not an ask. And images of my father bilking him for half his fortune danced through my head. So…
Here I am.
He stares at me, and his expression is odd. I can’t read it. Like he’s tied himself in extra strong steel doors, shutting everything out.
“You lied.”
My skin prickles as I follow him into his mansion in the sky. In his study, he turns to me. Something is up and telling him about the tiara vanishes from my head. “About what?”
“You stole the tiara. I’ve seen the footage.”
I choose my words carefully, because now I get his weirdness. My father visited. “I haven’t heard of it being reported as stolen.”
“Don’t lie to me, Sadie.”
“I thought you established I lied already?”
His hand with his phone clenches. “Thing is, you lost out.”
“What are you saying?” Panic flutters hard and painful. “I don’t have your tiara. Come and see.”
“Maybe I will.”
We stare at each other and the coldness almost kills me and I know I have to take it and run. “You know, I really thought you’d be different. A pushover when it came to me. The chemistry…” I suck air in deep. “I worked hard at that.”
“Did you?”
I nod. “Why go for a tiara when I can go for your fortune? A healthy chunk and I’d be set for life. It would make the trinket look like it came from a gumball machine.”
Kingston is silent for a long moment and the pain on his face hurts me. The anger gives me a dark, nihilistic hope. “A grift?”
“Not exactly. More your gold digger move. I find that sort of thing more profitable and law abiding. After all, sex in exchange for money is what all relationships are based on, right? Maybe not money, but it’s always an exchange.”
“If the gentleman is willing.”
“If.” I deliberately rake my gaze over him. “And you are.”
“Sorry, Sadie, you got it wrong. I don’t do exchanges.”
“Don’t tell me you care.”
He smiles tight and icy. “Did you use me?”
My head starts to spin. If I do this, then this is done. Forever. And…
I have to.
“Yes.”
The word hangs there in the silence. And it’s a death knell. But if it means I make him hate me, then I can save him from my father’s sticky, grasping fingers.
So I push further.
“I used you. I wanted your money and a good life and nothing else.”
He nods. “I see. It makes sense. You are your father’s daughter.”
“Maybe I really am.”
“And the tiara?”
“I wanted it to start with,” I say. “But I don’t have it. See, it was a fake. Your tiara is out there somewhere. Or, you might want to talk to your mother. She might have answers.”
He nods, a slight frown on that gorgeous face. “And if I don’t believe you?”
“I’m telling you the truth, I used you—”
“Fuck you, Sadie. I really don’t give a shit about you anymore. I’m talking what matters. My inheritance. If I go to the cops and say you have it?”
I shrug. “Go do that. Search my place, it isn’t there, because I don’t have it. I sold the fake I made, and gave that money to my father for his part in this. I used you. And now that’s done, and you know, I don’t want to see you anymore.”
Silence slams down on us and I’m drowning because as I say these terrible, horrible words the truth hits me hard.
“I think,” he says softly, “you should go. I’m not going to pay you, either.”
“Goodbye, Kingston. Sorry about the loss of the company. But that’s really on your mother, isn’t it?”
I don’t wait for him to answer, I just walk out. Like it’s broken glass and I’m barefooted. Very carefully.
And inside things crack.
My throat burns hot and my eyes itch and it’s not until I’m in the cab home that I give in.
Not to tears. I’m not letting them out.
But I give in to what I’ve done.
I lied to his mother. To him. To myself.
I did the most stupid thing in the world I’ve done.
I fell in love with Kingston Sinclair.
And, to protect him, I smashed my own heart, along with any chance with him, to pieces.
We’re done.