Razor Sharp. Fern Michaels
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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 are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th 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