“Is your boot on my back part of your deviant side?” Charlotte sat up, and Kingsley lifted his feet off her back with a graceful air.
“What can I say? When I see a beautiful woman so drunk she ends up passed out on the floor, I assume she’s there because she wants to be walked all over.”
“Nice guilt trip. I heard you were a pimp. Are you a priest, too?”
“Non. But I have a priest on speed dial if you need one,” he said with a wicked grin on his sculpted lips. “Would you like to come home with me now, Charlie?”
“What are you going to do to me?” His face came into focus for the first time. She’d heard he was French…or half-French, something like that. He was rich and had half the judges and cops in town in his back pocket. She’d also heard he was handsome, but handsome didn’t do justice to the man in front of her.
“Breakfast and a shower are in order. Perhaps then we can discuss a certain business opportunity.”
The phrase business opportunity triggered a memory from last night. Steele said that Kingsley Edge wasn’t a pimp but a talent scout. Talent scout—she had a feeling she knew exactly what this business opportunity might entail.
“The shower and breakfast might work. But I can save you the trouble—no to any business opportunities.”
“You say that now…but wait until you try my pancakes.”
He sat his teacup and saucer down and held out his hand.
What the hell was she getting herself into?
Charlotte reached out and put her hand into his. Wrapping his fingers around hers, he pulled her to her feet. Wobbling a little on her high heels, she put her hand on his chest to steady herself. He covered her hand with his and met her eyes.
“You’re a beautiful woman.” His dark-lashed eyes studied her face. “Even with scuff marks on your cheek.”
Charlotte blushed and rubbed her face.
“Don’t bother. We’ll wash it off at my townhouse. Shall we, Charlie?”
“Okay, so you’re going to call me Charlie. What do I call you?”
“Everyone calls me Kingsley or King. Or Monsieur. Take your pick.”
“Monsieur?”
“Mon père était français et j’ai servi dans la légion étrangère française.”
Charlotte blinked and tried to make out any of the words Kingsley had said. But none of it registered as anything but poetic nonsense.
“I said ‘my father was French and I served in the French Foreign Legion.’”
Charlotte stared at Kingsley. French…riding boots…the suit…and he changed her name to Charlie.
“You’re a little insane, aren’t you, Kingsley?”
“Oui, and you’re coming home with me.” He flashed her a wicked grin.
“Touché.”
Kingsley strode off and Charlotte followed behind him. He paused as he passed the bar and picked up her cowboy hat, which someone had left there. He tossed it back to her.
“I’m giving it to you but don’t think you’re allowed to wear it in my presence.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have the most beautiful claret-colored hair I’ve ever seen, and it’s a crime to cover it.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“It’s not real. Well, the hair’s real, but not the color. I’m a hair stylist.”
“I don’t care if it’s real. I wasn’t born bilingual but that doesn’t change the fact that it turns you on that I am. Oui?”
Kingsley spun on his heel to smile back at her. He raised his eyebrows and seemed to be waiting for her to answer.
“Okay, oui,” she admitted.
“J’accepte.” Kingsley threw open the doors to the club.
Charlotte shielded her face as the morning sunlight beat down on her aching eyes. Once inside the back of Kingsley’s car she noticed the lush leather interior and the old-world feel.
“Holy shit…is this a Rolls-Royce?”
Kingsley sat on the bench seat opposite her.
“She is. Not my favorite one, but she’s fine for running errands.”
“So am I an errand?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know.” Kingsley gave her a long look that set the hairs on her arms standing up. “Are you running?”
Charlotte looked out the window and saw the city regulars on their way to work—men in power suits, women in severe dresses. And here she sat in a Rolls-Royce with one of the city’s most notorious underground figures.
“Not yet.”
Kingsley grinned.
“Good answer, Charlie. Here we are.”
The Rolls pulled in front of an elegant black-and-white bricked town house that looked at least three stories high.
Kingsley left the car first and held out his hand for her. She tried to stay steady on her feet as he pulled her out. Kingsley steered her up two flights of stairs. A stunningly beautiful young woman delivered a file folder to him with a quick curtsy.
“You can shower while I read,” Kingsley said.
“You’re really going to make me take a shower?”
“I can give you a bath if you prefer.”
“I wouldn’t prefer,” she said, not sure if she meant that.
Kingsley pushed open a set of intricately carved black double doors.
Never before had she seen a bedroom more erotic and inviting. She wished she knew more about architecture so she could properly describe it to her friends…if and when she ever made it out of here. She wanted to study the vaulted ceilings adorned with black-and-white paintings of lovers coupling in positions both pornographic and artistic. Or the hulking black marble fireplace on the lush oriental rugs that covered the black-and white-tile floor.
But in truth only the bed held her attention. A huge four-poster behemoth, it captured both her attention and her imagination. She’d never seen sheets so red, like the color of fresh blood, or pillows so thick she thought she could drown in them and die happy.
“Nice bed,” she said when Kingsley caught her staring. “It’s really…big. King-size, I guess.”
“Kingsley-sized.” He winked at her as he pointed at a door across the room. “Bathroom in there. There is a bathrobe you can use while I have your clothes sent out.”
Charlotte entered the bathroom and found it as luxurious as the bedroom. She locked the door behind her and looked in the mirror. Scuff marks had been only a slight exaggeration. A streak of black floor polish adorned her left cheek. It looked almost like a bruise. Her eyes were shaded with smudged and flaking eye makeup and her lipstick had worn halfway off from the alcohol and the paraffin. She turned on the steam shower and stepped inside. As she washed the club grime off she wondered what on earth Kingsley wanted with her before deciding she didn’t really care.
She turned off the water and wrapped herself in the plushest towel she’d ever felt in her life. Squeezing the water out of her hair she pulled on the black silk bathrobe. With nothing on but the robe she emerged into the bedroom. Kingsley reclined in a chair with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He’d discarded his suit jacket and put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. With a cocktail in his hand he perused the file folder in