The Art of Stealing Kisses (Stealing Hearts Book 2)

by London, Stella

  “Yes, I do! And you don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s a good man. The best,” I shoot back fiercely.

  “Maybe,” Lennox replies. “But on the other hand, maybe he’s too good to be true.” His words strike me, and I can tell from his smirk that he knows it. “Think about it. And when you realize what a fool he’s made of you, come find me. Because I won’t stop until I bring him down.”

  He releases me, nods, and then strides away, leaving me alone in the park with the first seeds of doubt beginning to grow in my mind.

  CHAPTER 9

  “You okay?” St. Clair asks as he pours me a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to go with the fish sizzling on the stovetop.

  “I’m fine,” I say, for the tenth time this week when he’s caught me in a moment of doubt, a moment of wondering if Lennox could be right, which always turns into a moment of guilt because St. Clair has been so affectionate and wonderful the last few days: cooking me dinner, walking me home, kissing me goodnight— passionate and tender—and not expecting more.

  “You seem distracted.”

  Maybe because an Interpol agent informed me that you are a major criminal last week, I think but then he reaches out to squeeze my shoulder, his beautiful blue eyes concerned, and I feel bad for even giving the accusations a second thought.

  Lennox is on the edge, out of leads, and probably facing a lot of pressure from the agency—there’s no way his suspicions could be true.

  “Just thinking about the student art pieces.” I force myself to smile.

  “Any good ones? From what I saw, it’s going to be a tough choice.” He flips the filets in their garlic butter sauce and checks on the broccoli roasting in the oven, his biceps flexing in his gray T-shirt. I think I like him best like this: after hours, out of that suit, his hair messy and falling into his face. My breath catches a little in my throat.

  “It really is,” I agree. “There’s a lot riding on my choice for them, and I don’t know which way to go with some of the artists.”

  “You follow your heart, of course,” St. Clair says and I wonder if he can read my mind.

  “Is that how you make your business decisions?”

  “Most of the time. Heart, or gut,” St. Clair shrugs. “You can weigh the options over and again, but at the end of the day, every choice is a risk. Our heads just get in the way sometimes.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  He grins. “Don’t you know by now that anything easy isn’t very interesting? But I prefer to make my decisions on instinct, the thrill of the deal.”

  As he plates our food, I flash back to what Lennox said about St. Clair enjoying the thrill of the heist. Reckless, he called him. Idle rich. St. Clair has never been idle, but now I wonder about that rebellious streak…

  “How are things going with work?” I ask, to get my mind off the subject. “Is the trip working out the way you wanted?”

  “Yes, and no.” St. Clair gives a rueful smile as we sit at his dining table. “It’s been good having face-to-face meetings with some business associates, but being over here in England has certain… drawbacks.”

  “Like what?” I take a bite of my food, and of course, it’s amazing.

  “Like a summons from my father.” St. Clair sighs. “I have to go visit my parents this weekend.”

  “You make it sound like you’re visiting the Grim Reaper.”

  “Not far off.” He picks at his food. “Though the Grim Reaper would probably be more excited to see me.”

  I know his father got into gambling debt, that he was harsh with St. Clair, even when he was a child. And right now it’s plain to see the relationship hasn’t improved. “I could go with you,” I offer.

  “Really?” He looks surprised. “You don’t have to. It’ll be a bore.”

  “I want to,” I say and mean it. “I’d love to see where you grew up.”

  He looks surprised, but happy. “Well, if you’re sure… It would help,” he adds with a small smile. “My parents are a stickler for manners. At least with a guest in the house, they’ll have to be civil.”

  “There you go. And who knows, it might be fun. Family dinners can be nice.”

  He laughs. “My family is not like the di Fiores, Grace. This will probably not be fun.”

  “Way to sell it.”

  He laughs again, his dimples doing their best to distract me, his smile warmer now. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He leans over and kisses me on the lips lightly, sending the slightest jolt of electricity through me. “Thank you,” he says. “I’m glad you’ll be there.”

  We drive out in the morning. I sit in the passenger seat of St. Clair’s convertible as we leave the bustling city for the countryside home of his parents in Sussex. I’m excited to learn more about his family, but St. Clair hasn’t said much at all since we left London’s border - seeming to withdraw more with every passing mile. I can see the change come over him the further out we get, moving closer and closer to his past, so I try to lighten the mood, chatting about all the different student projects I’m reviewing – some of them pretty out there.

  “Did I tell you about the Twitter installation?” I ask. “This girl stands in a white room reading Twitter comments about darkness out loud.”

  St. Clair barely cracks a smile. He keeps his eyes on the road.

  I babble on. “And there’s another student who has been spray painting black Xs on abandoned buildings to call attention to the media’s abandonment of diversity and social justice. It’s like they think that by being weird they’ll get noticed, but weird doesn’t mean good, you know? I think some of them are just too young to see that yet. I remember when I was in art school, we all wanted to make a splash.”

  He smiles, but it’s dimmed, not his normal thousand watt version. “Any more promising ones?”

  “A few. It’s like you said—it’s just not going to be the right time for some of them. Timing is so important.”

  Like with us. I think about everything St. Clair has done, how he changed my life in so many ways. Not just the job, and this incredible opportunity to travel, but little things too. Encouraging me to paint again, inspiring me to be more confident and believe in myself more.

  The miles slide by, and now the scenery is changing. Green grass on green hills and green leafy trees for miles. Dark wooden barns and white woolly sheep dot the fields and hillsides, and a few wire fences mark property lines, but we are definitely not in the city anymore, out in the English countryside in all its lush glory.

  “Are we getting close?” I ask. “I can’t believe you grew up out here. It seems so remote!” I think of my childhood in Oakland, surrounded by activity and noise and people.

  “That’s the idea for most of these folks.” He turns onto a narrow paved road I would have missed—unmarked except for an ornate freestanding mailbox. As we wind down the road overhung by giant oak trees, St. Clair seems to tense even more, his jaw tightening.

  The lines of oaks on either side of us stop and open up to reveal an amazing country estate, buried in the hills. St. Clair’s family home is all stone and brick, three stories high, and imposing and grand. A low stone wall separates the house from the deep mossy green of the yard and a stone pathway leads to a huge wooden door like a castle entrance. Flowers line the stone wall, and ivy makes a pretty green archway above the door.

  “Home sweet home,” St. Clair says in that same tone of the eternally damned. Out of the car, the air smells like fresh earth and feels damp. Ferns and other flowers trail up the path and it’s so quaint and cute, I can’t help but be excited despite St. Clair’s sour mood.

  “It’s so pretty, like a fairy tale.”

  St. Clair nods as we head up the path. “There are plenty of monsters. Brace yourself. ” He pushes the large door open with some effort. “Mum?”

  It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dim inside, but then I see a tiled entryway and the large sitting room beyond, with windows looking o
ut over a blooming and colorful garden. St. Clair leaves our luggage and we walk through a stone archway into a room with antique velvet couches with shapely lines and plush cushions, dark wood side tables, and brass lamps that complete the castle look. The stone walls are mounted with oil paintings of landscapes, old maps of the UK, and one huge deer head above the mantle. I shudder.

  “Darling!” A small woman wearing a flowing peach dress comes in and kisses St. Clair on each cheek. “It’s so wonderful to see you!”

  They hug and St. Clair smiles his first real smile since we left London. “Good to see you, too, Mother.”

  “I’m so glad you could make it,” she says. “Your father—”

  We hear heavy footsteps approaching. “Speak of the devil,” St. Clair mutters as a tall man with St. Clair’s dark hair and swimmer’s build stomps in.

  “Son,” he says and extends a hand for St. Clair to shake. “Your front tire looks a little low. Have Renaldo take a look at it before you leave.”

  “Hello, father. It’s nice to see you.”

  “You’ve brought a guest.” St. Clair’s dad turns his steely gray eyes to me. There’s nothing of St. Clair’s warmth or sparkle of humor in them.

  “I was just about to introduce Mum to Grace here. Grace, this is my mum and dad, Alice and Richard.”

  “Hello, nice to meet you.”

  There’s a long silence as they look me over. I feel like I should curtsey or something. Do I shake their hands? I don’t know what to do with myself. I knew there wouldn’t be warm fuzzies, but this is so awkward. The silence stretches as the large grandfather clock ticks back and forth. I finally settle on, “You have a lovely home.”

  St. Clair says, “Grace is helping me with the final art show for the London College of Art.”

  Richard snorts. “Still wasting your time on those artsy flights of fancy then.”

  “Your son is supporting a wonderful school,” I pipe up. “There are some really talented artists—”

  “What about the company?” Richard interrupts me. “Or are you running that one into the ground, too?”

  “We have company,” Alice says quietly just as St. Clair’s phone rings.

  He looks at the screen. “I have to take this.”

  “Of course you do,” Richard says.

  “It’s business, father. Remember what it’s like to have a job?”

  I cringe inside but watch St. Clair leave through the stone archway. Richard walks out in the other direction without a word.

  Alice looks awkward. “Boys will be boys.”

  I laugh nervously, not sure what to do here. But clearly, St. Clair’s mother is a practiced hostess. “How about we go have some tea?” Alice suggests. “You must have had a long drive. We could stretch your legs in the garden, have a little walkabout?”

  “That sounds great,” I breathe, grateful for an end to the tension.

  Outside, in what is obviously her sanctuary, Alice seems to come alive. She shows me her prize rose bushes bursting with color and scent, her pale blue and white clusters of hydrangeas, the bright yellow and magenta snapdragons. We settle at a table by the kitchen door, and she brings out the tea. I can see beyond the garden there’s a pasture with two horses grazing and a stable off to one side. It’s breathtaking. “It’s like a painting,” I say, awed by the natural beauty. “Or something I wish I could paint.”

  “You are an artist, too?”

  I shrug, embarrassed. “I dabble. But I really love art.”

  “Like Charles.” She passes me a cup. “His father wouldn’t let him pursue anything creative, but I’ve often wondered if he might have gone on to great things if he’d had the choice.”

  I nod, not sure how much to disclose. St. Clair has not painted a glowing portrait of the family patriarch. Alice chuckles. “Ah, so he told you.”

  “A few things,” I admit.

  She looks out onto the hillside, the dappled gray horses that look small like figurines in the distance. “I’m very proud of my son. I do worry he works too much, though.” She squints at me. “He does, doesn’t he?”

  I smile. “He does work a lot. But I think he enjoys it.”

  She nods. “Still, it is nice to see him finally settling down,” she says, looking at me approvingly.

  I stop. Wait, does she mean me? “Oh, um, we just started seeing each other.”

  She lifts her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “It’s still really new.” I blush.

  “Well, it must be serious for him. Charles has never brought a girl home before.”

  I’m surprised. “Really?”

  She grins, and I see St. Clair’s playfulness, a softer version of his dimples in her cheeks.

  “Really, dear.” She reaches out and pats my hand and I feel how cold her fingers are despite the sun. “You be careful with him. He seems like a statue but he cracks more easily than it appears.”

  We sit a while longer outside, and I tell her about my own childhood – Mom, and meeting St. Clair at Carringer’s. Then she says she better see to dinner, so I head inside to find my weekend bag, and maybe take a shower. I’m walking back through the mansion and notice the chinks in the estate’s armor: some crumbling stones in the walls, creaking stairs, chandeliers and sconces missing their crystals, dead flowers wilting in tarnished silver vases. It’s a strange place, more like a mausoleum than a home, and I can see why St. Clair wanted to run far away to start his own life.

  I hear St. Clair’s voice as I pass the library, and I’m about to go in and tell him how much I like his mother when I realize he’s dropped his voice to a whisper.

  I lean in closer to listen at the open door.

  “…can it be moved without a frame?” St. Clair asks. “What are its dimensions?”

  I pause. Any art purchase he’s making should be going through me, if he trusts me with his collection as much as he says he does. And paintings aren’t usually sold without frames – not legitimate ones, anyway. What gives? I creep closer, looking through the gap.

  “No.” St. Clair is saying, pacing back and forth. “No. That won’t work, not after the last job. There’s too much heat in the States, I’ll be looking in Europe next. Uh huh. Well then you let me know. We’ll have to figure out how to keep it under the radar.”

  My foot creaks on a floorboard, and St. Clair whirls around.

  “Hi!” I exclaim loudly, leaning into the room with a bright smile instead of running away like I want to. “I was just looking for my bag? This place is so big, I got turned around.”

  “I put it in your guest room,” St. Clair says, but his expression is odd. Almost…guilty? “Right upstairs, second door on the left.”

  “Thanks.”

  I bolt from the room, going upstairs. But my mind is whirling. What was that conversation about? What ‘heat’ is he running from back home, and why does it need to stay under the radar?

  Could Lennox be right? Is St. Clair hiding something from me?

  CHAPTER 10

  The formal dining room at the St. Clair estate is very Downton Abbey—brass-framed portraits of ancestors and British historical figures coating the walls, heavy cream curtains framing two windows that look out onto the pasture, and a long dark wood table with twelve chairs.

  St. Clair, his parents, and I sit together at one end, and after our initial hellos, the silence has gone as thick as this cold potato leek soup we’ve been served. I’m trying not to gag through the smile I’ve tried to keep plastered on my face. St Clair and his father glare at each other across the table and his mom slurps her soup and pretends not to notice.

  It’s so tense, I feel like I need a hammer to break the ice. “So, those are beautiful horses out back. Do any of you ride?” God, it’s so lame, but I have to say something!

  “Why else would we have horses?” Richard sneers.

  “You may not have them for much longer, if some things don’t change,” St. Clair says coolly. “Horses don’t pay for themselves.”

&nbs
p; Alice lifts her head. “Is that true?”

  Richard waves his hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry, darling. Your son has no idea what he is talking about since he spends all his time with paintings rather than money.”

  St. Clair’s jaw tightens. “Some of us have the resources to enjoy our interests.”

  I try to lighten to mood. “Before we left San Francisco, Charles graciously donated several valuable paintings to a hospital wing.”

  “That’s lovely!” Alice exclaims.

  Richard looks down his nose. “Yes, he is very good at getting rid of things. Leaving things behind.”

  “Where do you think I learned that, father?”

  The cook replaces our soup with plates of meat and potatoes, thank God. That soup looked like it belonged in a swamp, not in a bowl. “This smells delicious!” I chirp.

  The men ignore me. “My father built that business from the ground up,” Richard snipes, “and I never once considered leaving or going against his wishes. You are the one who chose to desert your family.”

  “Because you were smothering me, criticizing every move I made.” St. Clair shoots back. “How was I supposed to learn for myself?”

  Richard takes a long swig of his whiskey. “That’s the problem. You never did learn.”

  “Richard, honey,” Alice tries to smooth things over, but he ignores her.

  “I learned a lot, dad. Like how to hold my liquor. But that’s a lesson you never quite got the hang of, is it?” St. Clair glares back. My mouth is actually hanging open, I realize, so I force myself to close it. I don’t even know what to say.

  “That’s enough!” Richard suddenly explodes. “Remember your manners, boy. You’re under my roof, and you’ll treat me with some damn respect!”

  “You mean, the respect you show your family?” St. Clair spits. He shoves back his chair. “I’ve lost my appetite.” He throws down his napkin and storms out.

  I nervously get up. “I’m sorry, I should go see—”

  “Of course,” Alice says, and gives me a weak smile. “You go ahead, dear.”