Page 41

DENVER

I crack my knuckles as the make-up artist runs a fingertip over the exposed skin on Sinclair’s ass cheek in the lingerie she’s wearing.

“You get in a fight with a wild cat or something, darling?”

Sinclair turns her head to look down at him. “What do you mean?”

“Your ass. It’s covered in little scratches.”

Guilt weaves itself around my throat. The tree. I fucked her against a tree, and I hurt her.

I scrub a hand around my jaw, cursing myself as Sinclair’s eyes meet mine.

“I’m fine. I didn’t even know they were there,” she says to the make-up artist. I know her words are meant for me. To reassure me. But they do nothing to quell the rising tide of nausea I have from my gut from knowing I’ve left marks on her body.

“Okay, well, now they’re gone.” The make-up artist stands with a grin, holding a brush and sponge in his hand as he assesses his work. “Beautiful, you’re all set.”

“Thanks.” Sinclair smiles at him before walking over to where I’m sitting on a bench along one wall.

“Are you going to sit there looking sulky the whole show, Brute?”

I look at her face, all golden and dewy with the make-up.

They’ve styled her hair up into a high ponytail with a pink ribbon to match the baby pink bustier and panties she’s modeling.

My eyes slide over the low waistband of the silk panties.

She hooks a finger underneath my chin and lifts my eyes to her face.

“Thought you don’t look when you’re working?”

“I didn’t.” I hold her eyes. “But it’s kind of hard not to now.”

“Now what?” She hitches a brow with a teasing smile. I know she loves to play with me, and damn, I can’t help but let her, because hearing the fun flirty tone in her voice, and seeing the way her eyes light up with joy does something to me.

I love to see something other than pain in her eyes.

“Now that you’re my girl,” I rasp.

She purses her pink, glossy lips, her eyes bright. “You calling me your girl, Denny ?”

“I’m calling you my girl, Princess.”

The smile that lights up her face is enough to make my heart swell.

“Okay,” she muses. “I’ll consider your request.”

She spins on her heels and walks over to where she’s needed with a spring in her step, leaving me with my lips curling up in amusement. I’m treading a fine line and I know it. I almost confessed to Sterling on the spot what I’ve been up to with his daughter when I saw him. But something stopped me.

The threat of losing her.

Because there’s every possibility I’ll be out of a job when he finds out. And I’ll no longer be able to spend every day with her. I know I have to be the one to tell him. But I want to protect that lightness that’s overtaken her since we started this thing between us.

I want more time seeing her happy like this.

“I thought you’d decided to retire without telling anyone.” Theodora giggles as she comes to stand beside Sinclair to have their outfits checked one final time, ready for the runway.

“What made you think that?” Sinclair asks.

I shift forward in my seat, listening.

“You were gone a long time, that’s all.”

“Hardly. It wasn’t even two weeks. I needed some time out of the city awhile, that’s all,” she answers as someone sprays her hair with something and fluffs her ponytail.

“It felt like longer. I missed both of you.” Theodora looks in my direction and my neck stiffens as she meets my eyes.

“You can’t date him, Theo,” Sinclair says, following Theodora’s attention to me.

“Why? You were the one who told him to take my number.”

Sinclair shrugs. “That was then. This is now. He’s too busy looking after me to date. Aren’t you, Denver?” she calls over.

“Swamped,” I reply, holding Theo’s eyes.

Theodora bristles, studying me for a few seconds before she looks away, flustered.

I return to cracking my knuckles as the girls are ushered to the rear of the stage where they’re needed.

I need to move positions in a minute so I can see Sinclair when she’s out on the runway.

But for now, I don’t want to let either of them out of my sight.

My phone chimes in my pocket, and I pull it out, scanning the text quickly.

Killian: I know you don’t take calls when you’re in public with Sinclair, but you need to hear this.

I hit dial and bring my phone to my ear.

“What is it?” I bark as soon as he answers, standing and moving along the wall so I’m closer to Sinclair.

“Neil.”

That one name has my shoulders bunching up in defense.

“What about him?”

“Jenson followed him to two streets away from Sinclair’s show before he lost him,” Killian says. “It wasn’t his fault,” he adds when I curse. “A woman got her purse snatched and Jenson intervened.”

“He get them?”

“Knocked three of the guys’ teeth out.”

“Hmm, good,” I grunt in admiration.

“Yeah, you should’ve seen how smug he looked when he told me.”

“So, Neil?” I ask, because I know Jenson will be dining out on that story for weeks now and I’ll likely hear it thirty more times before the end of the week.

But Neil is within the vicinity of Sinclair, and knowing I have potential threats nearby to her has every muscle in my body coiling tight in preparation to unleash hell if necessary.

“He’s nearby, that’s all. Just wanted you to be aware.”

“Fine,” I clip. “Thanks.”

“Look. Nothing suggests he wants to even speak to her. Maybe he just wants to look at her in the flesh, you know? See if she’s like her mom? The guy was in love with Elaina.”

“I know,” I grit. “She was fucking him behind Sterling’s back for months before she died.”

Rage boils inside me. I don’t know why Elaina cheated on Sterling, and it’s none of my goddamn business.

But I know what Sterling’s done for me in the past. What he’s done for Dixie.

He didn’t deserve that. So whatever Neil’s angle is with coming back to New York and showing up near Sinclair, he better be damn well prepared to deal with me.

“He hasn’t done anything concerning?—”

“Yet,” I hiss.

“Okay, yet.” Killian agrees. “Maybe he’s only interested in seeing Sinclair is all I’m saying. So don’t go shooting the guy in the street without thinking it through first, okay?”

“When do I ever not think it through?”

I move further along the edge of the room, closer to the spot I planned out earlier that allows me to see Sinclair on the runway once she steps onto it.

“Just don’t kill the guy in broad daylight.”

“If he comes near Sinclair…” I growl.

“And the way you just said her name is exactly my point,” Killian says. “Look, to you, she’s… I get it, believe me. Be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”

I take in Sinclair as she steps onto the runway. I move so I can see out from backstage and down the length of it. I scan the crowd quickly, making sure no one new has appeared in the front row of the audience.

“I will be,” I reply.

“And please, tell Sterling and Sullivan before Jenson shoots off his big mouth by accident. If he can tell you two have something going on, then those guys will see it a mile off.”

My shoulders stiffen. “Thanks for the advice.”

“I hope for your sake, they don’t cut your balls off and feed them to you.”

“I’ll worry about that,” I say as I narrow my eyes on Theodora as she heads out onto the runway and passes Sinclair.

“Fine.” Killian sighs. “Tell me how last night went before you go.”

I drag in a slow breath to control the anger that’s threatening to spike my blood pressure.

“I got him talking,” I say about the guy who they found with the identical copy of Sinclair’s missing necklace.

The boys took it from him, and Sullivan tested it while Sinclair and I were out of the city.

Initially we thought it could be the real one, but Sullivan knew the moment he saw it that it was a good fake.

It didn’t carry the Beaufort Diamonds signature marking that all their pieces have.

The guy wouldn’t talk, scared of giving up his forger and getting in deep water.

But we don’t give a shit about that. We just needed to know how he managed to get such a convincing fake made.

One visit to him myself and I had his tongue loosening.

“Don’t tell me how,” Killian says.

“I barely touched him. Didn’t need to. He would have given up his own mother once I told him I was there for Sinclair because someone is trying to hurt her.”

The look on the guy’s face when I told him that was all the confirmation I needed.

He isn’t the one who’s been leaving threatening notes on Sinclair’s car, or the one responsible for trashing it.

He’s just a superfan who follows her every move and scrapbooks them.

The amount of press clippings he had of Sinclair from various angles made him able to get a copy of her necklace made.

And if he hadn’t been so vocal about how thrilled he was to have one just like hers, then we might not have found him.

But we did. So of course I paid him a visit.

The guy practically pissed himself when I turned up hammering on his door last night. It’s why I was late to get Sinclair this morning. I was giving Sterling and Sullivan an update.

“He might not have had her real necklace, but he did have some useful things to share.”

“Yeah? Sterling said you have a lead on who might have taken the real one?”

“I do.” I grit my teeth as Sinclair comes backstage and is swept up into an outfit change.

Theodora isn’t far behind her, and she looks over at me as she pulls her lace vest up over her head, letting her breasts spill free. The smile on her face falters when I pay them no attention and keep my eyes fixed on hers instead.

“The guy takes photos of himself in all the places where he’s waiting to see her. Outside her runway shows and shoots.”

I pull my phone from my ear and select the images I showed to Sterling and Sullivan this morning, then click send.

“Is that…?”

“Sure the hell is.”

Killian whistles. “Jealousy?”