Ignited by J Kenner, now you can read online.
one
Cons and games, lies and deceit.
Those aren’t just words to me, but a way of life.
For years, I’ve tried to escape—to be other than my father’s daughter—but time and again I have failed.
Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough. Maybe I didn’t want to. I like the rush, after all. The challenge.
I have more than twenty years of the grift behind me, and I thought I knew it all. Thought I understood risk. Thought I knew the definition of danger.
Then I saw him.
Raw and carnal, dark and dangerous.
I didn’t know risk until I met him. Didn’t understand danger until I looked into his eyes. Didn’t comprehend passion until I felt his touch.
I should have stayed away, but how could I when he was everything I craved? When I knew that he could fulfill my darkest fantasies?
I wanted him, plain and simple.
And so I set out to play the most dangerous game of all. . . .
I stood in the middle of the newly opened Edge Gallery, my heels planted on the polished wood floor and the brilliant white walls of the main exhibit space coming close to blinding me.
Around me, politicians mingled with hipsters as they buzzed from one painting to the next like bees around a flower. Male waiters in sharply creased tuxes carried wine-topped trays with purpose, while their similarly attired female counterparts offered tasty morsels that were such works of art themselves it seemed a shame to eat them.
Tonight’s sparkling gala celebrated the opening of this newest addition to Chicago’s well-known River North gallery district, and everyone who was anyone was here. And not just because of the art. No, the crowd tonight had come as much to mingle with the owners as to celebrate the opening.
And why not? Tyler Sharp and Cole August were among Chicago’s elite. They, along with their friend and frequent business partner Evan Black, made up the knights—a triangle of power within the Chicago stratosphere. The fact that their power stemmed from both legitimate and illegitimate means only added to their dark, edgy coolness.
Not that the illegitimate side of the equation was public knowledge, but it did add a sort of mysterious sheen to these deliciously sexy men who made the press drool. I knew the truth because I was best friends with Evan’s fiancée, Angelina Raine, and that friendship had spread to include all the knights. At least, that’s what Angie and the knights believe. In reality, I’d realized the guys weren’t squeaky-clean entrepreneurs within a day of meeting them.
Like knows like, after all.
For that matter, like attracts like. At least, that’s what I hoped. Because although I truly did want to celebrate the opening, I’d really come here for one purpose, and one purpose only: to finally and completely get Cole August’s attention—and then get him in my bed.
Not that I was progressing like lightning toward that goal. I’d come without a solid plan—something I never do—and after ninety minutes of mingling, I’d spoken only fourteen words to Cole, and that was at the door as I’d entered. I knew there were fourteen words, because I’d played the encounter—I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a conversation—over and over in my head. A form of mental torture, I guess, as I wallowed in my own insipidness.
“I’m so thrilled for you both.”
“Thanks, Kat. We’re glad you could make it.”
“Me, too. Well, I’ll let you mingle. Later.”
I shook my head at myself. Honestly, if my father had been around to overhear that exchange, he would have disowned me on the spot. Hadn’t he taught me the art of making small talk? Of pulling people in? Of getting close so that you can get what you want?
Planning and focus have always been second nature to me. I’d grown up in the grift, and I’d known the ins and outs of designing a long con even before I knew my multiplication tables.
Tonight wasn’t about a con, though. Tonight was about me.
And apparently that one little fact was enough to throw me entirely off my game.
Well, damn.
I shifted slightly so that I could look at the object of my mission. I found him easily enough—Cole August is not the kind of man who blends. Right then he was working the room, discussing art with both serious buyers and casual friends.
Art was his passion, and it was easy to see how much tonight meant to him. The two featured artists—a South Side tagger whom Cole had found and pulled out of the ghetto and a world-renowned painter who specialized in hyperrealism—worked the crowd alongside him.