She must have seen something on my face, because her tone softened, like she was sorry for me. “You don’t have to try so hard with guys, you know. You’re beautiful and funny and wicked smart.”
I smirked, because she was describing herself and she knew it. “And awkward and dorky and way better than you at strategy games and plotting perfect crimes, so at least I’ve got that going for me.” I adjusted the dress one last time, then kissed her with a big, hot pink, goopy smack on the cheek. “Love you, sis.”
She cringed away and rubbed the oil slick off her cheek with a scowl. “Don’t do anything dumb.”
I turned back to look at my sister with a look of disbelief on my face. “You mean like make a date for you to sleep with Richie Rich so I can steal back the painting that his dickhead dad stole from our mother?”
She smiled infectiously, and I returned the grin when she said, “Yeah, like that.”
Sterling Gray was actually more like Richie Rich’s entitled older brother. But his entitlement came with a great house. It was technically the “family” mansion, which meant it was owned by Dickhead Dad, but Gray had supervised every aspect of the extensive renovations for his father, who apparently spent most of his time on the East Coast.
Colette had dated Gray’s architect a few times, which was how she had gotten into the old Prairie District mansion while it was being renovated. Colette had been able to tour the house right before inspection, but then Mac met someone else, and things like furniture layout and security systems could have changed since then.
A uniformed butler opened the heavy leaded glass door and took my invitation. “Welcome back to the manor, Ms. Collins,” he said in a soft, Southern drawl. It was a strange voice to hear in a Chicago mansion, but it added gentility to the austere entry hall.
I had my hand out to shake the butler’s before I remembered I probably shouldn’t do anything to make myself memorable. “Nice to m—see you again,” I said, with a smile Colette would’ve called ‘toothy.’ I remembered just in time that Colette had said Sterling used a butler for parties, but she hadn’t told me his name.
No one in Chicago knew that Colette had a twin sister – honestly, if I had such an unsophisticated tomboy sister, I’d keep me on the down-low too. But even if I wasn’t a liability, I traveled so much for work that we were rarely in the same city at the same time – and we never went out in public together. Basically, she was Bruce Wayne and I was Batman, because of life hack #323: Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman, and then always be Batman.
The butler’s expression was pleasant and polite. “It’s nice to see you again too, ma’am. Shall I take your wrap?”
“No, thanks,” I said, pulling the thin cashmere shawl around my shoulders. It was the only thing that would save me from all the potential boob-spillage of the evening and was therefore as necessary as the mask and bat ears.
I stepped into the entry hall and nearly tripped at the sight of all the fanciness. The room was painfully elegant, with white marble tiles on the floor and warm wood paneling on the walls. There was a fireplace surrounded by an exotic stone mantle, and a real wood fire that warmed two chairs which had been artfully placed in front of it. It wasn’t even a room; it was a space designed to intimidate and impress guests into feeling honored that they’d been graced with an invitation.
No amount of architectural plans could ever do justice to a space like this, and I had to remind my awe to sit down so I could pay attention to the details. Figuring out the story from the details was what I did best, which is why I had the mind of a master criminal – without the inclinations of one. Mostly.
I knew I’d lingered in the hall too long when I heard the butler greet someone else at the door. “Come in, Mr. Masoud. Mr. Gray will be glad to see you.”
I turned instinctively to see who else Gray had invited to his inaugural house party, and almost tripped again at the sight of the Disney prince who had just entered the hall. Seriously, the guy was a dead ringer for Aladdin, and he was beautiful.
“Thank you, Marcel. It’s good to see you.” Mr. Masoud’s voice sounded exactly how a Disney prince would speak, too – in a vaguely accented, probably educated in Europe, quietly cultured tone.
“I’ll just take your coat, sir?” The butler said with quiet dignity.
Mr. Masoud smiled wryly as he handed over a topcoat that was probably made of cashmere. “Please call me Darius.”
Fancy name for a fancy man, and interesting company for a guy like Gray to keep.
Maybe I was painting the son with the brush of the father, but I had my doubts about Sterling Gray. The man had installed a panic room in his thirteen-thousand-square-foot mansion, and he’d told his architect to wire a wall for an art alarm. The panic room ID’d him as a man with enemies, and the art alarm was almost certainly for the painting I was there to steal. Neither of those things inclined me to be charitable toward him.
I turned to avoid Darius Masoud’s gaze as he entered the hall, and found myself looking at the elaborate stone fireplace. I tried not to notice him when he stepped up next to me, which was approximately as successful as not noticing a scorching flame. The man radiated heat, and I almost fanned myself when he spoke.
“The stone looks as though it has rivers of blood running through it. A bit disconcerting, isn’t it?”
I turn to stare at him, and I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open too, just to complete the expression of WTF on my face.
The Disney prince sighed when he saw my face. “As am I, no doubt, for having observed something so morbid. Right. I’ll just go then,” he seemed to say to himself, “before she has me removed from the premises.”
“Talking to yourself isn’t helping the serial killer vibe,” I said, because I have the subtlety of an elephant in a hot pink tutu.
He didn’t immediately bolt, so I must have surprised him, which was novel. I usually inspired something closer to fear with a side of self-preservation. Men were especially susceptible to this, probably because I looked so much like my sister at first glance, which didn’t prepare them for the utterly inappropriate things I said.
He seemed to actually look at me then, and his gaze gave me sweaty butterflies. I’ve determined they’re a thing, since I don’t get simple, fluttery, girly butterflies like most straight women do when a ridiculously handsome guy notices them. My butterflies flap around so hard they make me feel slightly nauseated, which inevitably leads to a mild case of the sweats. Ergo, sweaty butterflies.
“I can promise I’ve never referred to myself as Precious, if that helps,” he said in his low, accented voice that made the little bastards flap harder.
“I don’t know. Are you more of a Buffalo Bill ‘Precious,’ or a Gollum ‘Preciousssss?’ Because that might determine your creep-factor.” I seriously needed help. The sheer nonsense I was spouting in the face of such pretty Disney royalty was staggering, and if the look of confusion on his face was any indication, Mr. Darius Masoud was about thirty seconds away from making his polite excuses and beating a hasty retreat. So I got there first.
“Sorry, I just remembered I have to pee.” Oh, that was much better. His expression was morphing from confusion into amusement, and I pressed my lips together to keep from upping the mortification factor any further. “Excuse me, please.”
I hurried down the corridor toward the sounds of conversation and wondered if the laughter came from behind me or ahead. I was clearly not fit for polite company, much less gorgeous, rich, high-class company. I entered a reception hall the size of a ballroom, thinking I’d be able to lose myself in a crowd, and then practically screeched to a halt. Chandelier people – the kind who dripped glittery things and tinkled with laughter – filled the room. They were that special breed of people who chatted easily, laughed at all the right moments, and moved gracefully from group to group like best friends. My feet felt rooted to the thick silk carpet that was covered in an elegant vine pattern and looked far too expensive to walk on.
“You’re not breathing,” the Disney prince said quietly in my ear.
Oh no, no, no, no, no! I actually tried to press my lips together again to stop the words, but they slipped on the pink oil slick and opened of their own accord. “Of course not. The neurotoxin from the deadly vines around my ankles has paralyzed my lungs, and I’m pretty sure I only have a few moments left to live,” I said.
Out loud.
My sister hated this about me. She despaired of my imagination because she was also pretty sure I had an undiagnosed case of Tourette’s syndrome – this despite being genetically identical to her – and the combination inevitably resulted in unfiltered fantastical nonsense spewing forth with horrifying regularity.
The silence at my right ear was deafening for the space of several exceptionally loud heartbeats before a low chuckle sent my sweaty butterflies into frantic flight.
“It’s a cat,” he purred.
A cat?
The cat purred? No, the man purred. Men didn’t purr, did they?
I threw the switcher on my brain-track and wrenched it back to the situation at hand. The silken ivy I’d pictured wrapped around my ankles was, of course, an actual cat winding itself around my legs.
“I knew that,” I said. “You purred when you said it, though. Are you some relation?”
“To the cat?” Darius Masoud stepped around my shoulder to look into my face. The sweaty butterflies hung suspended in mid-flutter, and I grinned because they weren’t making me sick at the moment, which was reason to celebrate.
Darius seemed to think the grin was for him though, and his slow, answering smile started the fluttering right back up again. “Don’t do that,” I said with a scowl.
“Don’t smile?” A look of confusion dimmed the smile down to something the butterflies could manage, and I nodded.
“Thank you. The sweaty butterflies were making me a little ill.”
Now, I’d always been totally conscious that I sounded like a fruitcake when I spoke in situations like this. The problem was that a: I didn’t care, and b: I didn’t often have much to say in the matter. The filter between my brain and my mouth had always been tenuous at best, but it completely disappeared whenever sweaty butterflies got involved.
The Disney prince’s expression had begun to shift to something much more familiar. The “this one’s a whackjob” face that started looking for the exits. And as pretty as his face was to look at, I didn’t have time or attention for sweaty butterflies or Disney princes. I had a house to scout, its owner to seduce, and a panic room to find. I pulled on a benign smile – the one Colette said made me look dim – and waited for him to find an excuse to run away.
** END SNEAK PEEK **
Code of Honor is Available Now!
Also by Daisy Prescott
Park Rangers:
Happy Trail
Stranger Ranger
Wingmen:
Ready to Fall
Confessions of a Reformed Tom Cat
Anything but Love
Better Love
Small Town Scandal
Wingmen Babypalooza
The Last Wingman
Love with Altitude:
Next to You
Crazy Over you
Wild for You
Up to You
Modern Love Stories:
We Were Here
Geoducks Are for Lovers
Wanderlust
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Stranger Ranger: An Opposites Attract Romance (Park Ranger Book 2) Page 25