Charming (New York Heirs #3)

by Drea Blackery

  “He does seem flawless in every way.” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the little ship in the storm.

  Karin scoffed, but her eyes were soft. “Don’t tell him that, he doesn’t need any more enabling. That guy is totally in love with himself.”

  “He’s very confident in his abilities,” I amended.

  “Of which there are few,” Karin declared.

  “The few that he has, he does very well.”

  “Ha! You mean partying and flirting and racking up a high score of girls he’s slept with?”

  I shrugged carefully. “He can be kind when he wants to, and he’s loyal to those he cares about.”

  Karin hooted loudly. “Gabriel Easton? Loyal?”

  “He is,” I said firmly. “To his friends, at least.”

  I might not know Gabriel well, but that was one part of him I was certain about. He had been civil and even kind to me—until he thought I had betrayed Allie and Ryland.

  Then he revealed a side of him that was nothing at all like the charming bachelor New York knew him to be. His message had been clear; hurt those he cared about, and he would not let it slide.

  I was saved from Karin's response with the sound of the front door opening.

  Karin’s face lit up from within.

  “Theo’s home,” she said, her attention already going to her fiancé. “He was working in his office throughout the night. Can you give me a second…?”

  “Of course.”

  Karin scrambled up from the floor and hurried out to meet him.

  “Hey handsome,” I heard her say. “How was work?”

  “Utter shite,” came Theo’s clipped voice, slightly tinged with his crisp British vowels. “My idiot assistant brought the wrong set of documents to the trial. As of an hour ago, he’s my ex-assistant.”

  “That sounds like something I would do,” Karin mused. “I’d probably show up to court with my case of oil paints thinking it was the one with evidence instead.”

  I heard a low laugh from Theo, and it made my eyes go wide.

  Theo Valentine never laughed. He didn’t even smile.

  “Perhaps you can be my new assistant,” came his low murmur. “Haven’t you heard? There’s currently an opening for that position.”

  “Hmm, that’s awfully convenient. I’m starting to think you fired that guy just to have this conversation.”

  “I would have done so earlier if I knew you’d be working under me.” The meaning behind the way Theo said “under” was unmistakable.

  “What kind of skill sets would I need for the job?” Karin asked breathlessly.

  “Nothing you’re unfamiliar with.”

  There was a rustling of clothes, and Karin drew in a sharp breath. “Theo, not now—Ohh…”

  My cheeks heated up at what that meant.

  I quickly grabbed my phone and tried to ignore their heavy flirting by blindly swiping through The Tattler’s latest articles.

  “Finish up in two minutes and come to me,” Theo finally said in a low voice.

  “I’ll take as long as I want,” Karin retorted, but she sounded out of breath.

  “You know I hate being kept waiting.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  There was another long silence, and then I heard another soft gasp from Karin.

  “Later,” Theo murmured meaningfully.

  Heavy footsteps sounded, and as Theo strode past the open door of Karin’s studio, he glanced in and saw me.

  I gave Theo a weak smile and wave, and before he strode past he returned it with a cool nod—not unfriendly, but not friendly either. If he knew anything about the latest news about Gabriel, he gave no indication.

  “Don’t forget the assistant,” Karin called as she came back into the room, her cheeks flaming red to match her hair. “He deserves a second chance!”

  “I should go,” I said quickly.

  “What? No no no, ignore Theo! He’ll monopolize all my time if he could!”

  “Really, I should,” I assured her. “I’ve got errands to run and jobs to search for.”

  “Hmm.” Karin pursed her lips, her expression a mix of disappointment that I was leaving and anticipation of going to Theo. “I guess I shouldn’t keep you if you’re busy. I’ll see you at the show next week? We still have so much to talk about, starting with how you and Gabriel have both been keeping secrets from Auntie Karin.”

  I laughed, enduring Karin’s good-natured chiding as we went out to the foyer to wait for my Uber.

  Karin pulled her feet up and sat cross-legged on the plush velvet two-seater as we waited. “Lena, tell me honestly.”

  I grew guarded out of habit, even though Karin was one of the people I trusted most in the world. “Yes?”

  “Are you and Gabriel friends now, or something?” Karin cocked her head. “I know you guys talked privately sometime between the wedding and now. Your face tells me everything, you know.”

  “Sorry.” I bit my lip guiltily. Karin rarely hid anything from me, but I just couldn’t do the same. “And I don’t know what we are,” I admitted.

  “Hmm. As your friend, I probably should warn you about Gabriel. He’s broken more hearts than Theo, Ryland and Cam combined.”

  I chewed my lip. “But…?”

  “But I can't help thinking.” Karin drummed her fingers on her ankles, her grey eyes thoughtful. “Wouldn’t it be crazy if someone got past Gabriel’s defenses?”

  I rubbed my arms to warm them from the cool morning air.

  “Maybe Gabriel Easton is perfect through and through,” I finally said. “Maybe there’s no armor; peel back his golden shell and you’ll just find more gold underneath.”

  Karin gave me a doubtful look. “You don’t believe that. I read your article about him.”

  I shrugged, trying my best to look nonchalant.

  “Even if there is more to Gabriel than his façade, the person who uncovers that isn’t me. It will be a tanned, beautiful model with legs that go for days. Not a pale nobody with crippling shyness.”

  “If you say so,” Karin said kindly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “But if you ask me, that pale, smart and beautiful nobody with crippling shyness might be the best thing that’s happened to Gabriel. And I think he’s gonna realize that soon.”

  Cam strode into the living area of his residence while adjusting his cuffs. “And so it begins. The banishment of Gabriel from heaven.”

  Then he paused mid-step to narrow his eyes at me. “For the last time, get your fucking shoes off my table.”

  I kicked my shoes off and propped my feet back on his coffee table, socks and all, and gave him a bland smile.

  Cam’s residential suite took up the entire top floor of his hotel, and everything in it was one-hundred-percent legit antique, from the crystal chandeliers hanging from the double-height ceilings all the way down to the 17th-century armchair I was making myself comfortable in—which probably explained his anal retentiveness when it came to them.

  Shit, maybe even the dust specks in the air came from the seventeenth century. Was I presently breathing the same air that King Charles the Second did?

  Cam rolled his eyes and turned back to the mirror—also antique and fucking expensive—to fix his tie. “So how’s everyone taking it?”

  “As bad as I expected,” I exhaled.

  It wasn’t even a day since the press release went live, and already it was trending everywhere online. People were eating that shit up. My phone hadn’t stopped vibrating since morning from the bombardment of texts from people I knew and calls from agencies I didn’t.

  I wondered if I should feel flattered or offended.

  “It’ll pass, people will find new shit to obsess over,” Cam said casually as he looped the silk tie around his neck into a Windsor knot. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “Do I need a reason? Su casa es mi casa.”

  “Mi casa will never be su casa, now get out the fuck out my casa.”

&n
bsp; “Someone’s in a shitty mood.” I yawned widely and tipped my head towards the laptop on the table. “I’m doing a refresher on business intelligence systems. Figured it’ll come in handy when Skyline Cap gets up and running.”

  Cam raised his brow. “It will. How’s it going for you?”

  “Not good,” I admitted. “I aced this course back at Yale, so I thought this’ll be a walk in the park. But I can’t concentrate with this bullshit.” I tipped my head at my phone which hadn’t stopped vibrating since we started talking. “So anyway I thought, fuck it, I need a drink, and I came over so we can go grab that drink together.”

  “So basically you’re just here to leech off me.”

  “You know there are folks out there who would pay actual hard cash for my dazzling company? Now you’re getting it for just a drink. I’d say that’s a bargain.”

  “Then by all means, do it and get off my back.” Cam shot me a dirty look. “You’re literally eating my profits for the quarter. How much caviar can one man consume, for fuck’s sake.”

  I was about to retort something when I finally noticed the shirt that Cam had on. I knew my threads, and what he had on was the good shit.

  “What are you all dressed up for?”

  Cam smirked and held his hands out like he was motherfucking Jesus. “I always look this good, Easton.”

  I slid the laptop aside with my leg and angled my head to get a better look. “You know the way a butcher wraps a slab of meat in grocery paper and string?”

  Cam made a sort of strangled growl in his throat.

  “That’s you right now.” I grinned. “If I ever feel suffocated in life, all I have to do is remember your arm in that sleeve.”

  “Okay, let’s have a go right now since you’re asking for it,” Cam snapped. “I’ll make my winning count an even 50.”

  “And risk ruining your carpet?” I gave him an exaggerated look of dismay. “But it goes so well with your hand-stitched pure silk drapes with the oriental embroidery hailing all the way back to the Ming Dynasty—”

  “Oh, fuck off!”

  I laughed. “So where are you going?”

  “Take a guess, shithead.”

  “Bet. Your shirt’s too casual for talking business, and you're not taking a jacket with you so it’s somewhere indoors. You're going with your Patek Phillipe instead of your Audemar, so it means you want to impress, but not intimidate.” I snapped my fingers. “You’re going on a date. Who is it?”

  Cam scowled at me through the reflection of the mirror. “Anyone ever tell you you’re fucking annoying?”

  “All the time, but I know deep down you love me.”

  “Your room key. Hand it over.”

  “Not a chance, lover boy. Enjoy your date and remember, don’t push for fourth base on the first date. Hope for it, hell, strive for it, but don’t push. It ain’t classy.”

  Cam rolled his eyes as he put on his cufflinks. “I don’t take advice from frat boys.” He kept his tone casual as he added, ”It’s not the first date. We’re already talking engagement.”

  “What the fuck?” I snatched my feet off the table and stared at Cam like he’d just grown another head. “Engagement? And you’re telling me only now?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Cam said, shrugging casually. “Everyone’s gotta do it sometime.”

  Being his best friend for the last fifteen years, I knew exactly how serious this was, because Cam did not mention marriage.

  Ever.

  “Dude.” I stared. “Dude. Who. Is. She.”

  “An heiress,” Cam said casually. “There’s nothing to tell. She’s an heiress in the shipping industry, and her father’s a multi-millionaire, set to be a billionaire in a decade. Very impressive guy. Visionary and ruthless, and whatever he touches turns to gold.”

  “Huh. He sounds like the perfect wife.”

  Cam scowled. “Fuck you.”

  “Do you even know her middle name?” I challenged, then an uneasy thought came to me. “Hold up. Have I slept with her before?”

  Cam paused just barely a second before he shrugged it away. “Not that I know of.”

  That didn’t exactly make me feel better. This was Cam’s potential wife.

  God, I hope I haven’t slept with her.

  “Name. Talk, goddamn you.”

  Cam raised his brow like he didn’t get what I was so hung up about. “Adelaine McCormick.”

  Thank fuck. “Don’t know an Adelaine. Heard of the McCormicks though, pretty loaded even by our standards.”

  “Sure,” Cam replied, weirdly uncaring. “Either way, she’s a good match. Doesn’t matter what—or who—she does in her free time.”

  I frowned. “Dude, that’s fucked up. We’re talking about your future wife here.”

  Cam gave a long-suffering sigh. “It’s a marriage of convenience, Gabe, and all parties are aware of it. I offer nothing more than a union of benefits, and Adelaine’s cool with it. The Lancaster name will open doors that the McCormicks don’t have yet. Status for her and her father, and more money for me. Everybody’s happy.”

  I scoffed. Cam was too damn cavalier about this, as if we were discussing what he was having for dinner instead of his marital future. “What are we, in the seventeenth century?”

  “Piss off, Easton, you’re the product of such a marriage.”

  “Yeah, and look how my parents ended up. They’re at each other’s throats every minute they’re not off fucking somebody else.” I rubbed the back of my neck, realizing how ironic it was for me to be dishing dating advice. “Hold on, is her dad gonna be at your date too?” My mouth fell open when Cam didn’t reply. “Dude, you’re kidding me, right?”

  “For the record, I’m only dealing with her father because he’s protective of her. She’s only twenty-three or something, just graduating college.”

  “Right, and the fact that he owns a billion-dollar shipping company doesn’t matter to you,” I scoffed.

  “What would you know about relationships? You hop from bed to bed like the goddamn Easter bunny.”

  “Enough to know that this is weird as shit.” I put my feet back on the coffee table. “Go about it with some finesse, will ya? No girl wants to know that she’s been traded like cattle, heiress or not.”

  “Dude, you fuck ‘em and dump ‘em.”

  “I end it amicably,” I corrected. “I never give the illusion of wanting more, and I never get attached.”

  “Finally something we agree on,” Cam muttered as he grabbed his car keys off a side-table. “I don’t have time to fuck around with you right now. I got a deal to focus on.”

  “By deal, do you mean your engagement to Adelaine McCormick, or a literal business deal with her father?”

  “Aren’t both just means to the same end?”

  “But what about—”

  “Adelaine? From all accounts, she wants the same.”

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Dude, I meant you. What about you? Don’t you want more than a sham of a marriage?”

  Cam shrugged, and for a second I thought his arms were gonna rip through the seams of his shirt.

  “I considered it,” he said. “But like I said before, it’s not for me. What Ryland and Theo have is a luxury, and I just can’t afford that kind of time.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said sarcastically. “Curse of the second-born son, you just gotta prove yourself better than your big brother, et cetera, et cetera. That sort of thinking is even more antiquated than your furniture, bro.”

  “You’d fare better if you lived a little more like me, bro.”

  “Dude. Of the two of us, I think I’m the happier one.” When Cam gave a sharp bark of laughter, I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m doing shit that I want, when I want, while you’re working your balls off and marrying for business connections. That totally defeats the purpose of being at the top.”

  “Being at the top comes with responsibilities—”

  “And now you’re sounding like Ryland.” I
waved my hand. “Fuck outta here, lover boy.”

  Cam looked like he was tempted to put me through his Ming dynasty rug like a strainer, but thought better of it at the last moment.

  “Don’t touch my shit,” he warned before leaving. A moment later I heard the slam of the heavy door behind him.

  Once I had his suite to myself, I slipped my shoes back on and kicked my feet on the table again.

  I shot the coffee table a narrowed, calculating look. Come to think of it, this thing could probably feed me for half a year at the least. I knew some folks who would kill to purchase this coffee table that used to belong to King Charles the Second, just for the bragging rights of owning it after its infamous ex-owner.

  Ex-owner meaning Cameron Lancaster, not, you know, the king himself.

  Giving up on my refresher course, I turned my attention to my phone beside the laptop, narrowing my eyes at it like it was gonna grow teeth and bite me.

  I’d avoided it for the entire day, but now I finally picked it up and went onto my messaging app to scroll through the hundreds of calls and texts that had been flooding in over the past several hours.

  Jemima’s lawyers had been blowing up my phone, presumably to threaten me about taking “my side” of the story to the press. But they didn’t need to worry. Our spat aside, Jemima was my grandmother who raised me and I’d literally die for her. Those calls went happily unanswered.

  The texts from my friends on the other hand…

  I popped my jaw as I looked at the phone in my hand. I’d not opened a single text so far, and frankly, I wasn’t too hot about having to do it now either.

  But I guess I had to rip the bandaid off sooner or later.

  I tapped on the most recent one.

  Dude WTF?? Jem cut u off?? What abt that party u were gonna throw dis Fri at White Rabbit?????

  “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, going onto the next one without replying.

  Bro WHAT IS GOING ON. R u like broke now??

  Omg. You. Are. Kidding. Me.

  Pick up ur phone!!!!

  Rinse and repeat for the next fifty texts. No, I wasn’t fucking kidding you Saffron, and no, Zain, the party’s off. Read the fucking room.

  I dropped my head on the back of the chair wearily and held my phone aloft over my face as I deleted them one after the other.