Tempting the Knight (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 2) Read online

  An American ambassador’s daughter who’d had every privilege known to man—and woman—and every natural gift God could have given her. And she’d thumbed her nose at it all to indulge in an endless cycle of hedonistic parties, public lover’s spats, drunken antics, and reckless misdemeanors.

  The press, of course, loved her, with her outspoken personality, and that killer face and figure, especially when she’d managed to make an even bigger fortune out of her notoriety, falling into a high profile career as a model six years back, and becoming the face of some fancy shampoo that sold for a fortune in Bergdorf’s but probably didn’t smell any better than the two-dollar brand his mom had used. He despised people like Zelda, but he would have been able to ignore all that—her and her class weren’t exactly on his radar—but for the fact he knew Faith had carried on being pals with her. Enough to have her deign to come to Sully’s occasionally—and it stuck in his craw. Like Faith needed to compare her life—spent doing good honest work while running his family’s pub in Bay Ridge—with the all-expenses paid, high-class funfair of controlled substances, globetrotting decadence, and million-dollar shopping sprees that was Zelda Madison’s useless existence.

  But none of that explained why the woman was ringing him at two a.m. with that quiver of urgency in her voice.

  “Excellent, I’m glad you remember me,” she replied. “That saves me having to waste time making introductions.” The cut-glass accent spiked his temper more.

  He happened to know she’d been born in Manhattan—on the Upper East Side to be exact, in that massive Gothic townhouse where the Madisons had lived for generations. And while that may as well have separated her from the people he’d dedicated his career to represent by several million dollars of disposable income, the last time he’d looked, East Fifty-Second Street was still part of America, so why the Sam Hell did she talk with the crisp, holier-than-thou voice of a British royal?

  “Doesn’t it just.” he muttered, knowing he was sounding surly but not really caring. It was the middle of the freaking night, he had a lump growing on his forehead the size of a baseball, and a bad case of sexual frustration thanks to the perfectly good erotic fantasy she’d just interrupted. Not to mention a single mom and four kids who were depending on his advocacy skills being razor-sharp for the court hearing he had tomorrow at nine. “So how about you cut to the chase.”

  “Um, well the thing is, I’m in a bind. A bind I’d sincerely appreciate your help with.”

  She had to be kidding. “Look, lady, if you’ve torn a fingernail or something, call Faith, you’re confusing me with someone who gives a …”

  “I’m not phoning Faith, because she’s not an attorney. You are.” Zelda interrupted, the hint of steel in the cut-glass surprising him. “Now will you shut up for two seconds and let me explain. I don’t want to waste anymore of the desk sergeant’s precious time. I’ve only got one phone call and you’re it.”

  The desk sergeant? One phone call? What the fuck?

  He straightened, his natural instinct to preserve liberty and protect a client, even one as unworthy as her, kicking in despite his better judgment.

  “Okay, let’s have it, Zelda. Where the hell are you? And what the hell have you done this time?”

  He scrubbed his fingers through his hair as he listened to her explanation—which had more holes in it than a slice of swiss—while a chill shot down his spine. Damn it, did the woman have no regard at all for her personal safety? Then he scribbled down the address of the station house she’d been taken to by a couple of beat cops who had a lot more sense than she did.

  The woman didn’t need an attorney—she’d only been given a citation—she needed a damn keeper. And for tonight it looked like her keeper was going to have to be him. He tugged on his clothes in the dark, recalling her sticking her tongue out at him ten years ago, with the dancing light of challenge and defiance in her eyes. His palm twitched as he grabbed his wallet and car keys.

  She’d needed a damn good spanking back then. Apparently that hadn’t changed if the dumb stunt she’d pulled tonight was anything to go by.

  It wasn’t until he was stumbling up the marina’s gangplank in the dark, though, en route to an assignment he was already regretting, that it occurred to him to wonder how the hell Zelda Madison had gotten his cell number.

  Faith was a dead woman next time he saw her.

  Chapter Two

  ‡

  “Hey, Ms. Madison, looks like your knight arrived, you wanna grab your stuff? Let’s get you the hell out of here.”

  Zelda sent the burly middle-aged sergeant a blinding smile that she knew could knock out any man at three hundred paces—because she’d perfected it for photographers, advertising executives, and even the odd sugar daddy, over the last ten years.

  “Thank you, Officer Kelly,” she said, beyond grateful for his relaxed and amused response earlier in the evening to what could have been a very sticky situation indeed. “I appreciate everything you and your partner have done tonight.”

  Holding her head high, she did her best Paris Fashion Week walk as she followed him out of the empty interview room she’d been left in for the last hour, to contemplate what an idiot she was after Kelly had let her call someone to pick her up.

  A someone who had sounded on the phone like he was a lot less relaxed and amused than Officer Kelly about the prospect of riding to her rescue.

  Of all the people to have to rely upon, Tyrone Sullivan aka Mr. High and Mighty, would not have been her first choice. But given the circumstances, she hadn’t had a lot of other options when Faith had given Zel her brother’s cell number and insisted she give him a call.

  “All part of the job.” Officer Kelly smiled back at her showing a gold tooth. “We’re here to protect and serve.”

  “Even stupid people?”

  “Sure.” He chuckled. “Them most of all.”

  The mild censure in his tone was the very least she deserved.

  She hiked up the train of her evening gown as the walk of shame took her through the station house. The sound of a ringing phone, the tap of computer keys, and a parade of bold stares from the small number of officers on night duty followed her every step of the way making her humiliation complete.

  “I’ll leave you here.” Officer Kelly stopped as they arrived at the door leading to the front desk at the station entrance. “Just don’t do anything that reckless again, okay? Or at least not on my watch.”

  “You have my word.” She crossed her heart with her little finger. “Pinkie swear.”

  “Good girl.” He sent her a paternal smile, tipped his hat, and left.

  Pushing open the door, she noticed the tall lean man standing by the admitting sergeant’s desk with his back to her.

  The combo of worn T-shirt and jeans marked him out as a civilian, although the hipshot stance as he leant on the desk and chatted to the admitting sergeant made it clear he was more than comfortable in this environment. His unruly hair gleamed black under the fluorescent light, much darker than the chestnut curls of his sister Faith.

  Tyrone ‘High and Mighty’ Sullivan, her knight in battered denim.

  The unwanted pulse of awareness hit Zel in the solar plexus.

  As her knight shifted to sign a sheet of paper handed over by the sergeant, she noted the magnificent width of his shoulders. Now in his early thirties, he’d gotten a lot more solid than the last time she’d seen him, scowling at her as she waited her turn to get eviscerated by the Mother Superior on her fateful, final day at St. J’s.

  Sucking in a calming breath, she strode towards him.

  Her heels echoed on the concrete floor as she approached the desk and her knight whisked round. Bold, vividly green eyes alighted on her face. The spark of irritation was only marginally more annoying than the judgmental once over he gave her, his gaze snagging for a second on the jeweled bodice of her Versace gown.

  “Hello Mr. Sullivan, thank you so much for coming,” she said, keeping her expre
ssion blank. There was no point wasting her enslavement smile on a man who was making such a concerted effort to fire daggers of disgust at her.

  “I’ve paid the fine,” he said, neatly cutting off any more unnecessary pleasantries—the knife-edge in the tone sharp enough to slice through bone.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, trying her very best not to resent the high-handed attitude. “I just needed someone to…”

  “You don’t need a lawyer. It was only a citation,” he said. “And anyway, I couldn’t act for you, even if I wanted to.”

  “Why not?” she asked, hating the tiny quiver of vulnerability in response to his pissy attitude.

  She prided herself on being strong in any given situation. But she’d just spent the last two hours sitting in a police station contemplating how much she’d relied on others in the last six years to organize her life.

  Appearances to the contrary, she hadn’t actually planned to get picked up at midnight on Manhattan Beach for disorderly conduct. Okay, going for a swim by moonlight to celebrate her decision to finally jack in her modeling career hadn’t been her smartest decision of late. In fact, it had definitely been one of the dumbest. But the beach had been deserted, the hurricane-damaged residences that backed onto it apparently empty. And the feeling of freedom, of liberation, of excitement had overwhelmed her at the thought of how far she’d come. That she no longer needed to be at the beck and call of an army of publicists and stylists and agents and personal assistants to keep her life in order. She’d wanted to mark the moment—and the water had beckoned, cool and inviting in the muggy night, and edged by the magical twinkle of city lights on the opposite shore and the canopy of stars that shone through the smog.

  And frankly, how could she possibly have known that one of those apparently dark, empty properties actually housed a couple of old biddies who spent their nights scanning the vicinity with telescopes on the lookout for runaway supermodels swimming in their underwear?

  Sullivan’s disdainful look became pitying, spiking her temper. “I work for the Legal Aid Society. I doubt your income would qualify.” He slung a hand in his pocket, still sending her those you-are-such-a-waste-of-my-time vibes. “Plus there’s a clear conflict of interest.”

  “Which is?” she asked, drawing herself up to her full height. At five-foot-eight, she rarely had to look up to speak to guys, especially when she added on the three inches supplied by the heels of her Laboutins. Ty Sullivan, though, still had a good two inches on her. And he was using every millimeter of his height advantage to look down his nose at her.

  The bastard.

  “I know you.” He leant forward, invading her personal space enough to overlay the scent of cheap disinfectant, vomit and perspiration that permeated the precinct house with the whiff of laundry detergent. “Personally.”

  “Yes, but it’s fairly clear you can’t stand me. So, where’s the conflict?”

  “It still qualifies,” he said, not denying the accusation. But then what was the point, when those emerald bright eyes were firing rotary blades at her now, instead of just daggers.

  He turned back to the desk sergeant. “I’ll take Ms. Madison off your hands, Officer Benton. Give my thanks to Kelly and Mendoza too, for bringing her in so she didn’t get mugged or worse.” He sent her a cautionary look, as if she were a disobedient three-year-old. And she hadn’t already thanked both officers personally. “Does she need to sign anything before we head out?” he added.

  “Here you go, Ms. Madison.” The sympathy in the sergeant’s friendly, brown eyes made his hangdog face look comfortingly homely as he passed a form across the desk. “You be careful from now on, no more swimming at night. It’s not safe. Or smart.”

  Zelda sent him her best ‘aren’t you a sweetheart smile’ but before she could open her mouth to promise she would behave herself from now on, Ty Sullivan got there ahead of her. “She won’t. I guarantee it.”

  Without another word, he gripped her upper arm and proceeded to haul her off the premises like a harassed parent corralling a wayward child.

  Struggling to keep up with his long strides in her heels, the lamé gown wrapping round her legs like an anaconda, they were all the way down the steps of the station house before she managed to get over the shock of being manhandled enough to yank her arm out of his grip.

  “Will you let me go. I can walk out on my own, you bloody baboon.”

  He shot her the self-righteous glare she recognized from ten years ago. The brittle contempt might have wounded a more fragile woman. Luckily Zelda Madison was not fragile.

  “That’s rich, princess. I just shelled out two hundred of my hard-earned dollars to pay your fine and get you out of the hole you managed to dig yourself into tonight.”

  She didn’t miss the insinuation that her cash wasn’t hard-earned. She took two deep breaths, crossing her arms over her chest, which heaved with exertion and indignation, in an attempt to quell the lava flooding her veins.

  Eight hours ago she would have agreed with him—in a purely existential sense. Modeling might be physically demanding and emotionally grueling at times, but it was not going to change the world for the better. But after the night she’d had, and the amount of humble pie she’d had to swallow already, she was not in the mood to be patronized.

  Still, she bit down on the urge to slap back. She’d woken him at two in the morning and he’d come. She would be contrite and magnanimous now if it killed her. “Which I greatly appreciate. And which I will pay you back as soon as I can get to a cash point.”

  “A cash point?” The icy disdain in his tone hit critical mass. “You mean an ATM. What’s with the fake British accent? Real American not good enough for you?” he said, in the thick Brooklyn accent which seemed to have gotten even thicker for her benefit. “’Cause I happen to know you were born in Manhattan.”

  And had spent nearly all of her childhood in London while her father was a diplomat and then the American ambassador. Not to mention several years in a Swiss Finishing School and then the last eight living mostly in Paris, Barcelona, and Milan while not on assignment. And even though she had been born in New York, her mother had been British and Zelda held both British and American passports.

  She also spoke five languages fluently. Two more well enough to get by in. But unfortunately none of them had the surly Brooklyn twang that would make her a ‘real American’ in Tyrone Sullivan’s judgmental eyes. Sullivan’s accusation reminded her of the year at St. J’s when all the other girls except her friends had delighted in mocking her ‘snooty accent’. But she didn’t intend to bother enlightening Sullivan now by explaining why she spoke the way she did. Because she’d learned at the age of sixteen, while sitting in the Mother Superior’s office, being accused of things she hadn’t done with her brother’s hollow indifference making her stomach hurt, that if people insisted on assuming the worst of her, it was useless trying to defend herself.

  She tapped her Laboutin on the sidewalk. “Fine, I will pay you back when I get to an ATM.” She glanced around. “Now if you could direct me to the nearest taxi rank or subway station, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “The subway isn’t running after midnight all this week, they’re working on the line. And you’re not catching a cab in that get up.” His gaze seared down to her cleavage again with enough self-righteous superiority to seriously piss her off. “Where’s your car? I’ll take you to it, assuming you’re not too hammered to drive,” he added, sounding even more exasperated.

  “I don’t have a car. I don’t drive,” she replied, ignoring the snipe about her sobriety. Let him believe what he wanted to believe, he wouldn’t be the first.

  The sky was still defiantly dark behind the convenience store on the other side of the station parking lot, so she was probably several hours from dawn yet, and as her phone was dead and there was very little traffic, catching a cab was probably out. “When does the subway open?”

  “If you’re not catching a cab in tha
t costume, you’re not catching the subway either,” he said as if he were the boss of her. “How the hell come you don’t drive? What are you, the Queen of England?”

  “No, I suspect the Queen probably drives,” she managed, clinging to magnanimous by her fingertips.

  She’d stopped driving after hitting a tree in Fontainbleau forest five years ago, in her brand new Jaguar convertible, while over-celebrating her twenty-first birthday with ten too many Kir Royales at La Coupole. The subsequent shots of her in a bloodstained T-shirt with the words ‘Crazy Bitch’ sequined across her bust had scored a full-page spread in Paris Match and been syndicated round the globe. She hadn’t gotten behind the wheel of a car since. Obviously Mr. High and Mighty didn’t read the tabloids though, so she didn’t intend to enlighten him.

  “Just out of curiosity, who put you in charge of my welfare?” The last thing she needed after taking five years to get free of her minders was another one. Especially one as pissy and rude as this one.

  “You did.” He shot back. “When you decided to haul me out of bed to deal with your latest drunken stunt.”

  “I wasn’t drunk.”

  She hadn’t touched a drop for five years—not that she cared whether he believed her or not.

  He narrowed his eyes, not looking convinced. “Uh-huh? So what were you doing skinny dipping on Manhattan Beach at midnight?”

  “I wasn’t skinny dipping, I had underwear on.”

  “According to the desk sergeant your underwear consisted of three pinpoint triangles of red lace that became transparent when wet. In my book that counts as skinny dipping. You’re lucky you didn’t get raped.”

  She flinched. “The beach was deserted. There wasn’t a soul about and I hadn’t planned to come out of the water to find two patrol cops standing guard over my clothing.”