One Night Wife (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  “What kind of upgrade do you want?” He quirked a brow. “Keep Alex’s car.”

  “You’re returning the car.”

  “Killjoy.”

  “Everlasting is almost over. I’m not your One Night Wife anymore.” He put his hand to the back of her head, cradled it with fingers spread wide. He made her feel desired, treasured. Made her want to be his every night wife. The thought was a star exploding.

  “What do you want to be?” His voice was crushed and husky. Did he know what she was thinking?

  “You were right. This changes everything.” She was a fool to think it wouldn’t.

  He took her hand in his. “Does that flip you out?”

  “No. I like us. Does it flip you out?”

  “I like us, too. More than I imagined possible.”

  “What do we do about that?”

  “We do more us,” he said. “Will that work for you as an upgrade?”

  It would work like opening night, like signing on with a new agent, like getting a callback and winning a meaty part. Better because she didn’t want any of those things now. She wanted to use her new skills and connections to keep raising money, keep registering charity partners, and sending out loans to improve the lives of a million women and their families. All those things Cal had made possible, she wanted more. All those things he could still make possible, if they were in love.

  “I’m in big trouble with you,” she said.

  “That’s the mirror I’m looking in, too, but I like what I see, baby. So fucking much.”

  They didn’t get back to the city until midnight, and it was too late to collect Scungy. Cal had him delivered, cranky and scared, but at least without the vomit, in the morning.

  Over burgers that night, he amused her with stories about his mom’s exploits, from chaining herself to a tree for a month to being part of a human blockade. Katrice Sherwood was the most rad cat sitter ever.

  On Tuesday night, they saw a movie neither of them bothered to pay attention to, mesmerized instead by each other’s hands and necking in the back of the half-empty theater. On Wednesday night, he broke another rule and came up to her hastily tidied apartment after they’d eaten dim sum and egg roll in Chinatown.

  “It’s small and ugly, but it’s home,” she said, opening the door to her studio. You could do the entire tour from the doorway. Along with the distinctive smell of cat litter that needed cleaning, there was a soundtrack of outraged growling that added to the ambience of slumming it. She waited for Cal to make a comment that would make her feel small, mean, a Cinderella with a scrubbing brush.

  All he did was examine the bedroom door, checking to see whether it closed.

  “Something wrong?” she asked. Apart from the skin-prickling noise Scungy was making and her own feeling of impending doom, because if he made her feel bad, it was a fork in the bubble of her glittering happiness.

  “Only nail marks I want on my back are yours. I get the feeling that bag of fur hates most people. I’m going to hate him right back if he ruins a perfectly good fuck,” he said.

  “You’re staying?” She imagined he’d kiss her expertly at the door and leave like he had the last two nights because after their sex fest, she’d been a little sore, and they were still feeling their way in this relationship business that didn’t come with a brief.

  “Finley.” Two strides and he had her chin in his hand. “I’m staying unless you don’t want me here. I’m staying as often as you want me here. That cat needs to get over it.”

  That cat didn’t, not that night, but they made enough noise between them to drown Scungy out, and an almost naked Cal with rumpled hair and his sexy scruff making pancakes in her kitchen the next morning was more than Fin needed to feel like she wasn’t going to turn into a pumpkin and had won the lucky door prize at the ball.

  They spent the next two nights in her bed, much to Scungy’s annoyance, and Saturday night they went to the opening night of a new art gallery. This wasn’t an official Sherwood event—they weren’t there to work, so it was another date—and they spent more time looking at each other than the art. It ended at Cal’s 49th St. apartment in Turtle Bay Gardens.

  Fin made sure the first thing she did was check his bedroom door. She had to go up two floors to do it. The idea was to make her feel like they were equals. She swung his door back and forth between her two hands, trying to concentrate on that one act, so the absolute luxury of his place didn’t overwhelm her.

  It did anyway. Even after all this time living in Cal’s world, seeing how people with serious cash made out.

  “It’s a place to live,” he said. She was in his bedroom. He was on the other side of the door. She’d closed herself in, so he couldn’t see the effect an apartment with four bedrooms, a wine cellar, a library, a dining room that opened onto a patio and garden had on her. She could fit her whole apartment in Cal’s living room, twice over.

  “That’s what all mansion owners say.”

  “You’re right. That was crass. It’s rented, but your point stands. I’m sorry.”

  “Have you always lived this well?”

  “I’ve always made good money. But I give a lot away.”

  “Who do you give it to?”

  “You, if you want it. I would’ve offered earlier, but I was financially constrained.”

  Why wouldn’t she want it? Why hadn’t he offered before?

  “Open the door, Fin.”

  “I don’t think I will.” He could easily open the door—she hadn’t locked it.

  There was a thump and a slide on his side. “I’ll wait here till you’re ready.”

  She put her back to the door and slid down to her butt, and they sat back to back with the door between them. “It might take a while.” The personal reality of Cal was a lot to take in.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  She smiled at his enormous bed. Cal got what he wanted not by taking or asking directly, but by making you want to give it up to him. There were two exceptions to that rule. When he was acting as her mentor and when he was seeing to her extreme pleasure—then he could be a dictatorial son of a bitch. She didn’t hate it.

  From the other side of the door he asked, “What’s going on?”

  “You’re sitting on the floor outside your bedroom. I’m getting my bearings inside it.”

  “Can I help with that?”

  “I don’t know, can you? I think I’m lost. I mean, you’re kind of fabulous, and I’m kind of not in your league, and we were never meant to happen, and yet, here we are.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t have a brief, and I’m having trouble forming a sentence without a W word.” Where were they, who were they, what were they to each other.

  “We wanted more. We’re together.”

  It couldn’t be that easy. Sex had changed everything, but into exactly what? “For now.” He was quiet. “Cal?”

  “Do you really want to have this conversation with a door between us?”

  It seemed like a safe thing to do because if he agreed with for now and didn’t offer anything for later, she could look as upset as she wanted to without having to show him. “Yes.”

  “I’m crazy about you. That’s no secret. I have no interest in seeing anyone else. I want to go on seeing you and no one else.”

  “We’re in a relationship.” What more did she think he’d say? She picked at a rough patch of skin on her kneecap. She hated being this needy. She hadn’t been like this with anyone else.

  “We’re not in a relationship.”

  She got a sharp pain in her side. Was this what sudden organ failure felt like?

  “I have a relationship with Zeke and Halsey, with Sherin and Tresna, Camille, and my parents. No matter that it’s battered, I have a relationship with Rory. I have a relationship with the woman who keeps this place clean. I have a relationship with Alex Astor, for God’s sake. Relationship means association, bond, rapport. I do not have a relationship with you.�
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  She buried her forehead on her knees. It was her own fault she felt like this. She’d pushed him when she should’ve lived in the moment instead of screwing the moment up.

  “I tried to keep us at relationship. I fucked that up when I fell for you.”

  The back of her head banged against the door when she sat upright.

  “Fin?”

  She scrambled to her knees, opened the door, and peered through the gap at him. “Are you for real?”

  He was on his knees, too. He put his hand to the door and pushed it wider until they were close enough to touch. Men lied about this stuff, especially when you cornered them. They said things like, “It’s only you,” when it was you and someone else they were banging and intended to marry.

  “When did you fall for me?”

  “When you told me to roll with it.”

  Way back at the Blarney. “Is that true?”

  He clutched his heart, a mocking gesture. She turned her face away. It wasn’t a joking matter. “Why don’t you lie and tell me you love me?”

  “It wouldn’t be a lie.”

  She should go. Dumb to be sitting on the floor in a designer dress. “What?”

  “This is not how I pictured telling you I love you.”

  “It’s not?”

  “I’m smart enough to know telling you while we’re fucking isn’t cool, but I didn’t envisage we’d both be on our knees and you’d be mad with me when I did it.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  She wasn’t quite right in her head though, because she might’ve hurt Cal when she tackled him. He tipped over making an oof sound as his back hit the carpet. She balanced over him. The last time she’d told a man she loved him, he’d become her bar tab revenge and her reason for worrying about her sexual health. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I love you.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  He laughed. “Not exactly the reaction I was looking for.”

  “What did you think I was going to say?”

  His brows angled down. “I, ah.”

  He started to sit, and she pushed him down again. She wasn’t suffering from organ failure, but this was an out-of-body experience all the same. She stared at him. Those blue eyes, electric vibrancy, the sweep of dark hair that tousled up beautifully, the strong chin and jaw, and devilishly clever mouth. Under her scrutiny, his expression switched from his usual easy confidence to concerned.

  “Say it again,” she said.

  “I love you.” He didn’t twitch. He didn’t make any of those moves she’d learned people lying did. Nothing in his eyes or around his lips that suggested he was gaming her.

  “Oh God. I love you, too.”

  Now, every move he made was one of relief. He held her as if she was his anchor in a storm, murmuring sweet endearments that curled up her spine and smoked her bones. They kissed for a long time on the carpet in the corridor. There was a giant bed not a few feet away, but Fin was happy to have Cal where she wanted him, and he kissed her till she forgot about rug burn and social inequity and the fact that men lied about this kind of thing.

  It was only later, after they’d made it to the bed for round two and she lay snug against his side while his breathing deepened and he drifted to sleep, that she remembered why this was still unsettling. He’d said everything she wanted to hear and yet not enough, because Cal had loved Rory, too. But he’d left her because he wasn’t in love with her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Now that the Everlasting deal had closed, Cal was independently wealthy once again, no longer in danger of having to liquidate assets, or unable to protect himself should fortune turn against him.

  He had his eye on a new giving portfolio and a sweet Mercedes Coupe. He was helping himself to outrageous wealth and putting it to work to save an underappreciated world, while being responsible for the financial and legal wellbeing of the all the members of the Sherwood, Archer, and alliance families—and still his parents could make him feel like a careless kid careering into unseen danger, without the good sense of impending doom.

  The three of them sat in the garden in the waning warmth. Dad’s prized rose bushes were nothing but thorns, and the conversation was as prickly and likely to draw blood.

  “This was going to happen at some point,” Cal said.

  Did they truly think he’d be satisfied to be alone forever? He met terse mouths and narrowed eyes. Dad drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. Mom crossed and uncrossed her arms and generally fidgeted about.

  “If it wasn’t me, it could’ve been Zeke or Halsey.” That got an eye roll from Mom. “Okay, maybe not Halsey. I can’t remember the last time he dated. But what if it was Sherin or Tresna?”

  “But it’s not one of the girls,” said Mom. “They know the rules.”

  “And you both know the rules have to change.”

  Mom crossed her arms again. “We don’t know any such thing.”

  He looked at his father. “This is important to me.”

  Dad had to understand. He’d faced the wrath of his own father when he wanted to marry Katrice Archer, who Granddad considered a two-bit hustler and not worthy of taking the name Sherwood.

  Dad looked at the secateurs on the table in front of him. That wasn’t a hopeful sign.

  “We never thought we’d be having this conversation with you.” Mom gave the sigh of millenniums of mothers disillusioned with their child. You could almost hear the ancient cackle of why won’t you do as you’re told in it. “You were supposed to marry Aurora, and none of this would be an issue.”

  “Yeah, I got it. I’m a big disappointment. But we have to move on.”

  “Why can’t you be like other men and have a grand affair and leave it at that,” she said.

  His turn to sigh. His sounded more like why wasn’t I orphaned at birth. “I’m having a grand affair. But I’d like to make it a permanently grand one.”

  “Make her your mistress.”

  He looked at his father for an intervention. “Dad.”

  Dad picked up the secateurs and studied the blades. Granddad had apprenticed him to a stand-over man as part of his education as a con. He probably knew a dozen ways to make a mark submit with the threat of garden implements. But he’d never been a violent person and had made sure activities that attracted criminal elements weren’t part of the Sherwood operation. That’s why they didn’t indulge in simple crimes of opportunity like robberies or deal drugs. No Sherwood would ever knock over a casino, rob a bank, or get into the manufacturing and distribution of illegal substances.

  None of that stopped Cal from wishing Dad would put the blade down.

  “You got agreement to partner Finley on a One Night Wife.” Dad looked up from the secateurs. “That arrangement doesn’t have to stop with Everlasting.” He wiped the blades on his trouser leg. “No reason you can’t keep it going long term like you did with Rory.”

  “That’s only part of what I want.”

  Mom took the secateurs out of Dad’s hand and put them on the table. “I like Fin. She has a spark, and that terrible cat, poor fur baby, proves she’s a soft touch. You chose her well to be a patsy, but there’s more at stake here.”

  “I want to tell her the truth.”

  “She doesn’t need the truth.”

  “I love her. She does.”

  Mom sighed. “That’s a technicality.”

  “I’m in love with her. I want to marry Fin, and that’s a technicality, too, but not one I’m prepared to compromise on.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Mothers, the original gaslighters. Ready to tell you what you really need is the opposite of what you actually want.

  “Are you seriously going to try to convince me I don’t know my own mind? I’m not five or fifteen or twenty-five. I’m not asking to join the circus.”

  “Yes, because you can’t marry an outsider. It’s my job as your loving parent to convince you to keep Fin as a piece on the side.”

  A
piece on the side of the truth.

  He pushed back from the table and stood. “You know that rule had to break at some point. There aren’t enough alliance family members to go around. If it wasn’t me asking for this, it would’ve been one of the others.”

  “Finley is implicated. Her complicity makes a difference,” said Dad. He tapped the tabletop with a soil stained finger. He wanted Cal to sit.

  He was too agitated to be still. “But if she wasn’t, I’d want the same thing. I trust her.”

  Dad tapped again. “Does she have any idea we’re not aboveboard?”

  “She knows we have a process, and it involves manipulating our marks. She doesn’t think of them as marks, and she doesn’t know we con them. She thinks we’re sharks but what we do is within the law.”

  Fin knew Cal used his charm to cultivate people with money to burn. She knew he had rat cunning and was a master manipulator. But she thought he was like any other successful, high-pressure, big-ticket item salesman who had a lot of rich friends. She had no idea his deals were an illusion.

  “If Fin is the person you think she is, someone worthy of your love, she’s not going to take well to learning she’s been a conspirator in a long con,” said Dad.

  “Listen to your father. How is this going to play?” Mom lifted her chin and waved a hand. “Darling Finley, I love you. Marry me. Make me the happiest grifter alive, but first you have to understand you were my accomplice in a billion-dollar scam.” She rubbed her hands together warmed up by her love gone wrong story. “Ka-ching. That sure puts a price on your love.”

  “No. That’s not how it’s going to go.” Much as it would shock Fin, horrify her, like boosting the Bugatti had, he was confident that when she knew the whole truth, she’d adjust to it. “Fin is in love with me. We’ll work through it. She’ll understand I protected her. She’ll understand we’re the black hat version of what she’s doing with her charity. When she sees how we use the money, she’ll forgive me.”

  “You’re certain of how you feel?” said Dad.

  Certainty was a rarity in the field of cons. Much as you studied people’s behavior and predicted it, they could up and do something to surprise you. In his work, Cal looked for certainty, and he was rarely ever surprised.