Page 39 of Shark’s Edge

“Well done, Miss Shark.” He shook her hand and left behind a folded cash bill when he released his grip. As I recognized the picture on the note—Benjamin Franklin—he was already speaking again. “Go tell the Intrepids that’s to be used for buying out all their chocolate brownie stock.”

“Yes, sir!”

But as she got ready to scamper off, I parked my hands on my hips and a new glower on my face.

“What?” Sebastian spread his own hands with a return challenge.

“My girls are here to learn usable business skills and entrepreneurship, Mr. Shark. Not ‘smile pretty and wait for a sugar daddy to buy out your inventory.’”

“What’s a ‘sugar daddy,’ Uncle Bas? It sounds yummy.”

Sebastian nodded toward the front of the shack. “Just go hop in that line and buy those brownies, Vela.”

“Is . . . Is it okay with Ms. Gibson?”

“It will be.”

The second Vela cleared the shack’s corner, I bit out, “It won’t be.” I meant it even more as the man swept in on my personal space once more. “Dammit, Sebastian. For the record, this part’s not fair, either.”

His inky brows crunched in on each other. “Explain.”

“Because I’m supposed to be teaching these girls—”

“And you have been,” he said with the serenity of a yoga master. “All goddamn day, in this infernal heat. Now, it’s time for them and you to be compensated for the hard work so they can go enjoy being kids. Set them free, Abbigail. Let them get out of here and go to the mall, or the nail salon, or the boba joint, or the coffee shop—which honest to shit makes no sense to me on a day like today, but—what?”

At first, all I gave as an answer was my perplexed sigh. “I just have no idea how to use this as a teaching moment,” I finally admitted.

“Pffft. Of course you do.”

I reared my head back. “I do?”

“You do.” He reached in and squeezed my hand with the same insolent confidence he’d lavished on Vela. “We’ll schedule an afternoon for you to bring them over to the offices. I can show them around and tell them about how much work there really is—”

“Whoa.” I stepped around, jerking on his poor arm like we were choreographing a crazy dance routine. “The . . . offices? Are you offering—do you mean—your offices? Shark Enterprises?”

Up went the man’s signature smirk. The arrogant, radiant resilience that had sunk a thousand competitors—but in this moment was the wind beneath my wings.

“What you’re doing with these girls is great, Abbigail. A field trip like this would make sense, right?”

For a long second, I could only gape. At last I stammered, “I . . . I have no idea what to say.”

“Hmmm.” His smirk didn’t falter while pressing even closer, molding our bodies with the same intent his stare offered to my lips. “I’d say ‘thank you’ would suffice, but that’d be passing up a prime opportunity.”

My breath shallowed. “An . . . An opportunity . . . for what?”

“Adding it to your remuneration. For the steaks and wine.”

“Oh,” I rasped. “Of . . . of course. St-Steaks and—”

Who needed to say the word when the crush of his lips already had me joyously buzzed? As his body rocked with mine, communicating how intoxicated he was too? As our sexual inebriation got better with every mesh of our mouths and tangle of our tongues?

This was crazy. So damn desperate. Maybe even pathetic.

There was still an open investigation on me with the LA Sheriff’s Department because he had been poisoned. He had the final say on what company would be landing the catering contract for his new tower. Sleeping with him was probably the worst idea on both fronts.

But God help me, it was all I craved.

All my mind could conjure and my body lusted for.