“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 p**n ographic 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 his hand.
“Hypocrite.” She nodded at his cocktail and tried to ignore how desirable he looked in his embroidered vest with his crisp white shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms and wrists.
“Everything in moderation, ma chérie. Except orgasms. Have a seat.”
She didn’t see anywhere to sit other than the bed and not wanting to seem too eager she sat on the floor. Kingsley gave her a strange look as she waited at his feet—a look both hungry and self-congratulatory.
Kingsley pulled out a sleek black cell phone. In rapid French he poured out what sounded like instructions and hung up.
“Pancakes forthcoming. Now this is all very interesting.” He flipped another page in the file. “You had a four-point-oh at NYU before you dropped out your freshman year. Pourquoi?”
Charlotte sat up straighter.
“That file’s about me?” she demanded.
“Oui. While I was waiting for you emerge from your Amaretto-sour coma, I had my secretary cull your records. You are a fascinating woman, Charlie.”
“And you’re such an ass**le. I can’t believe you’re digging around my past.”
“I intend to f**k you blind before you leave my home, Charlie. Is penetrating your past more intimate than penetrating your body?”
Charlotte closed her mouth and sat blushing on the floor as visions of Kingsley on top of her, inside her, raced through her mind.
“I think so,” she finally answered.
“So do I, actually.”
“That’s a pretty old-fashioned view of sex,” she said. “Especially for a pimp.”
“I am not a pimp. My employees do not sell sex. If I’m anything, it would be an agent. Or—”
“A talent scout,” she finished. “Yeah, Steele told me. So were you scouting for talent at the club last night?”
“I was. And found a fire-breather. Not a particularly useful talent but certainly interesting. As is this—your mother, she died when you were nineteen.”
Charlotte swallowed. “Car accident. That’s not interesting. Just horrible.”
“Horrible, très. But you dropped out of school to raise your younger brother—that is interesting.”
“Simon and my father do not get along. He was terrified at the prospect of living with my dad. We got a sympathetic judge, thank God.”