Fern Michaels - Razor Sharp (The Sisterhood)

C osmo 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 childhoodbecause he hadnt really had a childhood, at least not a normal one. Someday, when he had nothing else to do, hed figure it all out. He wished he could remember the client, but he couldnt. 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. Hed known who he was from the day he was born. There were those who would take issue with that statement, but those people didnt know his mother and father. There wasnt an hour of his life that he didnt 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 hed 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 couldnt 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 hed 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. Hed argued over the Gaming Commissions contract, saying he wanted to be able to practice law with a few select clients and do some pro bono work, and he wouldnt budge. Hed actually walked away when they wouldnt 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 commissions work. It was a solid-gold deal that worked for everyone.

Twenty-three years later he had so much money, he didnt 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 had lived out their lives. He still owned that house, and it was where he himself lived. Hed updated it and was snug as a bug in a rug.

Cosmo chuckled when he thought of the other perk hed negotiated: acquiring the entire floor below his suite of offices. Hed been disappointed that he hadnt had to go to the mat on that one. The powers that be gave in meekly, and he rented it out for outrageous sums of money, which he, in turn, donated to his favorite charities.

Cosmo looked at Mickey again and saw that it was almost six oclock, which meant it was almost nine oclock back East. He looked forward to calling Elizabeth and talking for an hour or so. God, how he loved that woman.

Mickey told him he had fifteen more minutes to reflect before he headed home. Thinking about Elizabeth Fox made him smile. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought a woman like Elizabeth would fall in love with him. Or that he could love her as much as hed loved his parents. It just boggled his mind.

Cosmos smile widened when he remembered his parents sitting him down when he turned six and was about to go off to school. They told him how he was different and how the other children were going to react to him. Hed listened, but he hadnt understood the cruelty of children; he learned quickly. It hadnt gotten any better as he aged, but by the time he went off to college, he didnt give a shit what anyone said about him. He accepted that he was big and that his feet were like canoes and that he was ugly, with outrigger ears and a flat slab for a face, and that he had to have specially made clothes and shoes and a bed that would accommodate his body. He was comfortable in his own skin and made a life for himself.

And then along came Elizabeth Fox, or as she was known in legal circles, the Silver Fox. At first he couldnt believe she loved him, or as she put it, I dont just love you, Cosmo, I love every inch of you. And she meant it. He was so light-headed with that declaration, hed almost passed out. Shed laughed, a glorious, tinkling sound that made him shiver all the way to his toes. Then shed sat him down and told him everything she was involved in.

You can walk away from me right now, Cosmo, and I will understand. If we stay together, you will know Im breaking the law, and so will you. Im giving you a choice.

Like there was a choice to be made. Hed signed on and never looked back. He was now a male member of that elite little group called the Vigilantes.

Cosmo looked over at Mickey and saw that it was time to fight the Vegas traffic and head for home. He looked around to see where his jacket was. Ah, just where hed thrown it when he came back from lunch, half on one of the chairs and half-dangling on the floor. He was heaving himself out of his rocking chair when he heard the door to his secretarys office open and close. Mona Stevens, his secretary, always left at five oclock on the dot because she had to pick up her son from day care. Mona had been one of his pro bono cases. A friend of a friend had asked him to help her out because her husband had taken off and left her and her son to fend for themselves. Hed hired her once hed straightened out her problem and gotten her child support, and he paid her three times what other secretaries earned on the Strip. She was so grateful and loyal she would have brushed his teeth for him if hed allowed it.