Dirty Ties (17 page)

Darling in training? Jesus, that made her sound really fucking nefarious. Did she aspire to be like them? I stole a glance at her parents, and their smirks turned my stomach.

I dug deep, gathering my most agreeable voice. “I’m her boss now. I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Trent narrowed his eyes. “She’s eager but naïve. Keep her on a short leash.”

Christ, I was even more confused about her involvement than before. It was clear the marriage between her and Collin created a wholesome brand for Trenchant’s right-winged supporters, but… “Naïve? You mean she’s still learning how to”—C
heat? Steal? Murder?
—“not get caught.”

I waited for someone to correct me. No one did. Maybe I’d given away too much, revealing that my investigation of their children had slammed into a brick wall. But the lack of evidence could be owed to the fact that Kaci and Collin didn’t have the twenty-to-thirty year crime history their parents had.

I glanced at the woman most concerned about appearances. “The contract ensures she doesn’t do something stupid and drive Trenchant into a scandal?”

Kathleen nodded. “Precisely.”

In return, it promised Kaci the CEO position, a promise that wouldn’t be realized. Stealing the job from her didn’t feel right, but that feeling was fed by my very strong desire to find her innocent
while
I took down her family.

I blanked my face. Fingers slack. Voice steady. “Okay, so you’re going to set her up, lure her into an affair. And if she doesn’t bite?”

Trent stacked the papers in front of him and stuffed them in the folder. “She’ll bite. I’m sending her to The Watch tonight on an errand, so I’ll see it done then.”

So messed up. He’d plotted the ruination of his son’s marriage with less deliberation than he would give a menu at a restaurant. And he’d intentionally mentioned the club she would be at so I’d what? Volunteer for the job?

I wanted to close my eyes and consider what was happening here, but if I did that, I’d imagine her with another man. No, I’d imagine her with me because picturing her with her husband or with a stranger set my fucking chest on fire.

Was it too hopeful to think her encounter with Evader was…singular? That she was a good person, and cheating wasn’t commonplace for her?

Pull your head out of your ass. You need this contract negated.

But I
could
volunteer to be the bait, the tempter.
The other man.

Fuck, I needed to shake this goddamned whatever that had my heart racing. She was never mine, would never be mine. For all I cared, Slutty Ducati could go where no slut had gone before. If she was weak enough to cheat on her husband, fuck her.

“Assuming the contract is a non-issue…” I stood. “When do I start?”

Trent rose as well, strolling my way, and the other three followed suit.

He held out his hand, and when I grasped it, my skin recoiled against the dry scrape of his fingers.

“You start now.” His grip tightened, his tone frigid. “Welcome to Trenchant.”

The murmur of voices drifted around me, melding with the clink of champagne flutes and the deep, lonely notes of a saxophone. The acoustics in The Watch dispersed noise with subtlety, tricking the ears to disregard individual sound while luring the soul to fuse with the collective whole.

I traced the stem of the martini glass, the aroma of alcohol tingling my nose, the soft laughter of a nearby couple caressing my skin. Maybe I’d be laughing too if Collin were here, but he was still at the studio. And as usual, Trent’s order had been nonnegotiable.

Eight o’clock sharp. Wait at the bar. Accept the delivery. Don’t ask questions.

Typical shady bullshit. What would it be this time? A nondescript envelope? A flash-drive? A whispered message of cryptic nonsense?

Sometimes I thought he contrived this crap just to test me, to see how I would maneuver assignments shrouded in I-could-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you, like some perverse rite of passage. Other times, these tasks seemed a little too authentic to discredit, like the tiny hairs raising on my arms.

What if I was unwittingly meeting with mobsters? Aiding in felonies? I didn’t know the nature of Trent’s dealings.

Buy hey, in a couple weeks, I would be CEO. Which meant I could fire the board, clean up the company, and never ever participate in shady shit again. I filled my lungs with a deep inhale.

Until then, I didn’t have a choice. Follow his directive or sentence Collin to prison.

So I sat on the last stool at the
L
-shaped bar and made the best of it. God knew I’d needed to let my hair down. Literally. It hung in thick waves around me, warming my back and tickling my elbows. The rest of my senses tuned in to the retro-festive surroundings.

I loved The Watch the first time I came here with Collin. Loved it now. The live jazz, the waitresses in fishnet stockings, the pre-prohibition furniture, the energy, the eccentrics it attracted. This nightclub was straight-up sexy.

A low snap sounded from the stage across the open room.
Click. Click. Click.
Steady, patient, the snapping fingers set the beat.

The murmurs waned. Heads turned. Bodies leaned. The foot of the older man beside me tapped in time. Then the saxophone joined in, breathing each note with a heavy soul. Slowly, the crowd angled toward the stage, listening, swaying, losing themselves.

I felt it, too. Deep, rich, and devastatingly bold. Like the eyes of the man at the other end of the bar. He was just a silhouette in my periphery, but I didn’t need to look. His gaze was palpable, tracing my face and burning my cheeks, demanding I answer his silent query.

I was too damned nervous to flirt or mingle.
Wait at the bar. Accept the delivery.
The courier would come to me, unlike the man with the unnerving stare.

The bartender glided from counter to counter, taking orders and mixing drinks. When I caught his eyes, I threw back the last of the dirty martini and held it up.
One more.

God, that searing stare.
Make it stop.
My breaths shortened, and my palms grew slick. I fought not to meet it, afraid if I did, I’d engage. Then what? Too risky.

I kept my attention on the bartender, who flitted around in his dapper vest, suspenders, and fedora as if he were serving up bootleg in the back of a speakeasy during the Woodrow Wilson administration. His outfit, the dim lighting, black velvet curtains, and deep shades of red all played into the vintage vibe.

My own throwback to the by-gone era was a blood-red rockabilly dress, empire waist, flared skirt, and thigh-high stockings topped with black bows. An outfit that had fetched numerous compliments when I walked in, which made this ol’ thirty-seven-year-old feel right at home amidst so many gorgeous young ladies in short skirts and towering heels.

And after a survey of the sharply-dressed crowd, I was pretty sure every gentleman in Chicago with a penchant for cabaret was in the room.

Evader could be one of them, donning suspenders and sipping an elixir with a girl on his arm. He didn’t know my face. I didn’t know his. My chest tightened. It was tragic really, but I refused to let his douchery ruin my fantasy of him.

My one night with him might’ve pissed me the fuck off, but it had also added luminance to that achy place I burrowed every time I thought of him.

And I thought of him a lot. Goddamned always.

Maybe I would never find out what had spooked him, but part of me didn’t want to know. He’d given me an erotic memory, one that breathed life into all that hard muscle beneath his dark leathers, and I wouldn’t give that back. And despite the way he ran off, I bet I’d given him something comparable.

The bartender dropped off the martini, and unguarded, my senses flooded back to the man at the opposite end of the
L
-shaped bar. Before my brain caught on, my eyes snapped up and collided with his.

Trapped in the unblinking grip of his gaze, a swallow hung in my throat. My breath suspended. My entire body reacted. The shadow of stubble on his jaw made my skin prickle. The fullness of his lips sent a tingle through mine. Brown hair, trimmed on the sides and a mess of sexy on top, begged for my fingers, to rake and pull and not let go. I balled my hands in my lap.

Separated by a good twenty feet with the scurrying bartender between us, I couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but boy, were they smoldering. The heat they emitted raised the temperature in the room, stoking a trembling fever through my body. Who the hell was this guy? And why was I responding this way?

Five nights ago, I had the same intense reaction to a different guy. Ugh. I wasn’t some shallow slut in pursuit of carnal pleasures. I didn’t let my attentions flit randomly from one man to the next. I didn’t
want
multiple men. What was going on with me?

His chin was tilted down, his gaze angled up beneath hooded lids. Combined with his stern jawline and the slight arch of one brow, he looked oh-so arrogant, broody, destructive. Sweet Jesus, he was so fucking gorgeous it was insulting, like a slap in the face to every man in the club.

And he was looking at me like I was the only woman on his radar.

My heart panted as I squeezed my thighs together, trying and failing to dull the throb between my legs, every sensation magnified by the buzz of alcohol coursing through my blood. The nightclub faded away, and the air between us charged.

He leaned forward, his hand reaching up to trace the lip of the pint glass in front of him, his eyes never leaving mine. The slow movement of his finger sent a shiver through me, hardening my nipples, as if he were trailing that fingertip around the curve of my breast. I sucked in my bottom lip and bit down on a shaky breath.

The corner of his mouth crooked up, replacing the broody look with a confident half-grin. I wished he wouldn’t have done that, because holy mother of God, the lift of his right eyebrow was still there, fixed in place. Which meant he wasn’t just insanely handsome. He was insanely handsome with a natural, lopsided arch in his brow.

As if that wasn’t enough, I greedily drank in his body. He wore a white collared shirt that stretched tightly over his broad chest and thickly-muscled arms. Definitely a man who worked out. Virile. Strong. Probably in his late twenties. Couldn’t be younger than that since the age limit at The Watch was twenty-seven and up.

His hands were big, rugged, relaxed on the bar top. And no wedding ring. Though I didn’t wear one either.

When I returned to his face, his eyes narrowed, locked on something over my shoulder.

An arm reached from behind me and slid over the bar. A black sleeve. A man’s hand. Holding a watch.

Hot breath stroked my ear, snapping my spine straight. “Tell Mr. Anderson,” he whispered, “
Time’s up.
”

As I turned, the man’s lanky backside slipped into the throng of people and disappeared. I blew out a breath. Well, that was weird.

Twisting back, my attention caught on the watch beside the martini. A Timex watch with a fake leather band, the dials frozen on October twenty-seventh, eight o’clock. A month from today.

I glanced across the bar, and my ogler was no longer ogling, his gaze on the dark draft cupped in his hands. My stomach dropped. Had he lost interest? Maybe he was just giving me privacy?

Reaching into the clutch on my lap, I removed my phone and pulled up the text screen.

Me: still at the studio?

The response came back instantly.

Collin: Leaving shortly. Everything okay?

Me: meeting’s over. gave me a timex to give ur dad. does trent have a cheap watch collection I dont know about?

I’d told Collin I was meeting someone for Trent, because I did that a lot, handling dinners with big clients and schmoozing with investors.

Collin didn’t need to know tonight’s meeting hadn’t been a meeting at all. He didn’t need to know about the shady shit I did for his father. It would only add to his guilt about our situation. He’d ask questions, and the answers would make him an accomplice. Like me.

An accomplice to what I had no fucking clue.

Collin: Well you are at The Watch. Maybe it’s a joke? What did he say?

Me: time’s up

Collin: LOL. Probably something to do with his odd bohemian fraternity buddies.

I wasn’t so sure. My gut told me something significant was going to happen on October twenty-seventh at eight o’clock. I slipped the watch into the clutch. Tomorrow morning, I’d have one of my trusted engineers in the I/T department check it for chips before I turned it over to Trent.

Collin: You headed home?

Was I? I glanced across the bar and locked onto a pair of moody eyes. We exchanged a look, but I had no clue what it meant. He glared at me like he wanted to eat me. Or hurt me. Maybe both. Yet he hadn’t moved a single sinewy muscle to make that happen.

Maybe he was married. Or assumed I was.

Or maybe he was aggravated because I was giving my phone more attention than I was giving him. I grinned, and his scowl deepened.

Me: a man is staring at me. hard.

Collin: Not bald and holding a knife is he?

Ugh. He was never going to let me forget that. Not that I could. He’d made me swear on his life and the lives of the children we would never have that my Evader days were over.