Page 28 of Merciless Heir
“I can be here, Kinston,” she says, crossing her arms.
She looks like Faye. Not as beautiful, but there are similarities I can’t miss.
“Misty. You changed your hair.”
“I had an arrangement with your father,” she says. “I can live here. It’s not like he lacked properties.”
“Actually, we’re here to look at the pool house,” I say.
She blinks at me and a thousand questions crowd her face. “I don’t use it. That thing’s been locked up for years.”
“No problem. I have keys.” The lie comes easily.
She sniffs. “Help yourselves.”
As we make our way around the house and into the pool yard, the giant covered pool and area, I have to admit, are tasteful. It’s a show of wealth from the granite small pool and surrounds, to the carefully curated trees and deck chairs and seated pagoda, but one of quiet confidence instead of flash and bang.
“Your dad’s ex-wife?”
“One of them. She got discarded for the younger model he married a few years ago. It was his conceited rich man thing.”
“The string of ever younger wives?” I cast him a glance in the crisp air. He’s eating up the path we’re taking towards two builds. One is clearly the maintenance pool house, another is even smaller and pretty, so I’m betting it’s a bathroom and changing area for guests.
I’m interested in the larger building up further.
“You’re too late if you’re thinking of applying,” he says, with acid. “He’s dead. And, unfortunately for you, not his type if he lived.”
I’m not sure what the acid is aimed at, whether it’s me or his father or the string of women. If Kingston wasn’t rich in his own right, I’d guess it was because the string of women would eat into his inheritance, but…
No, that’s not right. I look at the lean and tall man next to me in dark jeans and black sweater, the expression on his handsome face giving the granite a run for its money. No, even if Kingston wasn’t rich in his own right, that wouldn’t be the cause of the acid.
He’s into money. But he doesn’t strike me as that level of entitled. He’s not a man who’d sit back and wait for it all to come to him, like he was owed.
If he wasn’t rich in his own right, he’d be doing well, or building something.
I shut down that line of thought. I don’t need it and it doesn’t matter.
“Not something I’ve been interested in.” I come to a stop at the door. It’s locked.
I pull out my tools and get to work. Kingston only glances at them and then leans back against the wall. “The one thing I never got is why my mother stayed so loyal, so close to him.”
“Through the betrayals? Maybe she left him?”
“I don’t remember. They split when Ryder was young. It never felt like that, even when he remarried.”
“Maybe,” I say, sliding the second tool into the lock, “they loved each other.”
He starts laughing. “My father? He loved Sinclair’s, he loved his empire and what his children could do, and looking good.”
“So, he was a bastard?”
He shrugs. “Aren’t most of us?”
The lock snicks and I open the door, the familiar flood of accomplishment running through me. There’s enough light coming in through the shutters to see, but I flick the switch next to the door so things are bright.
It’s like a giant office. Luxurious in creams and dark woods and it’s not for show. It’s definitely been used. I head for the desk because I’m curious about this place. I’m not sure Faye knows about the ex-wife staying in the house, or that she’d care. It’s none of my business. The job at hand is. And after much digging, Sinclair the elder spent a lot of time here.
In this get away office.