Corkscrewed by M.J. O’Shea
Release Date: December 1, 2014
Contemporary M/M
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Available at Amazon / Dreamspinner Press
Cary Talbot has
found the perfect mark. Marigold Shelley is filthy rich, and her newly found
grandson, Isaac Shelley, is poised to inherit her huge estate, complete with a
priceless wine collection. Cary concocts a plan to con both of them into
selling the crown jewel of that collection to him at a bargain price. Since
Isaac is young, single, and gay, part of Cary’s scheme to get close to the
Shelleys includes seduction.
But Isaac isn’t the sheep he appears to be. He isn't even the grandson he appears to be. Isaac is, in fact, running quite the con of his own.
These two masters of the confidence game are pitted against each other, and both are after the ultimate prize—a chunk of the huge Shelley fortune. It’s only when a third cunning player comes in and is ready to outwit them both that they must band together and beat their opponent or see all they’ve worked for slip from their grasp one ruby-red drop at a time.
But Isaac isn’t the sheep he appears to be. He isn't even the grandson he appears to be. Isaac is, in fact, running quite the con of his own.
These two masters of the confidence game are pitted against each other, and both are after the ultimate prize—a chunk of the huge Shelley fortune. It’s only when a third cunning player comes in and is ready to outwit them both that they must band together and beat their opponent or see all they’ve worked for slip from their grasp one ruby-red drop at a time.
Teaser Excerpt:
SONOMA
COUNTY was pretty, in a bucolic, hazy sort of way, rolling green hills covered
with neat rows of grape vines and grass so gold and waving, Van Gogh would’ve
been envious of its color. Yeah, the place was beautiful. If you liked that
kind of thing. Cary Talbot didn’t. He figured if he were anyone else, he’d find
himself charmed by the roll of the hills and the dusty golden glow. But he
wasn’t charmed. He was lost. Totally, completely, fuck-if-he-had-a-clue lost.
He’d been winding around picturesque country roads for hours, his GPS was
having some sort of meltdown, and he was on the verge of pulling to the side of
the road and throwing the damn thing as far as he could. Because, you know.
That would help.
He took
another turn that the angry lady in the computer told him to take, which landed
him in some sort of roundabout that led absofuckinglutely nowhere.
“Recalculating...
recalculating.”
“Screw
you!” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Ow, fuck.” He was lost, and
his hand hurt like hell.
“Turn left
in thirty feet. Turn left.... Turn left.” The voice got more insistent, but it
didn’t change the facts.
“There is
no damn left turn here!”
“Recalculating....”
Of
course that’s when the car’s Bluetooth picked up his phone. He should’ve turned
the damn thing off. Cary glanced at the readout on the rental car’s screen.
Jules. Who else would it be? Fuck.
“What?” he
barked.
“Jesus,
boss. Have a Xanax or ten. Just letting you know the room’s all rented out and
taken care of. I’m getting my equipment set up now. You should be good to go in
a day or two.”
“Can you
tell me how the fuck to get out of here while you’re at it?”Corkscrewed 5
He was met
with silence. Cary wasn’t surprised. He didn’t do yelling. Not at Jules, not at
anyone. He did charm. Charisma. Confidence enough to sell the hardest mark
whatever lies and half-truths he happened to be peddling. Pissiness wasn’t on
Cary Talbot’s résumé. He pulled over and took a deep breath. Then he took great
pleasure in yanking his damn GPS cord out of the dash. He hated that thing.
“Powering
off in ten seconds,” the voice intoned.
Cary
wanted to growl. Instead he took another long, slow, calming goddammit breath.
“Sorry, J. Long day. I hate California,” he grumbled.
“It’s
okay, boss. You hate everything. How on earth are you lost? The town is right
off of highway twelve.”
“I have no
idea. I think this damn machine decided I was in Australia or something. Can
you please just run a search on my tracker and tell me where the hell I am and
how to get out?”
“Good
thing we’re paranoid.” Jules laughed softly. “Give me a few minutes to get up
and running, and I’ll be able to tell exactly where you are. Get out of the car
and do a sun salutation or something. You need to chill before you have a
stroke.”
Cary
chuckled. “I’m not doing yoga on the side of the road under a bunch of goddamn
grape leaves.”
Jules made
a derisive noise but didn’t reply. Cary did prop the door of his rental car
open, but all that got him was an overwhelming wave of dusty, late-summer heat
that nearly made him choke. He took a long drink from his water bottle and
chucked a few pistachios into his mouth. Chewing helped him calm down when he let
himself get way too wound up. Some days he wished he’d never quit smoking.
“Where are
we at with those directions, Jules?”
“Just...
a... minute. There you are. Okay. So I’m going to need you to make a left.”
“Jesus
Christ, there is no fucking left.”
Cary could
tell Jules was holding back a laugh. “Okay, okay. Why don’t we turn around? I’m
going to try another way to get you back to highway twelve. I don’t want you to
end up crashed into the bottom of some wine vat.”
Cary
rolled his eyes and stuck his key into the ignition. “I don’t even like wine
but that’s sounding better and better by the minute.”
“I have no
idea how you managed before you met me.”
“Managed
what?”
Jules’s
laugh came loud and clear through the car’s speaker. “Anything.”
By the
time Cary reached their hotel—modest, nondescript and right off of the
highway—he was hot and tired and beyond ready to have a big drink of anything
strong, and pass out. That probably wasn’t going to be his luck. Jules usually
had about seven million details to work out with him when he least felt like
talking. Plus he was hungry, and he wouldn’t say no to some snacks.
Cary
started to mentally prepare himself. He had a lot of work ahead of him,
hopefully easy work, but work all the same. If he managed to pull it off, the
payoff would be fantastic.
“What room
are we in?” he asked Jules quietly.
“Eleven
fifteen. I’ll prop the door open for you with the bolt.”
“Thanks.
I’m on my way up.”
Cary
bypassed the front desk. He wasn’t in the mood to put on a show, to charm the
hotel staff into liking him but forgetting him the minute he was gone. He’d
rather be completely invisible. Luckily he didn’t need a card to make the
elevator rise to his floor. There were ways around that. He knew ways around
pretty much everything, but after the day he’d had, he really didn’t feel like
fucking around with gadgets.
True to
form, Jules looked like she was about to stage a military coup right from the
comfort of their hotel suite. Cary bitched and teased her about all her techy
crap, but he didn’t know how the hell he’d operated without her for as long as
he had. She’d set up her computers and her phone station in the corner of the
room, and had gotten comfortable in a pair of sweats, flip-flops, and a
T-shirt. She’d tied her riot of inky black curls into a knot on the top of her
head and was busily painting her toenails a bright pink. She glanced up when
the door clicked shut.
“Hey,
boss. You look like hell.” Tactful as usual. Jules was brilliant at what she
did, but smooth-talking was never going to be her strong suit. Good thing they
had him for that.
“Thanks a
million, Delgadillo. How are we looking?”
“I just
got the system all set up. Give me a minute to breathe. You need a drink.”
“And a
nap. I think I have sun poisoning.”
Jules
chuckled at him. Typical. She smirked. “Hopefully it’ll be raining when we
get home.”
Cary
thought of his big, drafty loft in Portland, and smiled. He wasn’t sure if you
could call a place home if you were gone more than you were there, but there
was something about the old building’s weathered bricks, soaring metal-beamed
ceilings, and scarred wood floors that felt like a refuge.
Jules went
to the counter and opened a new bottle of scotch and pulled a fresh liter of
soda out of the mini-fridge. She mixed Cary a drink without comment and handed
it to him. He took a swallow and sank down onto the
room’s armchair gratefully.
“Thank you
so much. This is literally going to save my life.”
“That’s
why you pay me the big bucks.” Jules rolled her eyes a little and gave Cary a
fond smile. “You know. Bring you drinks and stuff. Answer the phone.”
It was a
running joke between them. That had nothing to do with why Cary had hired her.
Jules was special. She’d been a sophomore at OSU and had a very promising
future at some prestigious grad schools when she’d been caught doing a few very
naughty things with her computer in the dorms. Like
looking-for-backdoors-into-the-NSA’s-internal-system kind of naughty. Cary
would’ve thought that was impossible to do from a remote location. Apparently
Jules had found a way to make it possible enough that some friendly government
agents paid a visit to her dorm room the next day. Luckily she’d been out and
saw them from down the hall. Jules had taken off, and Cary found her shivering
and scared in a coffee shop, no family, no more scholarship, and newly
homeless. He’d offered her a job, and she’d been with him ever since. She was
like a kid sister, if by kid sister he meant an outrageous brat with an IQ of
180, limited social skills, and technology chops that made his head spin.
“So are we
going to talk about the job?”
Cary
sighed. “Now? Does it have to be now?” What was that he’d been thinking about
her being a brat?
“Now would
be good. Unless you’d like a nice stay off highway twelve for nothing. We need
to get this job set up or we’re wasting our time.”
“Someday
you’re gonna kill me.” Jules snorted. No respect.
“So the
plan is twofold, correct? Well, three actually. Get the mark to believe you
work for the insurance company, but you’re a little dirty. Introduce the idea
that the Nine Sisters is just a myth. Falsify the tests to prove they’re fakes.
Oh, and then of course get them to sell the bottles to you at a low price to
get them off their hands so they don’t get charged with insurance fraud.”
“That
sounds about right.”
It was a
complicated game, and it relied on Jules’s technical skills as much as his
talking, but Cary thought they might be able to pull it off. He could barely
fathom the payoff if they were successful. The Nine Sisters. Even one would be
an incredible get. Nine of the world’s most sought- after bottles of wine all
in the same collection? Nearly priceless. Marigold Shelley was supposed to have
them. Cary was banking on the fact that the rumors and Jules’s techno sleuthing
were, in fact, correct.
The story
of the Nine Sisters was legend. It started back when George Washington had
first taken office. He’d been a well-known fan of Portuguese Madeira wines. So
much so that Pedro and Maria, king and queen of Portugal, had sent him a case
of ten bottles of their private reserve Madeira. One had disappeared into time.
Maybe it had been drunk by Washington himself, maybe broken or sold—that part
of the story was never told. But the others had formed a collection. Priceless.
Famed. Nearly mythical.
The
bottles still had their royal seal from the Portuguese court on them, and the
stamp showing they’d belonged to Washington’s private collection. How a single
vineyard owner got their hands on all nine of them was beyond Cary’s
imagination. Their worth was staggering. He had his work cut out for him if he
wanted them to be his.
“I still
don’t like this, boss.” Jules had never been one to hold back her opinion.
She’d been making her opinion on the sisters known ever since Cary decided to
go for it. “It’s not fair.”
“Jules.
Marigold Shelley is reported to have one of the best private collections in the
entire country. The Nine Sisters is the crown of that collection, but she has
others. You know how I operate.”
Cary might
have been a con artist, but he had morals. He never took from people who
couldn’t afford to lose, and he never took everything. Not even close.
“But
you’re using the fact that she’s distracted by her grandson to get to her.”
“Of course
I am. It’s the perfect time. She’s in love with the romance of getting her
family back. She’s not going to want to take time out of whatever years she has
left to deal with me.”
“And the
kid? Hasn’t he gone through enough after all these years?”
Cary
shrugged. “He’s twenty-four. That’s not a kid. Plus, this isn’t gonna hurt him.
He doesn’t even have to get involved.”
He knew
Jules had her reasons for wanting to protect Isaac, and they had a lot to do
with her past. Cary didn’t feel like playing cheap hotel room shrink.
“I’ve made
you a cheat sheet.” Jules handed it to him reluctantly. “I still don’t like
this, though.”
“No
kidding.” She’d made her stance on the newest mark quite clear before she’d
left Oregon a day and a half before Cary. “Do you want to go back to Portland
and leave this to me?”
“No.
You’ll get arrested, and then what would I do? I’d be bored.”
Cary
sighed. “Contrary to your very strong beliefs, I did survive for thirty years
before I found you at that coffee shop. Successfully.”
Jules
rolled her eyes.“How you managed that is a mystery I’m still trying to solve.”
About the Author
I’m Mj O’Shea:) I grew up, and still live, in sunny
Washington state in a little old house. While I love to visit other places, I
can’t imagine calling anywhere else home.
I spent my childhood writing stories. Sometime in my early
teens, the stories turned to romance. Most of those were about me, my friends,
and our favorite movie and pop stars. Hopefully, I’ve come a long way since
then!!
When I’m not writing, I love to go to concerts, hang out
with my friends, play the piano (and my
other instruments), dance, cook, paint pictures, and of course read! I really,
really like coffee and tea, nail polish and glittery sparkly things, headbands,
hats, scarves and sunglasses!
I have two little dogs who sit with me when I write.
Sometimes they come up with ideas for me too…when they’re not busy napping of
course.
Website http://mjoshea.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/mj.oshea.5
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