The French Thief: An International Legacies Romance

by Camilla Stevens

  I cough out a soft laugh, once again surprised by her optimism…or simple cluelessness. I lift up to rest on one elbow on my side.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Brielle. The only way you’ll ever get that painting is by stealing it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Brielle

  It suddenly occurs to me that I’m still naked.

  Rectifying that at least gives me a chance to think. This stupid game has suddenly become too…uncomfortably surreal to continue. Worse, it’s raised far more questions than answers.

  Steal it? Where the hell did that come from? And why does he think that’s the only way I’ll get it.

  I swiftly uncoil my body and slide off the side of the bed opposite him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. Whatever is going on inside that head of yours, I don’t want any part of,” I say, walking back out to the sitting room. I hear the soft rustle of Andrew slowly getting off the bed to follow me and I quicken my step.

  My underwear and shoes are the first things I see, lying on the floor like damning pieces of evidence to my own stupidity.

  I knew there was something off about the man from day one. French? Working in IT at Gaultier Financial as a “gofer?” Knowing the Wincrofts? And his constant pursuit of me? I hardly consider myself unattractive, but no man is that thirsty for a woman.

  That’s what I get for taking my eyes away from the prize.

  A prize he somehow thinks I plan on stealing. A prize he seems to think I can only get by stealing.

  I stop to consider that as I step foot into the black lace thongs. Right now, Andrew only knows half the truth. Yes, I do plan on getting the painting, but when I do it will be through perfectly legal means.

  The question is, how did he know I was even interested in it in the first place?

  “We should talk about this.”

  His voice from behind me catches me off guard, reminding me that I’m bent over naked with my panties halfway up my legs. I snatch them up and, for some reason, grab my shoes to put on next instead of my dress. Once they’re in my hands, I refuse to admit the impracticality of my choice and stomp over to one of the armchairs to put them on before my dress.

  “You’re probably wondering how I know about your interest in the painting in the first place,” Andrew says in an easy tone.

  “Feel free to enlighten me,” I say as I try and fumble one of the straps of my shoes through the buckle and fail miserably. My hands are still shaky at the prospect of him figuring out so much about me.

  “Come back to bed and we can talk about it.”

  I laugh and continue trying work on my shoes. “You’ve just suggested that I’m a criminal, or at best, encouraged me to commit a crime. What more would I possibly have to discuss, or do with you?”

  He raises one eyebrow. “You’re not at all curious what my own interest in the painting might be?”

  Of course I am, but hell if I’m going to say it. I don’t even bother looking up at him as he continues.

  “Brielle, whatever it is you have planned, you will fail. The only way to get that painting is to steal it…and I’m going to help you steal it.”

  That’s enough to get me to lift my head and stare at him. He’s still naked, and the combination of his words and how he looks leaning casually against the wall is enough to send my mind on a Tilt-A-Whirl spin.

  “Would you put on some clothes!” I snap, feeling overwhelmed by how damn perfect his Adonis body is. Even in this flaccid, state he’s masculine virility personified.

  Seriously, when are the next Summer Olympics?

  I close my eyes and breathe. Good grief, focus, Brielle!

  “There’s no reason to get dressed because I don’t plan on leaving and neither do you, not if you know what’s good for you.” His voice isn’t threatening, just matter of fact. He might as well be warning me to take an umbrella because there’s rain in the forecast.

  “Is that so?” I say, triumphantly managing to get the strap through the damn buckle. I smirk as I go to work on the next shoe.

  “That is so,” he replies.

  “And just why would staying be good for me?”

  “Because you aren’t the only one after this painting.”

  “I assume you’re referring to yourself?”

  “Oui, specifically people I work for. But, like I said, I can help you. Put an end to the misery of working for that pig Bernard. That is why you work at Gaultier Financial, no? To gain access to the painting?”

  I ignore his question by posing one of my own.“And just why would you help me, if stealing it is the only way to get it and you want it yourself?”

  “I like you.” Andrew stares at me with that intense gaze, eyebrows straightened, full mouth set in a line across his jaw, head slightly tilted.

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” I finally manage, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Face it, despite this, you like me too.”

  “That’s even funnier,” I say, punctuating it with a laugh as I go to work on my shoe again.

  “And if you walk out that door, I can guarantee you that painting will be gone before you even begin to stake your claim.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Andrew

  That’s enough to draw her attention back to me for something other than a smart retort.

  “I thought that might do it,” I say, walking toward her.

  There’s something that strikes a primal part of me in the way she yields so quickly. It helps that she’s wearing nothing more than lacy thong panties and strappy heels. But I want her bent, not broken, so my next words come with a softer touch.

  “I’ll order us room service, do you have a particular preference?”

  “I’m not staying,” she protests, though she’s done nothing to finish getting dressed.

  “Au contraire,” I say, lifting the phone. “Last chance to make a request.”

  Brielle just stares at me in shock.

  I shrug and hit the button for room service, picking up the menu next to the phone. The look of shock remains on her face as I rattle off an order of several things that look good, all complimented with a bottle of champagne. I grin and hang up.

  “Now, where were we?” I say, walking over toward her.

  “I was just explaining that I’m gone,” she says, returning to her shoe.

  “And there go your chances at that painting,” I warn, in a decidedly less soft tone.

  She reluctantly drags her eyes back to me. “And just why would that be the case?”

  “Because I’m an expert art thief. By the time you’ve gone through whatever legal channels you plan on using to get the painting…it will be gone.” I say, sitting in the chair opposite her. “That’s the beauty of a life of crime; we don’t have to play by the rules.”

  She doesn’t bother hiding her surprise. “So you’re admitting you’re a thief?”

  “Oui,” I say with a slight nod of the head.

  She stares at me with a blank face for a beat, then frowns. “And you planning on stealing Noémie?”

  “Oui,” I repeat. “But only if you walk out that door.”

  I lean in closer, any hint of humor disappearing. “Trust me, I’ll succeed. The plan is already in place, I just have to act on it.”

  “But why?” she cries.

  “Because I was paid a lot of money to do it.” True, but only partly.

  The despondent look on her face creates a tiny crack in me, not enough to break, but enough to handle her with kid gloves as I explain the realities of the situation to her.

  “Who are these people that hired you?”

  “A private party who simply has an interest in the painting.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s something I never ask.” True, but a lie by omission all the same. Of course I know why my grandmother wants it.

  “Won’t they be mad if I get it first? What will they do?”

  I consi
der her for a moment. “My interested party is not one you have to worry about. They would be more than happy to simply buy it from you after the fact. Gaultier, of course, isn’t selling, hence my coming into the picture. The only question is, would you be willing to sell? Unless of course, you too are working on another’s behalf?”

  Her face becomes guarded at my penetrating stare, firmly letting me know she has no intention of revealing that bit of information.

  Smart girl.

  Never mind that I already know. Georgette Howard, descendant of Victor Ardant and thus holding a very credible claim to the painting. If she can prove she is who she says she is…with evidence.

  And that’s where Brielle comes into play.

  She stands up and begins walking away from the sitting area.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To put something on, if that’s alright with monsieur?” she asks in a sarcastic voice.

  I for one, don’t mind the heels and thong look, but if that’s what she needs to be comfortable, then so be it.

  “That’s a good idea,” I say following her into the bathroom to grab the second robe.

  Brielle stares at my reflection in the mirror with a hateful glare.

  I smile back at her. “Right now, you are angry and resentful, but you shouldn’t be. This is a good thing, my helping you. It means you’ll get what you’re after.”

  “I don’t know why you think I’ll fail. I’ve been planning this for a while now. ”

  “I know.”

  That stops her. She spins around to face me in the middle of tying the belt around her waist. “How?”

  “Your original inquiry to Gaultier hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

  She looks down to the side in deep thought. “That’s been like…almost two years now.” Her head pops back up with an accusatory glare. “How would you have tied any of it to me since my name was never even included in that correspondence with him—or rather his lawyers?”

  “It wasn’t difficult to leap from Georgette Howard to the woman who visited her several times a week; a woman who just happened to start working for Bernard Gaultier around the time he acquired the painting. We’ve been watching for a while now. By the time I first met you, I had pictures of you etched in my brain.”

  The glare gradually softens and she inhales softly with surprise. I instinctively reach out to caress the cheek my thumb has stroked through the screen of my phone on too many occasions to count.

  Brielle responds with a vicious slap.

  The imprint of her hand burns against my cheek. I stare back at her waiting for venomous words to come from her lips, but I’m met with another slap instead. That’s when they come in a series, one after the other, stinging my face as I stand there waiting for her to get it out.

  “You don’t get to…you can’t just…!”

  I’m not sure what the frustration is but it’s obviously been eating her up for some time now. I can see it in the rage her face reflects as her hands attack me. Then come the tears, growing heavier as her hands lose their momentum.

  I pull her in closer, holding her. It’s some instinct, drawn from a period in my life when things were normal. Back when I lived in Nice with my mother, even some distant memory of the father I barely remember.

  “Shhh,” I soothe, swaddling her with my body, her face pressed into my chest. I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering what this is about.

  The fiercely uninhibited passion with which Brielle attacked me could only have come from a place of love.

  Now, more than ever, I feel an even stronger urge to keep that painting out of the hands of the people for whom I’m supposed to be stealing Noémie.

  Chapter Twenty

  Brielle

  I hate how good this feels. The softness of the hotel robe around me. The firmness of Andrew’s body, giving me something solid to cling to.

  It makes me feel weak and vulnerable.

  I’ve been strong my whole life. A mother like mine instills that in you from the very first breath you take. Even with Frank and Georgette, who did their best to soften me. They only managed to redirect that willfulness and determination, turning me into something that would make them both proud, even though their constant reassurances never mandated it.

  This painting has been my own personal holy grail, the one final thing I can do for Georgette in return for everything she’s done for me, in return for everything she saved me from.

  And now all my hard work, planning and plotting, working for that asshole Gaultier, it’s all being thrown back in my face, as though the painting is nothing more than a trinket at an arcade that I don’t quite have enough tickets for.

  Because of the man holding me right now.

  I feel that indignant rage come back and I struggle in his embrace, even though a reluctant part of me deep inside knows that I need this.

  “Don’t,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”

  I feel like he’s reading my mind, feeling the internal struggle inside me. Just as my resolve is about to give in, letting me have this moment, there’s a knock on the door, announcing the room service he ordered.

  I struggle harder and he sighs, letting me go.

  Once I’m free, he places both hands on my shoulders and stares, waiting for me to meet his eyes.

  “We need to talk about this.”

  “Your food’s waiting,” I spit back with a glare.

  He holds my gaze, despite the insistent knocking. It’s long enough for some of the anger inside of me to ebb as I see the serious intent behind his eyes. Only when I lower my own does he let me go.

  Once he’s gone, I turn to look at myself in the mirror. Beyond even the after-sex mess that I am, I feel ill at ease about what I see reflected back at me. It isn’t disgust or discomfort. It’s that sense that I’ve stumbled into an opportunistic situation that I should embrace, but can’t bring myself to accept.

  A situation that seems too good to be true.

  It reminds me of that first time that Frank and Georgette simply let me spend the entire night in their apartment. They plied me with hot chocolate—not instant, but made from milk heated in a pan with real milk chocolate, “the way it should be,” Frank said. Georgette read to me from the book she was in the middle of at the time, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which I “seemed mature enough to handle,” according to her.

  A small smile touches my face at the memory and I feel the tears threaten to come again. The book was wildly inappropriate for an eight-year-old. We ended up staying up all night, me begging her to go back and re-read the salacious parts she had casually skimmed over once she realized I was probably too young for it after all. She and Frank at some point argued in that good-natured manner the way they always did about whether or not they should explain the birds and the bees to me, all while they fed me microwave-warmed chocolate chip cookies.

  My eyes fall down to the robe I’m in, reminding me that I’m not in Frank and Georgette’s apartment, but a hotel room with Andrew Mercier.

  The man who can easily take away everything I’ve worked for.

  I straighten up and put my game face back on. If he wants to play, let’s play.

  By the time I exit the bathroom, my hair has been smoothed down, my face washed clean and my pride reinstated. The food is laid out on the table and a bottle of champagne rests in a bucket of ice. My eyes quickly scan the array of food that Andrew’s ordered, noting that at least half of it is dessert.

  I instantly feel a craving set in for the chocolate mousse cake…and the blueberry tart.

  “Bon appétit,” Andrew says, holding out a chair for me.

  I raise one cynical eyebrow at him while scanning his face for any hint of teasing. He just stares back, meeting me with an open and frank expression.

  “Come, let’s talk. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  That’s enough to get me to sit down. I casually take the seat he’s offered, giving absolutely nothing away in either my face or b
ody language.

  Andrew sits across from me and grabs the champagne, pouring us both a glass. I’m leaned back in my chair and simply eye the glass he places before me while I wait for him to speak first.

  He takes a sip. He makes a show of looking at the drink in front of me then setting his down before he addresses me. I watch his eyes as he considers his first words.

  “I know that Georgette Howard is Victor Ardant’s granddaughter.”

  My facade cracks. It’s like he knew exactly what to open with to bring the hammer.

  “She’s off limits,” I say, sitting up in my seat.

  “I know.”

  “Then why bring her up?”

  “I told you that I’d tell you what I know…so I’m starting at the beginning.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Go on.”

  “I can see why you think she deserves the painting.”

  “Doesn’t she?”

  “You haven’t touched your champagne,” he says instead of answering the question.

  “I’m not particularly thirsty.”

  “Or the delicious food I ordered.”

  “I’m not particularly hungry either. Stop stalling, answer the question.”

  “She must mean a lot to you for you to have gone through all this trouble for her.”

  “If you’re not going to answer the question, I see no reason to stay,” I say, standing up to finish getting dressed.

  “I understand where you are coming from,” he says without losing stride. “Because I too am doing this for someone who means a lot to me.”

  That’s enough to slow my progression but not stop me. Until his next words.

  “Like Georgette, she too has a claim on the painting.”

  I turn around to stare at him. His expression is calm and considering. He nods toward the chair I just rose from. I stand my ground. He sighs and nods slightly as though he gets it.