One Night Wife (The Confidence Game 1)

He let his vision wander all over them now. “You didn’t appear to mind.” He didn’t know if the flush she got was real or acting. She’d unbalanced him with kisses, and he was still dizzy on her. Moving on to safer ground. “Where does the inspiration for your charity come from?”

“I’ve always been a cause supporter, you know. Wear the ribbon, give a donation, perform for free. I read about microfinance in college and what happens when you give someone in need a small loan, how the benefits ripple out, especially when it’s a woman you loan the money to. A woman spends it to ensure the ongoing safety and health of her family, and she pays it back, which lets you loan another woman money to get started.”

“I can believe that. Women have always had to put others first.” It wasn’t an effort to be agreeable, it was a truth. It wasn’t only because he wanted to get kissed again. The fact they both wanted that was a palpable current between them, sparking like an electric shock.

“Lenny and I decided we wanted to start our own microfinance charity. Like Tinder, but matching donors with deserving women.”

“How do you determine who’s worthy?”

They had a list at Sherwood. Worthy causes, of which there were many, matched with the money from worthy marks. Fuckers who’d gotten excessively rich at the expense of others. Wealthy manipulators and users who’d profited on luck, gall, or misfortune. Superior, entitled narcissists who were bigots, racists, and homophobes. Only a con artist could be heartened to know how many of them were out there.

Get rich off the fashion label you made in third world sweatshops, you were on the Sherwood Alpha list. Drill for oil or mine for minerals on sacred ground, Alpha list. Likewise, if you killed off sea life or made decisions that pushed polar bears further towards extinction or otherwise polluted or endangered the planet. Slum owner, Alpha list. Illegal arms dealer or drug lord, Alpha list. If you created a financial product that went bad and bankrupted millions of families while you scored an enormous bonus, you went to the top of the list. If you bought influence designed to benefit your own fortune and disadvantage others, you got a bullet on the list. Sit on your wealth without giving back, you made the list, too, because that was only fair.

“Established charity groups we partner with determine who should benefit. They’re on the ground and they vet applications, so no one is taking advantage of the system,” Fin said.

Cal had dozens of questions. Mom would love this. She no doubt knew more about microloans than Fin did. She reigned supreme over Sherwood’s social justice program, taking charge of what they gave out and to whom, while Cal directed what they brought in from who they ripped off.

Wealth redistribution. It was a very simple business plan. Be like Robin Hood. Shift money from the ugly rich who abused it, to those who could best use it. Don’t get caught. Keep doing it. Sherwood took a percentage for their costs and salaries, much like Fin’s charity needed an administration fee to keep running.

“We had backing, we’ve applied for grants, we have a groups program, and we can do payroll deductions, but our major funding fell over and unless I can find a way to keep the lights on, I’m going to have to get a job.”

“Or stand on a lot more barstools.”

r /> “It’s better than quitting. Maybe it worked.”

“Unlikely. Your pitch needs refining.” In the back of Cal’s head, ideas were forming. He could support Fin to get her charity humming, he could teach her to stick, and maybe that would help him feel better about himself post-Rory.

“My barstool pitch or my pitch to you? I seem to recall you went down a dark alley with me willingly.”

And he’d do it again, with about the same level of hesitation as he’d used earlier, which is to say, none at all. He should be ashamed. Caution to the wind was a grifter’s Achilles’ heel. Instead, everything about Fin inflamed him.

He stood and held his hand out. She took it and came upright into his arms. “Your personal pitch to me was a knockout,” he said.

“But we’re not naked.”

“Not for a lack of desire.”

“So, what’s going on with us?”

“I don’t want to be another thing you think you can’t quit, Finley Cartwright. This isn’t you. You’re not the girl who gets the fake boobs, who goes down on a casting couch to get hired, or goes to a hotel with a rich stranger to get laid because she’s worried about funding her business.”

“But—”

He stopped the rest of her words with a light kiss. “I know, I feel it, too, but this isn’t so straightforward, and it’s one of those times to quit while you’re ahead.”

The finger she ran up his stomach and chest made that resolve difficult to keep. “I was hoping to, you know”—she traced that finger over his bottom lip—“get some head.”

Cal groaned. It was theatrical, and he meant it to be, because this had been a strange night for a man who orchestrated strange occasions for a living. “I’m not a man who walks away from a willing woman with more going for her than her more than adequate tits, but I hate to admit that in this instance, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“You roll with it, do the whole dark alley make-out session, pay for this room, feed me thing, and you don’t want to get laid.” She thumped her head on his chest. “And I’m the one who lacks commitment. It wasn’t possible for me to have thrown myself at you harder.”

“I do want to get laid. I very much want to lay you out on that obscenely large bed and prove to you that every director who didn’t cast you needs their eyes tested and their sense of adventure retuned. You’re a captivating woman, Fin.”

“But… And here comes the brush off.”

Not a brush off. A test. “I want to help you more, and that’s what you really want, and if I take you to bed now, that complicates things.” He said that to the mass of her hair, and when she lifted her face, he brought their foreheads together. “You get to keep the room, order breakfast, live it up. And then come and see me at my office, and we’ll work on your pitch.”

“You mean that? You’re a fancy, venture cap guy, and I’m a failed-pretty-much-everything, including but not limited to seduction.”