“Not on me,” Poppy joked. “I actually work upstairs. I’ve always been curious about this place, so I thought I’d stop by. Oh, I’m sorry—I’m being so rude. The name is Veronica. Veronica Maxwell. It’s lovely to meet you.”
She extended a hand. The receptionist gave it a wary glance before accepting it.
“You know, now that I think about it, I do have some family jewelry that might be worth looking at. If I wanted to make an appointment, who would I be seeing?”
The receptionist handed her a card. “Matthew Gibbons is our client services specialist. All initial consultations go through him. I’d be happy to set up a time for you to chat.”
“Gibbons, Gibbons…” Poppy pretended to think. “I thought the company was run by the current generation of the Charles family?”
“It is,” a voice said smoothly at her back. “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?”
She turned slowly, knowing full well that when she finally reached the other side, she’d be face to face with her favorite Charles sibling.
Asprey was, as she suspected, standing behind her. What she didn’t expect was the three-piece suit, his signature vest this time layered under a tailored black jacket, a vibrant blue tie the exact color of his eyes knotted around his neck.
“What a surprise to see you here,” he said, meeting her eyes with a challenge. “I expected you next week at the earliest.”
She was betrayed into a laugh. “What can I say? I like to keep a man on his toes. I hope you aren’t disappointed.”
His eyes deepened in color. “How could I be, seeing you?”
Poppy found it suddenly difficult to breathe. She would have liked to blame the sensation on a delayed reaction to the stairs but suspected it had more to do with how good Asprey looked in that suit, the close-fitting cut accenting the strong shoulders and lean build she never knew she found attractive in a man.
She flashed him a dazzling smile, doing her best not to let the intensity of his gaze melt her into a puddle. “Does this mean you’ll give me the grand tour?”
“It means I’ll give you anything you ask.” He turned to the front desk. “It’s okay. We go way back. I’ll take Ms., ah…”
“Maxwell?” the receptionist asked with the kind of smirk that made Poppy wonder if she wasn’t the first woman Asprey was on intimate terms with whose last name he didn’t supposedly know. “Veronica Maxwell?”
His eyes flashed, humor and something more. She knew what he was thinking: yet another fake name, another lie to sort through. Between them, they had a dazzling array of falsehoods, all laid out like a street vendor and his glittering Rolexes. “Yes. I’ll show Veronica around.”
“Do you want me to tell your brother that you’re in?”
“No.” As if realizing how sharp he sounded, Asprey smiled and moderated his tone. “I’ll check in with Winston later.”
Not Graff—the other one. The one I’m not supposed to know about. Poppy allowed herself to be led away from the receptionist’s desk, but only because Asprey’s hand fell firmly to the small of her back as they walked.
That part of her was what she and Bea had once coined the x-spot, that one location on a woman’s body where all bets were off. It was different on everyone. For Bea, it only took a kiss planted on the soft spot inside her elbow. For Poppy, it was a palm flat against the lowest part of her back. The second a hand landed there, she had a hard time moving her legs anywhere but apart.
And his hand is still there.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, or do you want me to start guessing?” he asked congenially, moving her past the fishbowls toward the back of the building. People answered phones and looked busy in that general, office-like sort of way, but they were little more than a blur in her periphery. Fingers, palm, thumb. She barely noticed anything but the pressure of Asprey’s hand.
“I’ve got some theories, if you’d like to hear them,” he added.
She couldn’t resist. “I came all this way. I might as well.”
“Let me see... You’re attempting to plant a pint of strawberries in my office desk hoping I’ll cave to an untimely death?”
“Would that work?”
“Probably not.” He flashed her a brief smile. “My hours here tend to be erratic at best—not nearly enough exposure to the allergens to do any lasting damage. This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m not much for punching a clock. I prefer to set my own hours.”
“Imagine that,” she murmured.
They stopped in front of a frosted-glass door, the kind with the vertical wobbly lines that looked like they belonged in a detective movie. Asprey’s hand finally lifted away from her back as he reached for the door.
She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Well, if it’s not strawberries, then you’ve either taken up a recent interest in estate appraisals, or you Googled us.”
She couldn’t help a laugh from escaping as he ushered her into the room. “Can you blame me? I had no idea I was taking up with such a famous family—did you really get to meet the President when he came here for that college graduation speech?”
“That was a long time ago.” He frowned. “I was just a kid.”
Not his favorite subject, then. Noted and stored. “Besides,” she added, brightly this time, striving to give nothing away, “I wanted to see for myself what kind of digs you hail from.”
“These kind of digs.” He gestured widely. “Feel free to contain your excitement. I know I do.”
She glanced around, following the path of his arm. Containing her excitement wasn’t difficult—like the rest of the floor, it was all chrome and glass, very little to interest the eye or break up the monotony. At least there were nice, big windows overlooking the cityscape. The natural light did wonders for her anxiety at being trapped indoors. “I thought you guys appraised art.”
He bowed slightly. “Among other things.”
“Then why don’t you have any hanging on the walls?”
Asprey pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit. “Winston—our oldest brother, who I’m sure you looked up online—redid the offices when he took over the company about ten years ago. He likes the modern look. Says it gives us a competitive edge in the insurance business.”
She sat directly on the desk, unwilling to continue doing his bidding now that the Hand of Persuasion had been removed. It proved tricky, swinging her body up there with the skin-tight pencil skirt and jacket holding all her parts confined, but it took Asprey a full twenty seconds to remove his gaze from her crossed legs, so she counted it as a success.
Well, a semi-success. Between the skirt and her own carefully angled limbs and that damn three-piece suit he wore, there was a whole lot of pressure building up downstairs. She shifted slightly. Best to keep her thoughts above the waist for now.
“So, have you found what you’re looking for?” Asprey asked, drawing closer. He was making it very difficult to keep anything above the waist. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you didn’t trust me, coming here like this.”
“Oh, I trust you,” she said coolly, “as much as I trust any man who looks better in a pair of pants than I do.”
“And I trust you,” he replied, taking another step toward her, “as much as I trust any woman who pays that much attention to my pants.”
She let out a soft laugh, but the sound was cut short when Asprey’s hands came down on either side of her legs, bracing against the desk and almost embracing her. Whose bright idea had it been to start talking about pants? Her gaze slipped down, almost of its own accord, and when she brought her eyes back up, Asprey captured her mouth with his.
There were some things a woman could anticipate about a man just by looking at him—how soft his lips might feel on hers, how expertly he might deepen a kiss before she had a chance to draw away. But nothing could have prepared her for the intensity of it. This man might play at being a thief, and he might wear
the pretty-boy stamp with pride, but with a kiss like that, Poppy didn’t dare to doubt his virility. Or his ability to use that virility to achieve his own ends.
It was that good.
She scooted closer to the edge of the desk, suddenly filled with the need to feel more than just Asprey’s mouth against her, but he chose that moment to pull away, clearly in total control of the moment.
“What was that for?” she asked, breathless but compelled to fill the intimate silence that lingered between them. “Are you trying to distract me from the fact that you and your brother and sister are millionaire art thieves?”
“No.” He flashed his teeth, fully aware of his charm and its effect on her. “I did it because you were checking out my inseam.”
She let out a sound—half snort, all laugh. “If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t get involved when I’m on the job. I don’t care how good you look in a tie. If this is going to work between us, the focus has to be on Todd and whatever racket it is you guys are running here. No funny business. No kissing. No…”
His hand moved up to straighten his tie, and she could have sworn he was preening for her. “You like my pants and my neckwear? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re the one trying to distract me.”
“No such thing. My life is an open book.”
“Bound in human skin, maybe. And I’d hardly call failing to mention you’re a con woman with a criminal record ‘open’.”
The room spun, taking her with it. She slid down from the desk, her feet hitting the ground, heels wobbling, legs not far behind. “So you know about that too?”
“I’m also quite adept at Googling things.” His lips turned up at the corners in a half grin. “Well, that’s not quite true. Tiffany may have had to, ah, secretly access some county files. But the impetus is the same. You don’t trust us.”
“Of course I don’t,” she said sullenly. She shouldn’t have been surprised to have her secrets unraveled so quickly. It wasn’t like it would even take that much digging—public records were public on purpose. But for some reason, it had been nice showing Asprey a clean slate, as though she wasn’t just some two-bit, trailer-trash, blue-collar-criminal. “I guess this means our arrangement is off? Having an ex-felon on your hands is probably a bit much for a pair of fancy boys like you.”
He leaned in, and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again. She didn’t lean into it, thank goodness, but neither did she pull back.
She needed to work on pulling back.
“As far as I can tell, Poppy Winifred Donovan.” Her name rolled intimately off his lips. “The only difference between me and you is that I haven’t been caught yet.”
Odd how one sentence—kindly worded—could pull her heart up into her throat like that.
“The name suits you, by the way.”
“It does not. I was named Poppy because my mom watched The Wizard of Oz the day I was born. Believe me—it could have been worse. If I’d been a boy, I would have been named Tin Man.”
“Tin Man might be the only name in the world worse than Asprey,” he admitted. “Though if I’m being honest, my name is the least of my family burdens.”
She took a deliberate look around her. “Yeah. It seems real tough being a Charles.”
He didn’t respond right away, following the path of her gaze before shaking himself off. “I will admit to being curious, though. Third degree felony breaking and entering doesn’t seem like you.”
“Stealing expensive family heirlooms doesn’t seem like you either. Let’s call it a draw.”
Asprey was still leaning in too close for her comfort. His voice low and—dare she say it?—serious for once, he added, “This whole situation isn’t what you think.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” she replied. She didn’t even know that. Whatever the Charles family was up to, there was more to the game than she realized at first, especially since their pawns seemed to be theft and fake necklaces and a multimillion dollar company they happened to own. And the ability to kiss away all of those concerns in a matter of seconds.
It was definitely a much deeper game than she was used to playing.
“It doesn’t matter,” Asprey said. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s wrong.”
“So tell me.” She ran her hands up either side of his vest underneath his suit jacket. It was a caress as much as it was an exploration—and she found exactly what she was looking for. “Is this business some kind of a front or laundering scheme? Is this how you move the goods you steal?”
“I wish it were that simple, but it’s not my story to tell. You just have to believe that we’re not criminals.”
“Well I am one—you’ve seen the case files for yourself.” She held up his wallet, giving it a friendly waggle. “Is this where you offer me even more money to keep my trap shut?”
“What the…?” He felt for the pockets of his vest and laughed. “You know, it doesn’t work if you keep giving me my wallet back.”
She tossed it into his waiting hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know we were actually out to harm one another. I thought we were proving who had the upper hand.”
So far from capitulating that she had, in fact, won that round, he flashed her a dazzling grin and appeared as blithe as he had when she’d been seconds from cutting his throat with a two-hundred-dollar shoe. “If you wanted to frisk me, Poppy, all you had to do was ask.”
She didn’t want to frisk him. She wanted to frazzle him—if only for a second.
“And about the money,” he continued. “Would you take it? I mean, now that you know who we are, how much we have…?”
“You mean because you probably make more money in one hour than I see in an entire year—you think that’s why I came up here? To see what else I could get from you?”
He inclined his head slightly.
“No, Asprey. I wouldn’t do that.”
The door swung open then, pulled and stopped suddenly, as though the person on the other side didn’t expect it to be unlocked. Poppy immediately tensed and squared to face the door. Asprey, much more in command of himself, smoothed his jacket and appeared, as he always did, as though nothing could touch him.
“Winston,” he said, nodding once. “What a nice surprise. I hoped to see you today.”
Even if Asprey hadn’t said his brother’s name, Poppy would have been able to tell in an instant that he was part of the Charles line of command. He was chiseled of the same classic stone and boasted the same signature features, from the sweep of dark brown hair peppered tastefully with gray at his temples to the damned chin dimple that made them all so deliciously masculine.
But while Asprey exuded easy charm and Graff’s scowls had etched permanent lines into his face, Winston demonstrated a palpable aura of extravagance. His suit made the most of broad shoulders and a stomach given to the early signs of a paunch, and a quick assessment of his fingers showed that they were a little on the plump side. Fat fingers were a dead giveaway. They signified a man with a lot of salt and red meat in his diet, not a whole lot of exercise outside of pumping a few weights once or twice a week. Definitely no cardio, and not enough water to wash out the amount of red wine and bourbon he probably guzzled like it was Gatorade.
He was, in short, the exact type of man the old Poppy would have singled out as a target for a con. He had money and obviously liked it enough to want more of it, excess and greed wrapped up in one tidy package.
That was the third and final rule of the game. In order for a con to be successful, the mark had to be willing to plunge into his or her own brand of vice. Not only were money-hungry benders of the law a lot less likely to pursue legal avenues when they found out they’d been scammed, but she liked to think it restored the karmic balances a little.
“How generous of you to take the time to come into work today,” Winston said drily. Even his voice carried that rumbling baritone Charles inflection. “You can imagine my surprise whe
n Tracy at the front desk mentioned you’d come in.” He turned to acknowledge Poppy standing there, his gaze running up and down her body with an ungentlemanly flick. “I guess now I know why. Using your nominal vice president title to impress your lady friend? Not very original, Asprey. And a bit desperate, if you ask me. Sweetheart, if you know what’s good for you, save yourself a heap of trouble and go home. Anything Asprey has to offer you is due to nepotism and nepotism alone.”
Poppy didn’t have to be looking at Asprey to see how his brother’s words affected him. She’d seen him suffer several insults at Graff’s hands, throwing them back at his brother almost effortlessly, deflecting even the meanest with a laugh and a smile. But she heard a sharp intake of breath and felt the desk shift backward slightly, as though he were gripping it with the kind of intensity that might shatter the glass into a thousand pieces.
No way. Not on her watch. It was time to restore the karmic balances.
“Well, you’re kind of an asshole, aren’t you?” she returned pleasantly. “How do you know I don’t have a huge box of jewelry in my purse I’m looking to have insured? Is it the boobs? Do you say that to every woman who walks through the door?”
Behind her, Asprey let out a barking laugh. He used her momentary outburst to recover his cool, moving to her side and making the introductions. “Veronica, this is my brother and the president of Charles Appraisals and Insurance, Winston. He’s also, as you correctly assessed, a bit of an asshole. Winston, this is Veronica Maxwell. She owns an art gallery up in Vancouver.”
Oh, I do, do I? Apparently, the eldest Charles sibling wasn’t to know of the real relationship between them. The game, it grew in complexity—and so did her desire to keep playing.
Poppy stuck her hand out. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but I’m afraid you might take me at my word. Should I save myself the trouble and head home?”
Winston took her hand and shook, but it was obvious from the wild look in his eyes that he was struggling to find a way to backtrack. “I, ah, apologize for my comment earlier. Totally out of line. It’s a private argument between my brother and me that I shouldn’t have mentioned.”
Confidence Tricks Page 7