Razor Sharp. Fern Michaels

tle>RAZOR SHARP

      Books by Fern Michaels

      Mr. and Miss Anonymous

      Up Close and Personal

      Fool Me Once

      Picture Perfect

      About Face

      The Future Scrolls

      Kentucky Sunrise

      Kentucky Heat

      Kentucky Rich

      Plain Jane

      Charming Lily

      What You Wish For

      The Guest List

      Listen to Your Heart

      Celebration

      Yesterday

      Finders Keepers

      Annie’s Rainbow

      Sara’s Song

      Vegas Sunrise

      Vegas Heat

      Vegas Rich

      Whitefire

      Wish List

      Dear Emily

      The Sisterhood Novels:

      Razor Sharp

      Under the Radar

      Final Justice

      Collateral Damage

      Fast Track

      Hokus Pokus

      Hide and Seek

      Free Fall

      Lethal Justice

      Sweet Revenge

      The Jury

      Vendetta

      Payback

      Weekend Warriors

      Anthologies:

      Snow Angels

      Silver Bells

      Comfort and Joy

      Sugar and Spice

      Let It Snow

      A Gift of Joy

      Five Golden Rings

      Deck the Halls

      Jingle All the Way

      RAZOR SHARP

      FERN MICHAELS

      

ZEBRA BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

       119 West 40^th Street New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2009 by Fern Michaels

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

      Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

      ISBN: 1-4201-1290-2

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Epilogue

      Chapter 1

      Cosmo Cricket looked at the Mickey Mouse clock on his desk, a gift from a grateful client. Because, as the client put it, what do you give to a man who has everything except maybe a part of his childhood to remember? For some reason, this particular clock meant the world to him and not because Mickey Mouse was part of his childhood—because he hadn’t really had a childhood, at least not a normal one. Someday, when he had nothing else to do, he’d figure it all out. He wished he could remember the client, but he couldn’t. Mickey told him it was the end of the workday. But the city that he lived and worked in, one that never slept, was about to come alive just as he was about to head home.

      This was always the time of day when he sat back with a diet drink and reflected. On his life. On his work. On his past. And, on his future. He never reflected on the present because he knew who he was and what was going on, right down to the minute, thanks to Mickey. He’d known who he was from the day he was born. There were those who would take issue with that statement, but those people didn’t know his mother and father. There wasn’t an hour of his life that he didn’t know about because his parents insisted he know everything. He always smiled when he got to this point in his reverie.

      He knew he weighed fourteen whopping pounds when he was born and looked like he was already four months old. He knew that his parents fought over who got to hold him. And he was told that he was rocked in a chair from day one until he was three years old, at which point he’d announced he was no longer a baby and needed to be a big boy, and he wanted his own chair, which appeared within hours, thanks to his doting father. There had been a succession of rocking chairs as he grew. He was sitting, right now, this very second, in the last one.

      The rocking chair was battered and worn, and was on its tenth, maybe even its twentieth, set of cushions, he couldn’t remember. The chair was at odds with the rest of his plush office and a far cry from the kind of furnishings in the house he’d grown up in. Everything in this penthouse suite of rooms was elegant, as top-of-the-line as the decorator could make it. Ankle-deep carpeting, an array of built-ins, pricey paintings on the walls, soft, buttery furniture, and a view of Las Vegas that had no equal. The palatial suite had its own bathroom, where everything was oversize to accommodate him. He was almost ashamed to admit he never used anything but the towels. He did like the bidet, though. The suite was one massive perk arranged by the Nevada Gaming Commission to get him to sign on as their legal counsel. He’d argued over the Gaming Commission’s contract, saying he wanted to be able to practice law with a few select clients and do some pro bono work, and he wouldn’t budge. He’d actually walked away when they wouldn’t cave in, but they caught up with him at the elevator and agreed to his demands, then threw in what they thought was the clunker, but to Cosmo it was the icing on the proverbial cake. He was to be on call to all the casino owners, who would pay him his six-hundred-dollar-an-hour fee for whatever work he did for them plus a yearend bonus. The only stipulation was that his private clients and the casino owners not interfere with the commission’s work. It was a solid-gold deal that worked for everyone.

      Twenty-three years later he had so much money, he didn’t know what to do with it, so he let other people manage it, people who made even more money for him.

      In the beginning, when the money started flowing in, he moved his parents to a mansion, got them live-in help, and bought them fancy cars all without asking them first. That lasted one whole week before they moved out in the middle of the night and went back to their little house in the desert, where they