The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,54
at the house. She might panic and try to alert Winston to what’s going on with her.
“Best I can do is a full day, instead of two,” he says. “But you’ll need to come to me. Get here for six, and we won’t finish until around seven that night. Then we go to yours, and I make sure the environment is good for the dogs. If I’m happy, I leave them with you. Means a long day, and I won’t be out of your hair until about ten in the evening. But it’s the quickest handover I can do, and if we do it this way, I’ll want to come by two to three weeks after for a few hours, see how things are going and how the dogs are settling in, and then do a six month review, which will take about an afternoon.”
“That option.” I smile into the phone at his chuckle. “Except, you can’t come to me. So I’ll take a video of the house and grounds. Trust me, it’s perfect for dogs. And you can come by in a few weeks, see how they are then.”
There’s a pause. “Okay. I can fit you in this weekend. You come to me Saturday?”
That works as I can take Vasily with and leave Denis to guard Cassie and make sure no one gets to her, and she doesn’t try to get away.
“Saturday sounds perfect. I’ll be there at six sharp.”
“See you then, Konstantin.”
I hang up and turn to Vasily, switching back to Russian with ease.
“You’ve got a babysitting job coming up, a very important one.”
He throws a wistful glance at Zoey.
“Yeah, not her,” I snap.
“Pity, but okay. I’ll babysit whoever needs it.”
“You’re about to find out.” I turn and walk into the hallway of the office building. “You’re driving when we leave here.”
“What, me driving? Not like you to give up an iota of control.” He throws me his patented smirk to let me know he’s joking.
I remember something that the news about Cassie being a liar who betrayed my trust made me forget. I’ve got Liza at the house. I’m about to take Cassie back to my house to keep her safe and rub her nose in my pregnant what? Liza is most definitely not my girlfriend. However, she might not take to another woman being there, and she is bitchy. Then again, she’ll only know that Cassie is an employee who is in danger and, knowing Liza, she’ll take one look at Cassie’s casual clothes and sneakers and think she’s no threat at all. So far as Liza and the world knows, my taste runs to what my father used to call Dolly Birds. Women glammed up to the nines, not natural bursts of sunshine like Cassie.
Plus, it kind of serves Cassie right to get her nose rubbed in things for a bit. She fucking lied to me, and in doing so placed both herself and me in danger. I hate being lied to, and I hate my trust being broken because I so rarely give it.
Before I go to Cassie’s office, I pop my head around the door of the room Margaret has requisitioned. Margaret knows I have some less legitimate businesses, so I simply say, “A situation has arisen with one of the other ventures. I need Cassie Evans to come home with me for a few days. She’s been working on something, and she can work better from my house. Can you cover for her if any one pokes around here asking where she is?”
“Of course,” she answers smoothly. “Any major issues I should know of?”
“Not at the moment.”
I don’t tell her anything except for truly need-to-know, which means she keeps plausible deniability and can keep working for me with a clear conscience.
I jog up the stairs to the third floor where I have Cassie holed up in her plush little kingdom. To think, for a short period of time I entertained idiotic ideas of her being something more than an employee. She fucked with the King, and she’s about to find out what happens to courtiers who lie and try to cheat me. I’ve paid her a lot of money to do this, and she hasn’t delivered.
When I open the door, with Vasily on my heels, her face flushes.
“Hi, Mr …. I mean, Konstantin. I should have your report ready in about two days.”
She’s nervous, and now I understand why. She knows, she damn well knows she’s not got the skill set for