Fool Me Forever (The Confidence Game 2)

Chapter Three

The glass shattered on the wall behind Halsey, and a shower of shards bounced over his shoulder and scattered at his feet. Hell, Lenore Bradshaw had a good arm.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit. God, I’m sorry.” Her eyes went wide, and she covered her face with her hands.

That wasn’t quite the effect he’d been hoping for. He felt an inopportune need to comfort her. “I’ve had worse things thrown at me.” He’d had worse things put in his bed, sprinkled over his food, written on his forehead, and shaved into his head while he slept, because his siblings were ratbags who loved a good prank, and he’d most often been the focus of their diabolical plots as a kid. “How do you feel?”

She took her hand away from her face. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, I feel better.”

That was the effect he was after. “Do you have a pan and brush?”

Lenny pointed at the cupboard under the sink. He eased around her in the tiny space to get to it, while she went to the fridge. “I need a drink.”

He wasn’t getting back to his desk any time soon. “If you’ve enough remaining glassware, I’ll join you.” That earned him a surprised over-the-shoulder glance. He took the brush and pan and cleaned up the glass, picked pieces out of the plaster on the wall, and then disposed of it, which should give her time to compose herself. Or at least to make an attempt to. She hadn’t been composed from the moment he arrived, and that was the topic they needed to get back to.

“About the extortionist,” he said.

She handed him a tumbler with a generous serving of white wine in it. “I’m sorry, Halsey. Please accept my sincere apology for almost breaking your far-too-pretty face with a tumbler from Costco.”

“I would much rather duck the family crystal.” She’d called him pretty.

“Already pawned.”

Pretty.

Lenny was pretty. The way her features combined made her objectively lovely to look at. She had a symmetrical, oval-shaped face, an elegant nose, large expressive eyes, plump lipstick-ruby lips, and honey-colored curls bouncing around her shoulders. He had an urge to loop a wayward lock behind her ear right before she did it herself.

“I’ve never thrown anything like that in my life. My aim was terrible.” She shook her head and then fixed a squint on him. “You’re a bad influence.”

It wasn’t like that was news. “But you do feel better?” There was pink in her cheeks, and the the tension from her neck and shoulders was gone. She moved less stiffly and that wasn’t the wine at work yet.

“The part of me that’s not ashamed is astonished. You have this big, unflappable thing going on and so I felt safe to—” She stopped and scrunched her face, all the newly energized bright flare of her dimmed.

He helped out. “To express yourself with unusual force.”

“Yes.” She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “That.” Then looked at the floor. “For a few seconds it felt amazing to be so angry and do something with it, but I am genuinely sorry I almost hit you.”

“You don’t need to apologize, the bad influence thing and all. Now about the extortionist.”

“He’s not an extortionist.”

Halsey attempted the kind of look Cal gave recalcitrant marks to make them doubt their brains were switched on. Worked every time for Cal. Lenny had enough defiance on the boil still to flip him off. He had to stifle a smile. “He’s at worst blackmailing you.”

“He’s my brother,” she said, making this tragically a lot thornier. Halsey couldn’t as easily have her brother mildly terrified mob style so he never bothered Lenny again.

“That is a problem.” He should’ve recognized Easton Bradshaw.

“You can’t choose your family.”

“No truer words. I love my family, most of the time, but seriously I’d have chosen one that was made up of librarians, historians, and art restorers if I’d had the choice. Instead, I’m the descendent of forgers, frauds, and truth twisters, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about that.”

Lenny laughed. “That’s why you should go.”

“Relatives are not supposed to do evil to you.” Shaving a lightning bolt into the side of your head wasn’t exactly evil, neither was dying your eyebrows blue. Apparently, those indignities were character building.

“Would you even know the difference between good and evil?”

He sighed. Being misunderstood was a new, unsettling sensation. “You’re wrong about us.”