“Oh yeah. I’m a real stand-up citizen,” she said drily. It was obvious she didn’t believe it. She got to her feet and extended a hand. “Should we head back to the hangar? I’d like to get started with Todd as soon as possible. Every day we wait is a day I have to spend making googly eyes at him at the gym. It’s not my favorite thing.”
Asprey laughed and let her help him to his feet. “What did you say to Graff to finally get the ball rolling on this, anyway? I’ve been working on him for days.”
She beamed at him, leading the way out of the park. “That was easy. I told him the truth about Todd Kennick.”
Chapter Nine
“When you say you’re good at poker, do you mean you can play five-card stud with your accountant, or do you mean you can play poker?” Poppy warily eyed the way Asprey held the deck of cards. “Todd’s no card shark, but he knows his stuff. He once lost his speedboat to the Yakuza.”
Asprey cut the deck cleanly on Tiffany’s computer table, lifting his arm to reveal an ace poking out the sleeve of his old-man sweater. “There’s no need for insults. No one has ever invited me to play with the Japanese underground, but I’ll have you know I’ve been barred from every reservation casino within a two-hundred-mile radius.”
“That doesn’t speak very well of your technique.”
“Not my fault. I have very large hands.” He held them up as if to demonstrate. They were an odd combination of masculine and girly, his thumbs wide in all the right places, but with the kind of soft skin that belonged to someone who didn’t regularly plunge his hands into the dirty dishwater.
“Besides, cheating at cards isn’t really my thing,” he added, eyes glinting. She gulped and forced herself to look away. Asprey Charles was the last man in the world who needed his ego stroked. It was already at full attention and dangerously close to poking her in the eye.
“Oh? Is cheating too dishonest for the likes of you?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he bragged, his chest puffing with misplaced pride. “I can count cards with the best of them. But actually getting in there and messing with the deck during gameplay? Not my style. I’m better at providing a distraction.”
No kidding. It had been a long time since she’d met a man with the ability to disarm her with just one laugh—and that was more dangerous than she cared to think about. Laughter was one step away from camaraderie, which put her on that dangerous and slippery slope toward friendship.
They all knew what came after that.
“So how is this going to go down?” she asked. “I told you Todd’s weakness is gambling—and I’ve been setting him up for weeks to believe I might be able to make a high-stakes game happen. If I want to take him for the full amount, that’s where he needs to be hit.”
“And that’s exactly where we’ll hit him.” Graff took the seat opposite Poppy—far enough away that he was out of arm’s reach, but still keeping her squarely in view. She nodded once, showing her understanding.
She hadn’t been lying when she said telling Graff about Todd had been the tipping point in moving things her direction—but that didn’t mean she liked the guy any better. He was too drunk on his own power, too much the master of the situation. There were very few men in this world who used that kind of power wisely, and she seriously doubted he was one of them.
Asprey set the deck of cards aside. “You never did tell me what it is you have against the guy.”
“He’s a crook,” Poppy said. “He might look like an upstanding financial broker, but in addition to the regular work with his firm, he runs a side scheme that purposefully tanks investments that are then rerouted to his personal account in the Cayman Islands.”
Asprey’s eyes widened. “And you know this for a fact?”
“No. I overheard it at the nail salon.” She placed her palms face up on the table, her way of showing a clean hand. “Of course I know it for a fact. He targets older investors, gaining their trust and then crushing all their retirement plans to fund his gambling addiction.”
Asprey let out a low whistle. “You’ve done your homework. Tiff didn’t uncover any of that stuff when she dug around in his records.”
“There’s no reason why she should have come across anything out of the ordinary.” Poppy wasn’t without pride as she told him what she’d learned from piecing together files lifted out of his home office and a visit to the Securities Exchange Commission in a deceptively secretarial suit and glasses. “He accesses the money only after it’s been laundered through his firm and put into accounts that fail on a spectacular level. In the eyes of the SEC, all is right and tight in his world—he has no more complaints lodged against him than any other financial broker, and everything always comes back clear. It’s only the unfortunate investors who pay the price.”
“A crook,” he said, echoing her previous words. But then he added, his eyes crinkled at the corners as he appraised her, “How exactly is that different from being a con woman, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Those were fighting words. She shot back in her chair, her hands grasping the table for support. “Because I don’t steal from people who can’t afford it, that’s why. I con people like you, Asprey, not the homeless man on the street corner looking for someplace warm to sleep. Besides, who are you to be casting stones? You’ve got enough loot in here to enjoy three lifetimes of luxury.”
Asprey spread the cards out in front of her. He’d somehow managed to get all the suits matched up and in order, and they unfolded in a clean, colorful line. “Fine. One deceitfully rigged poker game coming right up.”
Poppy looked to Graff. He was the unknown in all this, the wild card, as it were. “And you’re absolutely sure you’re on board? This is something you can handle?”
Graff bowed his head in a slight nod. “I told you. I don’t necessarily like it, but we can play our part if you play yours.”
Her part was pretty straightforward. It had taken all of twenty minutes during their first date for Poppy to discover Todd’s weakness. He loved cards. He loved boxing. He loved racehorses, greyhounds, a pair of mangled cocks, or anything else that pitted one being against another in a game of chance.
He was also greedy as all get-out. On their second date, she decided to let it slip that sweet little Natalie Hall had once worked as a cocktail waitress at the Tea Room—a falsehood he’d accepted with a hungry glint in his eyes. It hadn’t really been surprising. All along the west coast, the Tea Room was synonymous with the underground gambling world, big money and high stakes. Todd might have first asked her out for her body, but he stuck around for what lay underneath the surface—the chance at getting his foot in the top-secret back door with some real players.
She fully intended to deliver.
“I know what I’m doing,” Poppy said. “But this game goes down my way—you understand? In order for a con of this magnitude to be successful, we have to make Todd believe the entire thing is his idea, and that there is nothing on earth he wants more than to take advantage of us. We don’t lure him into a poker game and take all his money in one sitting. We want him to beg us for a game, and we deliver. And we let him win.”
Asprey sat up. “That’s right. The first game is the bait. The second game is the take.”
“Spare us the pseudo-heist-movie talk, Asprey, please.” Graff wasn’t nearly as excited about all this as his brother. “Who lays out the money for this win?”
Poppy stared at Graff straight on. “I told you I couldn’t do this without the money from the necklace. This is why. I need to set up the game, and I need him to walk away from the table considerably richer.”
“So it’s our responsibility,” Graff muttered.
“If you want to back out, say so right now. I’ll walk away, and we can part friends.”
Graff snorted. “Friends. Right.”
Asprey waved his hand in the middle of the table, drawing both Poppy and Graff from their locked glare. “If you two are done, can we move on, please? The money isn�
�t a problem. I’ll fund it myself. It’s not a big deal.”
Poppy tried not to let the sudden wash of emotion running through her show. Yes, chances were that a few grand was pocket change to Asprey, and he’d eventually get it all back plus some, but he didn’t hesitate to lay it all out on the line. People didn’t really do that kind of thing for her.
She touched her hand briefly on his arm, just enough to show her gratitude, but not so much that he could mistake it for anything else. It was becoming increasingly important to draw a firmer line between them. It was a bad idea to get involved before. Now that money was on the table, it was even worse.
People didn’t act at their best when money and sex were involved. And where the two intersected? She might as well slip on some handcuffs and go turn herself in. Again.
“I get that this guy is a dirt bag, so I’m willing to capitulate—a little,” Graff persisted. “But I don’t like it.”
“Name me five things you do like, Graff,” Asprey replied. “And making small children cry doesn’t count.”
Graff opened his mouth.
“Making Winston cry doesn’t count either.”
Graff’s mouth snapped shut again.
Poppy let out a soft laugh, settling back in her chair. If nothing else, working with this group was going to provide plenty in the way of entertainment. “So what’s the job you have planned? What am I going to do for you in return?”
Graff studied her for a moment before giving in. “There’s a painting we need to get at before the end of the month. It’s a painting by Jackson Pollock—a huge one. Eight by ten, and it’s currently hanging inside a private residence on the twelfth floor of an apartment building in Bellevue.”
“The apartment Asprey was staking out.” That made sense.
Graff nodded his confirmation. “We need to find a quiet way in and out with the painting in tow.”
Poppy swallowed. “You mean breaking and entering.”
Graff didn’t miss her reaction, and an almost genuine smile played on his lips. “It’s the one area we don’t have much of in the way of expertise. But you do. Is that going to be a problem?”
It was one thing to target a guy like Todd for her last, high-stakes take. He had it coming, and her motives—though not exactly pure—at least had ties to something honest. This was for Grandma Jean, and it was for Bea and Jenny too. A small, persistent voice spoke up. And you. You love this more than you care to admit.
But another B&E? For these guys? If she got caught, it wouldn’t be a slap on the wrist and two years in a minimum security prison this time. They were talking severe consequences.
“I’m in.” The words escaped before she could stop them. If anything, the bigger consequences only increased her excitement—this wasn’t just dipping her toes back in the criminal world, she was diving headfirst into the deep end. And the water felt fine.
“All right!” Asprey didn’t bother to hide his excitement.
Even Graff gave in to something approaching admiration. “I think I underestimated you, Ms. Donovan.” He cracked his knuckles and nodded once. “Welcome to the team.”
Asprey walked her out, an old-fashioned and ridiculous observance that made all Poppy’s girly parts come rising to the surface. She’d never paid attention to those things before—taken simple pleasure in having a door opened for her, or delighted over a compliment whispered in her ear. A woman could go a lifetime without sweet nothings and never know what she was missing.
Chalk that up as reason number twelve hundred why getting closer to Asprey was a bad idea. Life would be so much simpler if she went after Graff instead. The asshole with a chip on his shoulder, the guy who would take what he wanted and move on—that was what women like her needed, what they deserved. The fewer ties, the better.
But she wanted Asprey. She wanted to be walked to her car.
She also wanted to turn back the hands of time, talk her grandmother out of a bad investment. Talk to her, period. Too bad life didn’t work that way.
“So we’re on for Friday at the race track?” Poppy asked, darting out of the way just as Asprey’s hand came perilously near the small of her back. “You know what you need to bring and everything?”
“I’m good,” he said casually, pulling open her door. She started to get in, butterflies in her stomach, but he barred her with one hand, his hair falling into his eyes as he peered down at her. In that moment, he was all those adjectives her girly parts adored—roguish and twinkling and so freaking pretty it hardly seemed fair. “But there is one thing we need to clear up first.”
Her heart thudded in her chest, and she had to force herself to appear calm as she said, “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“You might have won over Graff with your bad-ass willingness to break into an upscale apartment to steal a Pollock, but we haven’t yet discussed my fee.”
The quirk of his brow and the slight drop in his voice weren’t that difficult to read—mostly because they were in line with all the things she felt at that exact moment. Desire was easy like that. It was all the things accompanying it that made it messy.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to say something you’ll regret?” she asked, playing along. For now.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “It’s completely innocent, I swear.”
“Coming from you? I doubt it.”
“You have to solemnly swear not to cause any bodily harm during the duration of our partnership,” he said. “No dislocations. No broken bones. I want everything to stay intact.”
“I’m not so sure I can promise that.” Their eyes met, and she was once again struck by how bright and clear his were. “I play hard, Asprey. I always have. You either get in the ring, or you stay home.”
He wasn’t fazed. “How about you at least warn me first?”
“That I can promise,” she said. “Before I do anything to you, you’ll have a clear five-second window in which to escape.”
Asprey offered his hand to seal the deal.
Poppy didn’t believe in handshakes. She also didn’t believe in promises, verbal agreements or even contracts chiseled in the flesh. Words—even when signed and sealed—were just words, and trust took a heck of a lot more than that in her book.
Yet she still took the proffered appendage, running her thumb lightly over the back of his hand. He didn’t look away, and neither did she, both of them locked in a kind of stalemate to see who would be the first to back down.
He let her win, eventually replacing his stare with a grin and a slight bow of his head.
“As you wish,” he finally said. “I know we’re asking a lot out of you, and I know you could kick my ass in about six seconds flat, but I believe this is going to work. Trust me.”
“I do,” she said, surprising herself by how much she meant it.
Asprey smiled then, a wide and genuine movement that folded the lines of his face into an irresistibly charming mask. “Thank you. People don’t often do that.”
“What?” she quipped. “Kick your ass?”
“No. Believe in me.”
Poppy relaxed. It was funny how much simply being in this man’s presence put her at ease—when really, she should have been running in the opposite direction. As fast as her feet would take her.
“See, Graff?” Asprey said, returning to the hangar feeling triumphant and aroused and more content with the world than he’d been in a long time. He was really beginning to like that woman. “I told you we have nothing to be afraid of. Poppy is the perfect partner in crime. She has something we want; we have something she wants. It’s win-win.”
Graff shook his head and pushed Asprey aside, making sure to lock the door securely behind them.
“I’ll admit—I had Tiffany look a little more into Todd Kennick’s financial records. Poppy is right about his side schemes. That guy has been ripping people off for years, cleared several million in investment scams. It’s the only reason I was willing to consider this trade.”
Asprey paused in the act of setting the alarm code. “I know how much you love to fight on the side of justice.”
“That doesn’t mean I like this,” Graff added. “But at least now we can keep her close, watch her for signs of trouble.”
“You’re being paranoid, as always.”
“And you’re being an idealistic idiot, as always. Trust me, Asprey. She’s after something bigger than cash.”
“What do we have that’s bigger than cash?”
The look Graff gave him was one Asprey recognized well, casting him firmly in the role of underwhelming and continually disappointing youngest brother. “We have family. And I get the feeling she knows a lot more about ours than she’s letting on.”
Chapter Ten
“What’s the huge emergency?” Poppy strolled up to the three-story brownstone, an address Asprey had texted her with the brief but compelling message, Meet me ASAP. Unlike most of the brownstone houses she was familiar with, this one went beyond the skinny one-car length in width and spanned almost a quarter of a block. The neighborhood, all leafy trees and happy dogs, matched the grandeur of it. “I was supposed to meet Todd to get him to come to the racetrack tomorrow.”
Asprey, clad in dark jeans and a French blue button-up that fit snugly across his shoulders and chest, ignored her remark and surveyed the house with detached interest. “I need your help with something.”
“An emergency, right?” She fought a wave of irritation that had more to do with how charming he looked set against the upscale city sidewalk than being forced to delay her dinner with Todd. “That’s why you called me all the way out here?”
“Well, it’s not an emergency according to the standard definition of the word.” As he spoke, Asprey at least had the decency to look sheepish, rubbing his finger along the side of his nose.
“Really? What definition would you use?”
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