Sinful Pleasures

“Me, too. She’s excited to get started on her new project.” Maddux leaned back in his chair, his expression turning more direct and serious as he addressed the reason for Hunter’s visit. “So, what do you need my help with?”

Hunter got right to the point. “I need to hire the private investigator you used to expose all of Theodore’s illegal and criminal activities over the past fourteen years.”

Maddux raised a brow in surprise. “Okay . . . can I ask what for? Because we both know that Noah Reeves is not a by-the-book kind of PI. In fact, there aren’t a whole lot of ethical lines he won’t cross to find out the deep, dark shit on people.”

“That’s exactly why I want to hire him,” Hunter said in a grim tone, and went on to tell his brother the reason. “The woman I met the night of the fairy-tale ball—”

“Elaina Darian, with Darian Commercial Realty, a.k.a. Cinderella?” Maddux cut in, a smug look on his face. “The one who ran out on you the morning after and left her crystal shoe behind?”

With everything going on, Hunter hadn’t had a chance to discuss Elle with his brother, but clearly their sister had already taken it upon herself to share her romanticized fairy-tale version of what she knew about his relationship with Elle.

“Tempest?” he guessed in a wry tone.

Maddux chuckled. “Of course. Who else? You sure as shit didn’t bother to tell me.”

Hunter scrubbed a hand along the stubble he hadn’t shaved this morning. “Yeah, well, you were a little busy with the whole Theodore and Arabella kidnapping and getting shot and recovering and being blissfully happy with your Belle.”

“True.” Maddux grinned unapologetically, now the polar opposite of the bitter man he’d once been. “Especially the latter.”

“Spare me the details, please,” Hunter said, putting up a hand to keep his brother from giving him information he didn’t want or need to hear. “As for Elle and me . . . we’ve been kind of seeing each other.”

“Kind of?” Maddux drawled. “That’s vague.”

“It’s complicated,” Hunter grumbled, wishing he could give his brother a more definitive answer about him and Elle, but for right now, he was stuck in limbo with her, which he hated. “I want to pursue things with her, and right now she’s dealing with a lot of issues with her stepmother, Helena, who owns half of the house they live in together and the realty business that her father left to the both of them when he passed away. From what Elle tells me, Helena’s spending habits are excessive compared to what the company is currently bringing in, to the point that the business is suffering financially. Yet her stepmother isn’t willing to take out a home equity loan against the four hundred thousand dollars that’s available to draw from—for the company or even herself. Something isn’t adding up, and I want to find out why.”

Maddux nodded in understanding. “Does Elle know that you’re going to put together a dossier on her stepmother?”

“No.” He honest-to-God didn’t like going behind her back, but every protective instinct inside of him was clawing at him that something was wrong, and he needed proof to back up his gut feeling. “I don’t want to tell her unless there’s a reason I need to, or until I have something concrete to show her that will give credence to Helena’s odd decisions and behavior.”

“I get it.” Maddux opened the middle drawer of his desk and pulled out a notepad and a pen and pushed both across the wooden surface to Hunter. “Write down Helena’s name and either her home or work address, or both if you know them.”

That sounded too simple and Hunter frowned at his brother. “That’s all Noah needs to start on a full background report, including finding out anything in Helena’s past?”

“Trust me,” Maddux said confidently. “You don’t want to know how Reeves finds out what he doe

s, but bottom line, he’s that fucking good. In two or three days, you’ll have a full report on Helena Darian, past and present, including her personal finances and banking records.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” Hunter said, reaching for the pen and paper to jot down the information Reeves needed to start the investigation, while Maddux picked up his cell phone to retrieve the PI’s private phone number to give him a call.

In a few days, Hunter, and Elle, would hopefully have answers as to why Helena wasn’t budging on the equity that was available in the house they co-owned.

Never in Elle’s life had she been in the position to make the walk of shame, but as she entered her house and headed into the kitchen to make herself a cup of hot tea to drink while she got ready for work, the three women sitting at the dining table eating breakfast definitely looked at her with different levels of judgment. Helena’s stare was filled with disgust and disapproval, Gwen did nothing to disguise her narrow-eyed animosity and envy, and Claire, who wasn’t quite as malevolent as her stepmother or sister, watched her more curiously. Even Lucifer, Helena’s devil cat, hissed at her as Elle walked past the feline.

Clearly, the three women were aware that she hadn’t come home last night, and most likely recognized that Elle was still in the same clothes she’d worn to the office the day before, which were now noticeably wrinkled from being tossed onto Hunter’s floor in a heap. Her makeup was worn off, and while she’d attempted to finger comb her thick, tousled hair since she hadn’t brought a brush with her, there was no denying that it still looked like disheveled bedhead.

She could have escaped right into her room—which was located just beyond the kitchen and had originally been built as a maid’s quarters—and avoided Helena’s and Gwen’s condescending looks, but Elle decided that she didn’t care what any of them thought of her. They’d always believed the worst, had always made her feel inferior and less than, and she refused to let them have the satisfaction of seeing her embarrassed. She had nothing to be ashamed of, so she set her purse, keys, and crystal-encrusted shoe down, then walked over to the pretty hand-painted porcelain jar that had been her mother’s at one time and now held Elle’s loose tea leaves.

With the trio still blatantly staring at her, Elle nonchalantly brought a mug down from the cupboard, retrieved her tea leaf strainer from the drawer, and put the chai vanilla-flavored tea into the ball strainer. She set it in her cup, added boiling water from the instant hot water dispenser, and waited for the flavors in the leaves to steep.

“Where were you last night?” Helena finally asked, breaking the awkward silence that had descended over the room when Elle had walked in.

Elle reached for the small jar of sugar from the cupboard, not bothering to glance her stepmother’s way. “That’s none of your business.”

Helena exhaled on an annoyed huff before she spoke again. “I heard that you met Hunter Wilder and his sister to show them the building in Williamsburg, and I’m assuming you spent the night with him again?” Her voice dripped with disdain.

Elle exhaled a deep, calming breath, telling herself not to engage. It didn’t matter that the three of them knew—or rather, assumed—that she’d slept with Hunter the night of the fairy-tale ball since she’d spent the evening with him and then had come home in the early-morning hours. Or that Helena was making the same assumption now. She wasn’t about to confirm or deny their suspicions.

With her tea properly steeped, she removed the ball strainer, set it in the sink, and added a small amount of sugar to the light brown liquid. “Again, I’m a grown woman, and where I spend my evenings is none of your concern.”