by JA Huss
I rest my head back against the wall, close my eyes, and let go. Maybe for the first time in my life I just let it all go. The past. The jobs. The future. It’s gone. Wiped away in the aftermath of lust.
After a few minutes of stillness, she eases backward, gets up, turns the steam off, and then starts the shower. She makes the water cool, then grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet.
We wash each other. Hair, body, soul.
And then we dry each other off and I lead her out to the bedroom. Collapsing onto the soft comforter, not even bothering to get underneath it. I just grab her and never let go. Pull her into my chest, wrap my hands around her breasts, and… sleep.
I wake up to sun beaming down on my face, reaching for Cindy. Finding her gone. What did I expect? I swing my legs over the side of the bed, rub the stubble on my jaw with both hands, and then stand up and take a piss in the bathroom.
That was the best sex I’ve ever had and I know—I just fucking know—it’s only the beginning if I get to see her again after we talk about it.
I pull on some boxer briefs and walk towards the stairs, surprised when I cross the catwalk and see her—back to me—cooking at the stove in the open kitchen down below.
I don’t say anything. I don’t even know if I have words for what this is. What I’m doing. But I stop at the top of the stairs when I see the shoe. Left there last night as I brought her up here.
It’s fitting, right? Cinderella leaves a shoe on the stairs and then Prince Charming has to go looking for her with only that one shoe as his clue.
The other shoe is further down. And it’s a good sign, I think. That we are not that story. She didn’t disappear. I don’t have to go searching for her. We can spend the day together. No one to stop us. Start something new. No rules, or expectations, or baggage to drag us down.
Well, that’s a fairy tale too, I guess. Because I’ve got baggage, man. I’ve got a huge amount of baggage and there’s no fairy godmother coming to make it all better.
“What are you doing?” I ask, reaching the bottom of the steps.
“Cooking,” she chirps, flipping something over in a pan. This is the Cindy I know. Happy, cheerful, easygoing.
“Where’d you get food?” I say, coming up behind her and wrapping my arms around her body so I can squeeze her tits and kiss her neck. She’s wearing an apron, of all things. It’s yellow, like her hair. With cookies on it. And a tank top and shorts.
Sugar. Goddammit if she doesn’t smell like sugar. Even after staying in someone else’s house, taking a shower with their scented soaps and shampoos, and frying bacon in a pan.
“I borrowed your car and went to the store.”
“You… left?” I ask.
“I came back.” She says it like she might not’ve.
“Where’d you get these clothes?” She’s wearing my dress shirt and a pair of man’s shorts that must be Nolan’s. Which means she’s been snooping around the house while I was sleeping. “What time did you wake up?”
“What?” She feigns ignorance.
I feign with her. Are we talking about this yet? Who she is? Where she came from? How she knows all these things and why she’s been watching me?
If we talk about that, well, then we’ll have to talk about my mother. The Silver Pledge—whatever the fuck that is. Those envelopes, the note, the game. “Smells good,” I say. I can play along. I don’t even mind playing along.
“What time do you have to be in the office today?”
How’d she know I have to be in the office today?
Forget it. We’re not talking about it.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Eleven thirty.”
“Shit,” I say, threading my fingers through my hair. “I have a client today.”
“I know. Mr. Walker’s son went missing two weeks ago. It’s out of character and no leads so far. The police aren’t interested, so he came to you.”
We really should start talking about this. But instead of starting that conversation, I say, “Do you want to help me find him? I could use a good assistant.”
She looks over her shoulder, gives me a sidelong smirk. “You don’t even have to ask. I’m already on it. I pulled up his phone records and even though there doesn’t seem to be a pattern, there is. A number he calls every Tuesday evening. He’s called it without fail for over a year, but he only calls once a week, so it’s not an easy pattern to see when you look at all the hundreds of other calls and texts he sends. He’s a chatty guy. But I found it. So we can start there if you want.”
I pull her hair aside, giving myself better access to her neck. And I kiss her again. She sighs, leans against me just slightly. Just enough to let me know we don’t really need to talk about it. Denial is our friend today.
She squirms out of my embrace and grabs two plates sitting on the counter. She scoops up some scrambled eggs from another pan, then the bacon, loading up each plate as the toast pops up. “Butter that for me, will you?”
The butter is sitting out on the counter already, soft. So I grab the toast and butter it up, dropping the slices on the plates just as she whisks them away to the dining table in front of the big picture window that overlooks the racetrack.
“I made mimosas, too. You like mimosas, right?” She smiles at me.
I hate champagne. But I smile back and say, “Almost as much as I like margaritas and mint juleps.”
“I hope you’re hungry,” she says, smiling into her glass as she takes a drink.
“I’m gonna fuck you on my desk this afternoon.”
She almost spits out her mimosa.
“And then at my house tonight.”
“OK.”
“And we’re never talking about it.”
She swallows hard and nods. “OK.” It’s softer than the last OK, filled with relief and maybe even some regret. But then she forces another smile, lifts her glass and says, “To new beginnings.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
I do believe I will come to love this drink. And all the girly things this sweet-smelling Cinderella has brought into my life. If only for the fact that they symbolize something.
Not a beginning. But an end.
Fuck those silver envelopes. Fuck that rape charge. Fuck everything but what happens from this day forward.
It’s over.
I am Prince Charming in this story, and I decree the bullshit to be over.
Chapter Seventeen - Cindy
Everything is smooth sailing for almost a week. We find that jerk of a son for Mr. Walker. He was on a drug binge. We looked up that one number later that day and traced it to a phone booth—who knew they still have those things?—outside the Derryman’s Pub in Santa Monica. Some high-end dealer uses that thing as an office. So we followed him and… well, all sorts of boring drama unfolded. But the point is, we cracked that case in three days.
Since then, Mr. Walker has referred us to many of his “private” friends, as he likes to call them. Just little things. One guy thought his wife was cheating. One woman thought her husband was cheating. And it occurs to me now that the very nature of Paxton Vance’s business has begun to change.
It’s like… It’s like he’s not a fixer anymore. He really is my fictional detective.
We never do talk about it. Even though it feels—to me, anyway—that there’s this big question mark hanging over us, we don’t talk about any of it. Not his mother, not the day at the races, not my past, not how conveniently I left my life in Malibu behind and moved in with him. Not any of it.
The phone rings and I pick it up. “Mr. Vance’s office. How can I help you?”
“What?”
Oh, shit. I do not need more than one word to tell me who is on the other end of this phone.
My brother, Oliver.
I clear my throat. “Mr. Vance’s office,” I repeat, using a fake high voice. “How can I help you?”
“Since when does he have a fucking secretary?”
“As
sistant,” I say, still using my high voice.
“Is he there or not?”
Hmmm. I never knew my brother was such a dick. “No, I’m sorry, sir. He’s out of the office for the… week.”
I smile and wave at Pax through the closed glass door to his office, then shake my head, stick out my tongue like this is nothing but a stupid sales call, and he laughs, looking back down at his paperwork.
“The fucking week? When exactly will he be back? I tried his cell, but he’s not picking up. Why isn’t he picking up?”
He’s not picking up because he left his cell at home today by accident. Jesus Christ, what if Oliver comes here? No. No. He’s all the way over in Colorado. This is no big deal. “He’s… in the Exuma Cays, Mr…”
“Shrike,” Oliver says, thoroughly annoyed with me now. It’s not my fault Pax is off gallivanting. Well, if he was off gallivanting, it wouldn’t be my fault. And Oliver doesn’t know he’s not. So… dick.
“Mr. Shrike, Mr. Vance is gone for the whole week and won’t be back until next Monday. He’s on a break. No tech out there.”
“Since when? I know damn well he’s got internet and TV on that fucking island.”
Shit. Think, Cindy. “He’s on that other island.” Yeah. That other island. He’s got two, he told me that.
“Since when does he have two—never mind. Let him know I called if he calls in. And tell him to hit me back, pronto.”
The phone goes dead and I just stare at it for a second.
“Who was that?” Pax asks from his open door.
“Um…” Shit. How much did he hear? “I have no idea. Some rude salesman asking about copy machines.”
“Copy machines?”
I have to control my eye roll at myself. Copy machines? Who the fuck sells copy machines anymore, Cinderella? People just use printers in an office this size.
Pax narrows his eyes at me. Suspicion, I realize.
“He was handsome in a rugged sort of way.”
The narrow eyes widen. A smile.
“A real man’s man with his rolled-up sleeves and loose tie.”
“Is this how you see me?” Paxton asks.
“Smart enough to get into Ivy League schools. Wise enough to get by without them.”
“Shit,” he whispers under his breath.
“And the first time I walked into his office, desperate for help—”
“Oh, I get it. This is some nineteen-forties detective noir?”
“—all I could think about was how long it would take him to bend me over his desk—”
Now he laughs, but stifles it with a closed fist in front of his mouth.
“—hike up my skirt, and take me from behind.” I stop to smile with him. God, he’s cute. “Hoping, when he finally did that, he wouldn’t see the run in my stockings. The broken buckle on my shoe—”
“Downtrodden dame,” Pax says. “Nice touch.”
“—the cheap scent of my perfume.”
“Sugar, baby. Like you stepped out of a bakery every time I see you. There’s nothing cheap about smelling sweet.”
I have him now. That phone call is long forgotten. But… it’s fun. So I keep going with my little narration. “And he’d just lose himself in my lust.”
“Lust, huh?”
I take a deep breath. Happy. Happier than I’ve ever been, I think. “You’re fun, you know that?”
“You’re fun,” he says, coming close enough to grab my waist and twirl me around. “Is this how the story starts, then? You’re a dame looking for help from the down-and-out unorthodox detective?”
I go up on my tiptoes and kiss him, our mouths fitting together in that perfect puzzle-piece way they do. His hands slip from my hips to my ass, and he gives my cheeks a squeeze before hiking up my skirt, exposing my bare skin to the cool office air.
“I won’t be able to find that run in your stocking, sugar. Because you’re not wearing anything but this thong.”
“I’m not really a stocking kind of girl, but I can be if it turns you on.”
“Should I pick up a trench coat?”
I laugh, then lean into his neck and just sigh.
“What?” he asks, nuzzling my hair.
“I like you.”
“Well.” He kisses my earlobe. “That’s perfect. Because I like you too.”
“You don’t think I’m weird, even though I can be a little over the top?”
“You?” He pulls back in mock surprise. “No.”
“I know, right?” We smile at each other. Why did I start the story again? Oh, yeah. Phone call. What phone call?
“You’re definitely unique, Miss Sugar.”
“Miss Sugar,” I huff.
“And impulsive. And quite the little liar.”
“What?” Shit. What does he know?
“I own the sub shop,” he says, faking a high voice. “I was checking on you in there.” He nods his head to his office.
“Dammit. I was gonna tell you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I lied about the sub shop. I was bribing the delivery driver so I could meet you once I noticed you were ordering takeout.”
“So where do you live? Where do you keep the clothes you keep going home for?”
“With you. Now.” I smile, not sure how this will go since this is kind of the start of talking about it. “But I was living out of a backpack in a trailer at the campground up PCH.”
“Not a trust-fund baby?”
“Oh, I am.” I laugh. “But my father likes to parcel that shit out a little at a time. There’s all kinds of restrictions on it. I didn’t even get a monthly allowance for college. Every semester he took a trip out to my school to pay my tuition in person. I got a little bit when I turned eighteen. Just enough to buy a car and live in the dorms. Then I got a little bit more at graduation. But I used it for grad school. You see the pattern, I’m sure.”
“So you’re broke?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” Pax says. “No, I’m just asking if you’re broke.”
“Not broke. I am an investigator. I have jobs I get off my brother’s website.”
Holy motherfucking shit. What the hell is wrong with you, Cindy Shrike? Cinderella Vaughn has no brother. I scramble to recover from my mistake.
“Well, I’m doing your jobs now,” I say. “So I’m not working on anything myself. But I get by. I’m not broke.”
“The trust fund is over?”
Whew. He didn’t notice. “Do you get a trust fund?” I ask, following his lead.
“Me? Ha.” He laughs. “No. My mother is a dig-yourself-out-of-your-own-hole kind of woman. But I don’t need a trust fund. I made smart decisions back in the day.”
He’s got this weird smirk on his face. Like he’s pulling something over on the whole world. “What? Did you steal it or something?”
“Steal it? Why would I steal it? That’s a weird question. You remind me of Match, you know that?”
Oh, fuck. I was totally safe about the call and now we’re right back where I started. “Who?” I ask innocently.
“Oliver Shrike? Mr. Match? One of the five who was accused? It’s funny, when he and I had our first money conversation, he asked me the same thing. Said his father pulled some kind of con when he was younger and ever since he found that out, he was…”
I lose track of his words. I was there when Oliver found out the kind of stuff my dad used to do with his friends before any of us kids were born. It was crazy. Ariel was the one who dug up the dirt. Just a casual, Let’s see what kind of dirt we can find on Dad, kind of thing. We never expected what we found.
“Cindy?”
“What?” Pax is looking at me expectantly. Like he’s waiting for an answer. “Sorry. I just kind of spaced out for a minute thinking about your Mister friend.”
“Hmmm.”
What kind of hmmm was that? Suspicious? “I thought you were gonna fuck me on the desk.”
“Is that right?” Pax says.
“We went from titillating fantasy to money. No one likes to talk about money, Pax. But sex,” I say with a wink. “Now there’s a fun subject.” I lean back into his neck, trying my best to recapture the moment. But… it’s gone.
Just then a knock on the door pulls us apart. I whirl around to see that man who came to visit Pax up in Malibu. Liam.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Pax says. “I told you, Liam. I’m not interested in your problem or your job.”
“Who’s this?” Liam’s attention turns to me as I hastily finish straightening out my skirt.
“No one you need to remember,” Pax says, turning to me. “Cindy, can you go grab me lunch from that sandwich shop down the street? Get my usual, please.”
Is he kidding? Trying to get me out of here without this weirdo noticing me too much? Or blowing me off? “Sure,” I say, not meeting his eyes as I pick up my purse and head towards the door.
“Let’s talk in here,” Paxton says. I chance one look back before I leave, but they disappear into his office.
Chapter Eighteen - Paxton
Liam is smiling like he’s got a secret. It pisses me off that he came into my life uninvited for the second time. But I keep the temper in check as I close the door behind him, then walk around my desk and take a seat.
The polite thing to do when talking to an equal is to sit in one of the two chairs facing the desk, with the guest in the chair next to yours. But I sit behind the desk for a reason.
I’m the one in charge here, and I want him to know it.
Plus, his back is to the door and I can see straight through the glass to Cindy’s desk. And I have the phone in front of me. “Let me just put this on ‘do not disturb’ in case Cindy comes back and wants to… disturb us.”
Liam brushes a piece of lint off his navy blue suit coat, like he couldn’t care less. “Pretty, that one. But a little slutty for a man of your breeding, don’t you think? Her ass was hanging out her skirt when I came in.”
“Why are you here?” I ask calmly, trying my best not to lean across this desk, grab Liam Henry by the tie, and choke this motherfucker to death.
