The Sapphire Affair (Jewel #1)(19)
“Absolutely.” He tipped his forehead to her in question. “So you came to town early? Any special reason?” He fixed her with a stare that said he was waiting.
Nerves skated across her skin. She took a breath and segued into the real reason for her stop. Recon. This was odd for her, since she’d never needed her local friends for information before. But now she did, and she’d have to ask in a way that didn’t reveal her true motives—to find out what her stepdad was up to and whether any of his actions suggested he’d been up to no good with other people’s money.
Sure, she planned to call him later and make plans to see him. But she needed to be smart and gather some info first. It wasn’t like she could just show up at Eli’s house asking about his finances. Even inquiring about how business was going would raise a red flag, since they’d never had those conversations in the past. He was far too shrewd to fall for that sort of questioning. That’s why she was going in through the side door, tucking away potentially useful details before she saw him.
“So, Devon,” she said, clearing her throat. “I need your honest opinion on something.”
“Uh-oh.”
“It’s not bad.”
He arched an eyebrow. “It’s never good when someone says they want an honest opinion.”
Devon was Switzerland. He had nothing against her stepdad. Eli had been a reliable customer for years, so she had to be careful, to tread a fine line. “I want your unbiased opinion. Now that business is picking up for me again, I need to do everything to run a tight ship and make sure customers are happy. So when someone on a tour asks me about the nightlife . . . ,” she said, then made a rolling gesture with her hand.
Devon’s mouth formed an O and he nodded like a wise man. “I get it. You want to know how Sapphire is doing.”
She mimed whacking a hammer. “As always, you hit the nail on the head.”
“That place is red-hot. All the young people are partying hard there. They talk it up when they come in the next day. It’s a huge hit. Crowds every night. Packed to the gills. It’s like a goddamn mint.”
Mint.
She gritted her teeth, biting back the comments that threatened to fall from her lips. Is Eli making a mint with someone else’s money? Did his company unknowingly fund that damn club? She sucked down those words, because this was what she needed to know. Eli Thompson still had the Midas touch. Nothing changed.
She leaned across the counter and planted a soft kiss on Devon’s leathery cheek. He pretended to catch the kiss in his hand. “Now I’ve got my next seven years.”
“If only a kiss from me had such powers.”
“Oh, I suspect it has great powers.”
She returned to a kiss from a few hours ago and sent a silent wish to the universe that Jake had come back for her note, that he’d decipher it, and that she’d see him again. So bizarre to want to see a stranger so badly. But perhaps kisses did have great powers. His had the power to make her long for him. The man whose last name she didn’t even know.
Devon parked his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, I know your parents split up, and it wasn’t so pretty the way it all went down. I get that you’re not on the greatest terms with your stepdad, and that’s a damn shame,” he said, and though Devon wasn’t privy to every sordid detail, he knew enough about how hard the divorce had been from her conversations with him during her visits. “But I’m all for family getting along and putting the past behind them, and I hope you’re able to do that. Even though he’s not your flesh and blood, he’s the man I saw taking care of you when you were a kid,” he said, and she pursed her lips, wishing what he’d said wasn’t true. Because it would be so much easier to write Eli off as an * if it were.
“Just remember—he’s done some real good here,” Devon added. “He hired a bunch of local companies when he built out his club. He did his part to invest in the Cayman economy, and a lot of folks here have been damn grateful for the business he’s brought to them. He did right by a lot of people when he remodeled the club. Penny even did some work for him before she started working at a flower shop. Assistant type stuff when he was setting it up last year. He was real good to her, I hear.”
“Penny?” Steph asked, as if the name of the woman she knew was suddenly foreign. She couldn’t picture pink-haired, tattooed Penny working for her stepdad, but this little nugget was all the more reason to track down her friend. Penny was a free spirit, a true island girl who flitted from random job to random job, sometimes as a nanny, sometimes as a Girl Friday, sometimes as a dog walker.
Penny had just moved near the top of the list of people to see. Someone else was on that list, too.
Later that night in her small and exceedingly cheap hotel room, she called the man of the hour, bracing herself to hear that voice she’d so adored as a kid. The happy, carefree sound of the man who had helped raise her.
“Sweetheart!”
His voice boomed loudly above the sound of music. The music faded, and the background noise died. He must have moved someplace quieter.
“Hey there, Eli,” she said. “I’m in town. Want to have brunch tomorrow?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Drum-heavy techno music pulsed loudly.
Actually, vibrated was a more accurate way to describe the volume. The electronic beat of the music reverberated in his bones as Jake weaved through the sardine-packed crowds thronging the dance floor.