Cross (Dark Kings 3)

“What’s a Queen?” April whispers to me.

I shrug. No fucking clue.

Jasmine places her hands on the bar and stands, leaning over it. They’re nose to nose. “You seem to know a lot about nothing.”

His eyes drop to her breasts that are poking out of her skintight dress. He licks his lips before his eyes meet hers again. “I know enough.” Reaching out, he takes a piece of her red hair, freeing it from behind her ear. “How much does a Queen go for these days?” he asks her.

Her red-painted lips turn up at the corners before she runs her tongue along her upper lip. “More than you can afford.”

He lets go of her hair, his finger trailing down over her neck. “I don’t know. I’ve heard pussy comes pretty cheap.”

“Not the good ones.”

“Hey, Derek? Where’s my beer?” a guy shouts from the end of the bar.

He ignores him as he looks at her. It’s like they’re in a staring contest. Whoever looks away first will lose. “Let’s just say our opinions differ on what’s good,” he finally says before pulling away from her and delivering the beer.

“What was that about?” I ask Jasmine, wide-eyed and confused.

“I gotta go,” Jasmine states, picking up her clutch while completely ignoring my question. “We’ll do lunch next week.” Then she walks away without another word.

“Which is?” I ask again, hoping she fills me in this time. I tried to ask Derek, but he blew me off. Then I just forgot about it. I can’t ask him now. He won’t even speak to me. And I can’t go to him now that I know about Bones and Luca. I can’t let him know he was right.

She walks over to the bar and sits down at one of the high back stools. I sit down next to her. “Titan runs the Queens at Kingdom. The Queens are high-paid escorts for the worldwide elite.”

“Oh.” Not what I was expecting, but that conversation she had with my brother makes much more sense now.

“I couldn’t talk about it then because it involved an attorney and an NDA. Even now, I’m not supposed to say anything, but … Titan wouldn’t mind me telling you because I know you won’t say anything.” She runs a hand through her hair. “A … friend was in a hard place and needed a job. I knew about the Queens, so I went with her, and Titan hired us both. My father found out and demanded that Titan fire me, but he wouldn’t. My father is a member.” She rolls her eyes. “A man buys you a few tacos from a taco truck, and you’re expected to fuck him in the back seat of his truck. How dare a woman fuck and actually get paid for it? Anyway, now my dad is threatening to take everything from me if I don’t stop Kink.”

I reach out and place my hand on top of hers. “We can put it on hold.” I shrug. “Do it another time. Lucky’s isn’t going anywhere.”

She shakes her head. “What my father doesn’t know is that the money I put down for Kink didn’t come from him. He has no control over that. While I was a Queen, I met a guy who paid me a lot of money to just hang out with him. He was newly married, but his wife refused to do anything with him. I was supposed to spend an entire week with him in New York, but something fell through, and he had to head back home early. He found his partner’s son in bed with his wife.”

My eyes widen. Not where I saw that story going.

“She’s a year younger than me, and he’s fifty-five. She didn’t know that she had been caught with her boy toy. So he flew to Vegas, and we spent the rest of that week here in town at an attorney’s office.”

“Doing what exactly?” I ask, trying to keep up. I’m still processing everything I’ve found out in the past hour.

“He sold me several properties he had for really cheap. He was going to wait a few months and then file for a divorce. His parents are dead. He no longer trusted his business partner, especially if he knew his son was fucking his wife. And he didn’t have any kids.”

“That’s where you got the money for Kink?” I start to piece it together.

“Yep.” She nods. “Even though he had a prenup, he still didn’t want to take any chances of her getting anything. After his divorce was final, I offered to sell them back to him at the same price as I bought them, of course, but he told me to keep them. I sold one of them last month when I decided I wanted to open Kink with you. I went to Bones first, explained the situation, and asked him to help us because I knew we weren’t going to be able to do it on our own.”