Two Besties, Two Babies, Two Dangerous Daddies novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Solid Gold

Ciro corners Trixie in a harbor bar and accuses her of stealing the book; she gives back his cufflink and sticks him with the champagne, and then Lexie calls: Cillian Whalen is in their kitchen.

He didn't say hello.

He said, "You have something of mine, Miss Plum."

My feet wanted to run. I made them stay.

"I have a lot of things," I said. "Some of them used to belong to other people."

"There's a bar at the end of the quay," he said. "You can sit down with me there."

"Or?"

"Or I sit next to you on the train. We're talking either way."

"I'll take the bar. The train's crowded."

The bar had white chairs and a waiter who took one look at Ciro's suit and gave us the table on the water.

Ciro ordered me a sparkling water before I opened my mouth.

I didn't like that he guessed right.

Up close he looked tired.

"Where's the book?" he said.

"Which book?"

"The Seaview book. Black leather. It was in the penthouse safe at one in the morning, and it was gone by two."

"I was busy at one in the morning," I said. "You were there."

His jaw moved.

"You kept me busy," he said. "Somebody else opened the safe. Your friend in silver, maybe. And you both carried it to Cillian Whalen."

"I've never met Cillian Whalen."

"He's had your face on his security monitors for six years."

"So have you. How do you know my name?"

"You've carried drinks on my floor since you were twenty-one. You're on my payroll."

"I'm on the floor manager's payroll."

"Same thing."

"Is it? Because he shorts my tips every Friday."

Something almost happened at the corner of his mouth.

"Who paid you?" he said.

"Nobody paid me. That was the whole problem with that night."

The waiter set down a bowl of green olives and backed away.

Ciro leaned in.

He smelled the way he had in the dark. Cedar, and something expensive I could never price.

"You left my suite before I woke," he said. "The safe was empty by two."

"Lots of things are empty by two."

"You took a gold cufflink. Then you ran to France the day the footage aired."

"Nobody in Atlantic City would buy the cufflink," I said. "You know that's true, or you wouldn't be here."

I dug in my bag and slapped it on the table between the olives.

"There. Have it. It's plated, by the way."

He picked it up and turned it in the last of the sun.

"It's solid."

"It's plated. I can tell by the weight."

"My father had these made in 1989. Solid eighteen karat."

"Then your father got robbed."

He set it down and pushed it back to me with one finger, the way the pawnbroker had.

"Keep it," he said. "You'll want something to remember me by when the Whalens catch up with you."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a weather report."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

He watched me laugh.

That was the problem with him.

He'd made me laugh that night too, right before he kissed me against the door of his suite.

"Tell me the truth," he said, quieter. "Just once."

"The truth is I went upstairs with a stranger because he was funny. And I took one cufflink because a girl has rent."

"That's it?"

"That's the whole crime."

He studied my face for a long time.

I didn't blink. I'd had six years of pit bosses checking my tray.

"You're a very good liar," he said.

"I'm a very good waitress. People mix them up."

His knee touched mine under the table.

Neither of us moved it.

The heat came up my leg and sat low in my belly, and I hated him a little for it.

"Why France?" he said.

"Rich men. Nice ones."

"Find any?"

"One. Married. Patek on the wrong wrist."

"And me?"

"You're not nice."

"I'm very nice."

"You're on the news."

He looked at my mouth.

Then he looked at my eyes, and stayed there.

"I looked for you," he said. "After."

"To get your cufflink back."

He didn't answer that, which was its own answer.

I didn't tell him about Bean.

It sat in my throat the whole time, and I washed it down with sparkling water.

His phone buzzed on the table.

He read the screen, and his face went flat as a slot machine.

"Don't move," he said, and walked to the edge of the quay to take the call.

I waved the waiter over.

"What's the most expensive champagne you have?"

He showed me on the menu. Nine hundred euros.

"Send a bottle down to the two men in his boat," I said. "They look thirsty. Put it on his table."

The waiter looked at Ciro's back, then at Ciro's suit.

For the first time all evening, he smiled.

I dropped the cufflink back in my bag, because gold is gold.

I was halfway down the quay when my phone rang.

Lexie.

"Trix." She was whispering. "Don't freak out."

"I'm already freaking out. Ciro Vaccaro is in Monaco."

"Okay. Well."

I heard a little spoon scrape a plastic cup.

"Cillian Whalen is in our kitchen eating my yogurt."

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