Caught Between Two Billionaires - Skye Warren Page 0,51
very bad chooser of husbands.”
Love is a terrible monster. It seduces you like a siren, pulling you closer even though you know you’re going to be smashed to bits against the rocks.
“I’m sorry.” What a terrible way to grow up, knowing that every time your parents looked at you, they were thinking about an indiscretion that may never have happened. Finding the proof in your appearance. “No wonder you left and joined the army.”
“That obvious?”
“Pretty much. But what I don’t know is how you know Christopher. He’s not exactly the hoorah, my-biceps-are-bigger-than-yours type. I say that with complete respect, because your biceps are definitely bigger than mine. And also everyone else’s.”
“We’re… friends,” he says, the word almost foreign on his lips.
“I didn’t know he had friends.” Except for Sutton, though I wouldn’t have used the word friends. They’re business partners, sure. Enemies maybe.
Blue nods toward the group of armchairs in the corner where Hugo and Sutton are still talking. “The four of us. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but we sort of ironically, but not ironically, call ourselves the Thieves Club.”
“Is it because you steal jewelry at galas? I’m not judging. Anyone would consider it. There’s a ridiculous amount of diamonds in a single room.”
“It’s something Hugo said a long time ago. That every dollar earned was a dollar we took from someone else. Whether we returned a service for that money is beside the point. The amount of money in the world is finite.”
There’s a rush of air, and then Christopher is on the other side of me, having appeared like some kind of magician. The breath whooshes out of me for a solid five seconds, and when I breathe back in a gulp, the air comes flavored with him—crisp and dark and always so damned comforting when I shouldn’t be comforted by him.
“Until the government prints more,” he says, the educated economist inside him sounding like Daddy, which unnerves me and comforts me even more. Goddamn it.
Blue tips his glass of beer in greeting. “Though if we took those freshly minted dollars, we really would be the Thieves Club.”
“We’ll call that plan B,” I say, accepting my old-fashioned from the bartender with a murmured thanks. “The gala seems like an easier mark, really.”
Christopher is faster than me, sliding a twenty across the mirrored counter before I can pull money out of my clutch. It makes me scowl at him, because it’s an extension of the way he tries to control me—handing out and withholding money according to his own code.
“I’m not grateful,” I tell him, taking a gulp of the drink.
“I don’t expect you to be,” he murmurs. “But you don’t need to think about stealing. You’re one of the richest women in the country.”
Blue seems to have evaporated, probably returning to the group of armchairs in the corner. I can’t seem to take my gaze away from Christopher’s dark eyes to check. There’s something different about him tonight, but I can’t figure out what.
He looks a little less forbidding.
“A lot of good that does me,” I say.
“If you help us push this project through you’ll get the money you want.”
I look down at my drink. Now I understand why men do this, the broody, staring-at-alcohol thing. It’s a moral dilemma, because if I push the project through, I’ll help Mom. But I’ll also destroy something beautiful in the library.
“Sutton told me,” Christopher says, reading my mood correctly. “You’re your father’s daughter. You know there’s no way to make money back on a library.”
“Maybe it can be like the Den. You could serve alcohol at the counter while you check out books. And people could discuss philosophy and sex like a modern-day French salon.”
“It works for the Den because Damon Scott runs it. It’s basically headquarters for his criminal enterprises. Laundering money and selling weapons isn’t in our business plan.”
“He doesn’t sell weapons,” the bartender says.
Christopher gives her a small smile. “You would know.”
She smiles back with a nod that makes her look like royalty. “I like the idea of selling alcohol at a library. I’d buy a glass of wine to sit with a book, but I’m not sure it will make the kind of money you’re looking for.”
“This is Penny,” Christopher says, giving enough weight to the name that I should know who she is. “She’s with Damon Scott. Though I haven’t seen her behind the bar before tonight.”
“I’m trying my hand at mixing drinks.”
“You’re good at it,” I say with a rueful glance at