miss fortune mystery (ff) - sinfully delicious (4 page)

We were polar opposites, but that didn’t matter.

We were ‘
sistah’s from anotha mistah’
.

Her words, not mine.

“Who is it?” I blinked my eyes in an attempt to bring the room around me back into focus. Watching a surveillance camera did a number on a sleep deprived eyes.

“Fuck if I know.” She shrugged with one palm pointed toward the sky.

Did I happen to mention that
fuck
was Kelly’s favorite word?

“He said his name is Jason King, and that he needs to speak directly to you about his situation but that’s about all he would tell me. He’s determined to see you, and a bit of an arrogant ass, if I do say so myself.”

She pressed her black-framed glasses up her pert nose with the tip of her index finger and waited for my response.

I nodded and chewed my bottom lip. “The name sounds familiar but I can’t place it off the top of my head. Did you recognize him at all?”

“Nope. He looks like every other businessman in this town.”

She had a point. I’d lived in the city since conception and at times all the businessmen appeared carbon copied.

Suites, ties, shiny black shoes, and there was often either a shiny bald head framed by thinning white hair or a full head of over-gelled hair setting on their shoulders. Neither of which I found the least bit attractive.

“Do I have any other appointments today?”

“Nope. You’re all clear.” She answered.

“Alright, I’ll see him since I have a little bit of time, but I want you in here on this one. Flip the sign, lock the front doors, and then follow him in.”

Kelly gave me a two-fingered, which was much more polite than her one usual finger, salute and left the room.

I paused the surveillance disk and powered off my monitor, then leaned back in my oversized desk chair and frowned.

I’d already seen all I needed to see to know the politician was cheating. The last thing I needed was some busybody seeing his bare ass bent over the hood of a car before I told his wife.

“Jason King. Jason King. Jason King.” I repeated as I tapped my bottom lip with the tip of my pen and tried like crazy to figure out why that name sounded so familiar, but nothing came to me.

If I’d had time I would’ve done a quick google search, but the pushy asshat was already in the lobby.

Moments later, Kelly opened the door and the bottom dropped out of my happy little world.

“Barb?”

My legs shook as I stood and I stared into the eyes of the one man who’d always sent my brain flying out the window.

“Jason?”

We stared at each other, taking in the others appearance for what felt like a silent eternity. He was the same as I remembered, tall, with a broad chest, blue eyes, and perfectly blond hair. For a moment all those old feelings, the ones I’d shoved in a drawer in the darkest recesses of my mind, came rushing back and it took everything I had in me to squash them before they roared to life and consumed me again.

Five years had past. Jason and I were long over and done with.

“You’re Jason, you’re Barb, and I’m Kelly,” Kelly interrupted the moment with a grin spread across her face. “I thought you didn’t know him?”

“I did, a long time ago.” I reluctantly admitted. “But at the time his name was Jason Charles.”

He chose that moment to breakout the gorgeous boyish smile that could melt a woman’s panties in two seconds flat.

“I started using my mothers’ maiden name when I opened my business. Personal reasons,” he half explained. “And
knew each
other seems a bit mild. After all, we were engaged.”

“Engaged?” Kelly gaped.

“It’s a long story, and one I don’t care to repeat.” I hedged, and when I caught Kelly still grinning at me out of the corner of my eye, I decided that if I was that transparent I needed to get my shit together because there was no way in hell this guy was getting under my skin. Not again. I’d been burned once and I wasn’t about to let it happen a second time. That shit hurt.

“Well,” I released a pent up breath. “Have a seat and we’ll get started.”

I pointed him toward one of the chocolate brown leather chairs situated before my cluttered desk, and took my seat while Kelly situated herself and her notepad in the matching chair next to Jason’s.

He glanced over at her, then back at me. “I was kind of hoping we could speak in private.”

“Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of Kelly. She’s my assistant, so she’s going to hear all of the ins and outs of why you’re here.”

He cleared his throat and cast a furtive glance at Kelly, then back at me. “I understand that, but I’d feel more comfortable speaking to you alone. Please, Barb?”

For fucksake, enough with the puppy dog eyes already.

The last thing I wanted was to be alone with Jason, but if shooing Kelly from the room was the only way to get what he wanted out of him so he could hurry up and leave…

Kelly gave me an almost imperceptive nod.

“Um, sure. Kelly, it’s fine. You can go.”

She winked at me and left the room.

The minute the door closed behind her I knew I was in trouble.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Is that why you’re here? Because if it is, you’re wasting your time.”

“Time with you is never wasted.”

Boy, was he full of crap or what?

“That’s obviously not what you thought when we were together or you wouldn’t have spent your every waking moment screwing your assistant.”

He frowned. “I apologized for that. I was immature, stupid even. I’m different now.”

Yeah, and the sky was red, wine was nasty-stinky-poo-poo, and turkey bacon tasted better than the real thing.

Different my ass.

“Jason, if this is why you’re here, to rehash our past, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I have work to do.”

As I started to stand he held out his hand to stop me. “No, that’s not why I’m here. I really do need you’re help, Barb.”

I took in his expression and against my better judgment asked, “With what? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

He released a frustrated sigh and ran his hand through his normally immaculately combed hair. I took a closer look at him and realized he looked exhausted. Faint bags sat dark beneath his tired green eyes. His hair was disheveled, his body strung tight with tension, and his dress shirt and black slacks were slightly rumpled.

Were I a vain, conceited woman, I would’ve thought his tension was due to the fact that he was sitting across from me, a woman he was lucky to have had but screwed over and lost… but I’m not that kind of girl.

“Jason?” I prodded.

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“Care to elaborate?”

He leaned his elbows onto his knees and began, “You know I started my own accounting firm four years ago?”

I nodded.

“I do a lot of business for individuals as well as some larger companies including Hatchet Enterprises.”

“Hatchet?” I interrupted. “As in modeling mogul, Robert Hatchet?”

Robert Hatchet owned the biggest modeling agency on the East coast. His models were everywhere, television, movies, magazines, and billboards. Hatchet was THE name in modeling. If you wanted to be the next Naomi Campbell, Hatchet Enterprises was the company you tried to land.

“Mr. Hatchet himself came into my office six months ago, chatted me up, said he heard great things about me and hired me on the spot to work as his personal accountant. The money he offered was just too good to pass up.”

“Personal accounts? As in illegal?”

“No, nothing like that. The modeling company has its own accounting company due to the fact that it’s a multi-million dollar business. All agency accounts are dealt with by another firm, but Hatchet has more going on than the modeling company, charities and such, and that’s what he hired me to keep track of.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is at times. The other firm and I meet once a month just to make sure we’re on the same page and there’s no loose ends. The last thing we need it getting Hatchet or ourselves into some kind of financial trouble because of oversights.”

Over the last five years as a P.I. I’ve learned that most cases always leads back to one of two things, money or sex. Sometimes both.

“Wait.” I stopped him and held up a hand. “Hatchet’s wife was murdered about two weeks ago, wasn’t she?”

At least that’s what I though I’d heard on the bits of the evening news I was able to catch. With my line of work, I wasn’t home much, so television was sparse.

“That’s why I’m here.”

Why did I have the feeling that the shit was about to hit the fan? Oh, that’s right, because wherever Jason went crap always seemed to start flying. It was like he had his own troop of poo-flinging monkeys following him everywhere he went.

“You weren’t screwing his wife were you?”

Yeah, it was crass of me, but I had to ask.

He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat. “No. I wasn’t banging Lydia. Jesus, I cheated once, it was a mistake. Let it go already. It’s not like I sleep with every woman that walks by.”

I bit my tongue to keep from telling him to go to straight to hell on the first bus out, and motioned for him to continue.