by LETO, JULIE
Special Agent Dawes returned the dagger to the display case and took a sweeping look around the room that gave Lucy an excuse to return to her desk.
“So, have you worked here long?” Ruby asked.
Dawes flapped the lapels of her boxy suit jacket. Right before the FBI had arrived, Lucy had raised the thermostat so that the temperature in the auction house would, over the course of the day, spike a little. It wasn’t good for the inventory, but she’d wanted an excuse to lift her hair off her nape and sport a soft sheen of sweat when she met with Alejandro. She wanted the man thinking about sex, not wondering whether the woman he trusted with his auction was actually there to steal his most valuable possession.
If she could find the damned thing.
“Less than two months,” she replied.
“And you’ll stay until the collection is sold off?”
“I expect so. Señor Aguilar dismissed most of the original staff when he took over. He kept only a few warehouse workers to do the heavy lifting, but mostly, it’s just the two of us.”
“That’s cozy.”
Lucy allowed only a minimal smile, but the situation had not been nearly as cozy as se would have liked—for both professional and personal reasons.
She’d come to El Dorado Auction House with one goal in mind—to find the ring Ramon Murrieta had worn every single day of his adult life. The ring that would keep Daniel Burnett, her adopted brother, alive.
She didn’t know how or why a piece of jewelry could pull off such a magical feat while Danny was in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, but it wasn’t her job to ask questions. Danny was the mastermind. He planned and executed the heists; she sold the goods for maximum price and minimum risk of exposure. The symbiotic relationship had worked well for years because she’d trusted Danny enough to do what he asked without second-guessing him.
But this time, he’d asked her to do the stealing, and so far, she’d come up empty. She’d searched through every inch of the considerable collection. She’d even met with several of Ramon’s top clients under the guise of gauging their interest in the upcoming auction and had learned that Ramon had not been wearing the ring during his open casket funeral.
Last week, she’d talked her way into the Murrieta home to look for some apocryphal paperwork while Ramon’s widow was baking cookies for the four-year-olds at her preschool. In between tea and chats, Lucy had given the place a thorough search. If Michael’s mother had the ring, she’d hidden it well. Lucy had found no documentation to show that Ramon or his wife had ever owned a safe deposit box in a bank. More than likely, their valuables had been kept in the high-security safes at El Dorado—safes she’d searched extensively.
And if Michael had it—well, he wasn’t wearing it. She’d taken the time to check that much. But she had no plans to break into his condo. It was one thing to bypass the privacy of a nursery school teacher. It was something else to break and enter the residence of a federal agent.
Thievery was not her area, but as a fence for one of the top cat burglars in the business, she’d picked up a little knowledge. And Daniel needed her help. If she didn’t find the ring soon, he was going to pay a price higher than the sum of all the valuables in the building.
Special Agent Dawes continued the stroll through the gallery, examining, but not touching, the items laid out on long velvet-lined tables. Lucy wondered if the agent knew about Daniel. She hadn’t been with Michael when he’d gone to the jail the day red-haired, green-eyed Lucy’s path had crossed with his. She doubted Michael had even told Alejandro that he had a second half brother, one born to a mother who’d kept her pregnancy a secret from Ramon and who’d ultimately abandoned her son to foster care.
Lucy’s bond with Daniel, forged when her family had taken him in, was stronger than any blood connection he’d ever have to any of the Murrietas—particularly since both of his brothers seemed to adhere to strict guidelines about rules and honor. Daniel might have that whole “honor among thieves” thing going on, but that was about his limit.
Well, except when it came to her. In all his many scrapes with the law, he’d never once implicated her. Because of Daniel’s militant protection of her, she’d never spent a second in an interrogation room or a jail cell.
She owed him. He was the closest thing to a sibling that she’d ever known—and since her parents took in foster kids by the dozens, that was saying a lot.
She checked the clock on her computer. Alejandro had called her into his office earlier for some unknown reason, but in five minutes, they had a meeting they’d scheduled last week. The man was a slave to his calendar, so she figured he’d be kicking Michael out fairly soon.
Maybe until then, she could pump Michael’s partner for information. If he had the ring, Dawes might have seen it.
“Perhaps there’s something in the collection you’d like me to set aside for you before the big auction,” Lucy said, waving the woman toward an impressive collection of jewelry retrieved from the estate of a notorious gangster’s moll. “What month were you born?”
“May,” Dawes replied.
Thank you, Lady Luck.
“Ooh, then, how about this?”
She lifted an emerald encrusted necklace from the red-velvet-lined tray and held it up against Dawes’s neck. “That’s spectacular on you.”
Dawes turned toward the mirror and spent a few seconds admiring the effect of the bright jewels on her dark skin. “Yeah, I’m sure the guys would love it if I wore this to an interrogation.”
Lucy made a face, as if she agreed with the inappropriateness of the magnificent piece for such an occasion. “Maybe something a little more subtle.”
She pawed through the tray, pretending she didn’t know the exact location of the items she searched for. She successfully faked a surprised “Oh!” and then pulled out emerald and opal earrings.
“Try them on,” she encouraged.
Special Agent Dawes frowned, opting only to hold the studs up to her ears, which were currently devoid of jewelry.
“These probably cost more than my annual salary,” she groused.
“Perhaps, but that combination of emerald and opal is spectacular with your complexion. It’s not a pairing we see very often. Emeralds and opals are both so delicate.”
Lucy had billed herself as an expert, and Dawes seemed to buy the explanation without question.
“Michael’s father had a ring with an emerald and opals,” Dawes volunteered.
Bingo.
“The ring in the painting?” Lucy asked, pointing toward the office’s closed door. “That was real? Sometimes, when someone has a portrait of themselves done, they often…embellish.”
Dawes put the earrings back onto the tray. “Not Ramon. He was every bit as larger-than-life as that painting. Of course, I only met him once. He didn’t seem comfortable around Michael’s law enforcement friends.”
Again, Lucy feigned ignorance. “Why not?”
Dawes’s sculpted eyebrows knitted together for a second, then relaxed. “Oh, right. You’re new here.”
Lucy was new to El Dorado, but like Special Agent Dawes, she’d met Ramon once and he’d made a strong enough impression to last a lifetime. Not only because he was sinfully handsome in the way of dashing, older men, but because his personality demanded and received center stage—even when he was trying to make amends to Daniel for never knowing he existed.
“I’ve only heard glowing reports about him from his clients,” Lucy said.
Dawes snickered. “Yeah, well, most of his clients had dubious pasts themselves. Compared to them, he was probably a saint.”
Lucy arched a brow to show that she was interested in hearing more. Nothing that Dawes was saying came as any surprise. Daniel had researched his father extensively, as he did with all his marks. His plan to steal the ring from Ramon predated the older man’s death—and Daniel’s arrest. The FBI agent wasn’t exposing any deep, dark secrets by talking about her partner’s father, but the conversa
tion was building a rapport between Lucy and the agent—one that might come in handy later on.
“Are you saying these items are stolen?”
“Nah,” Dawes said with a wave of her hand. “Michael’d pitch a fit if his father did anything illegal. But Ramon had a past. He’d gone legit by the time he married Michael’s mother. I guess that’s why Mikey turned out so upstanding and straitlaced.”
Lucy glanced at the closed office door. “Like Alejandro.”
“Unfortunately for the women of San Francisco, who are already lacking in available men,” Dawes said, her voice suddenly low and lusty. “A real crying shame. If that Spaniard was a little looser, I might let him act the matador in my ring, if you get my drift.”
Oh, Lucy got her drift all right. Over the past two months, Alejandro Aguilar had starred in several of Lucy’s erotic dreams—and one had indeed included a twirling red cape and the impaling of a wild beast. Of course, she’d been the untamable animal in question and Alejandro had not been using a banderilla, but another long, stiff tool—one without colorful ribbons, but silky, hot and hard as steel.
This was all fantasy. She had no idea if Alejandro was skilled in the bedroom—but the whole Latin-lover stereotype had to come from somewhere, right?
“How do you know he’s not adventurous at heart?” Lucy asked. “He might have all sorts of hidden talents neither one of us knows about.”
Ruby licked her lips. “One can only hope and pray.”
To cover her unbidden blush, Lucy retrieved the tray of jewelry and returned it to the locked case. Her transformation into Alejandro’s ideal woman by dyeing her hair and methodically selecting a wardrobe that was at once sharply professional and sinfully sexy had not, originally, been part of a scheme. She’d simply needed to make sure that he hired her over any applicants she hadn’t scared off.
The unexpected recoil of her seductive teasing, however, was that every time he was anywhere near her, she became innately aware of everything about him. How his jaw tensed whenever she reached across his desk to retrieve a pen. How his shoulders locked whenever her arm not-so-inadvertently brushed his. How he followed her with his gaze when she left his office.
How she caught him staring at her whenever she stood with her back to him.
El Dorado possessed more mirrors than a fun house and none of them distorted anything about Alejandro. Not his lean body. Not his raven-black hair. Definitely not his intense jet eyes.
Suddenly, Dawes was in her face, scrutinizing her expression.
“You’ve got the hots for him,” the agent accused.
Lucy waved her hand dismissively, but didn’t deny it. Alejandro Aguilar was the pure embodiment of tall, dark and handsome. And he had an accent—one that required him to roll his rs so that the sound mimicked the vibration of a man’s lips trailing up his naked lover’s spine. Lucy was a talented actress when it came to cons and cops, but even she couldn’t lie well enough about something so inevitable.
“He’s an incredibly handsome man. But business and pleasure don’t mix.”
Dawes nodded. “Too true. Workplace romances are nothing but trouble.”
“Speaking from experience?”
Special Agent Dawes laughed. “Honey, when I’m not married to a husband, I’m married to my job. I’ve learned to keep those two worlds completely separate.”
Lucy nodded. The men she ran across in her own line of work weren’t exactly dating material. Not because of superior morality on her part—thanks to her parents, her ideas about right and wrong were fairly fluid. But she’d learned early on that sleeping with some hot guy only to have him turn around and rip her off, wasn’t good for her bank account, her reputation or her heart. The only man in her line of work that she trusted was Daniel—and he was family.
“How many times have you been married?” Lucy asked, glancing at the still-shut office door, then down at her watch. Alejandro was nothing if not efficient. Even if Michael had dropped by to discuss something life altering, Alejandro would make sure their meeting took place as scheduled.
“Three times,” Dawes answered lazily, “but I’m considering a fourth if my latest is as good in bed as he is investing my portfolio.”
“You’re dating your broker?”
Special Agent Dawes winked. “I spend the majority of my waking hours either chasing down criminals or hanging out with g-men. Girls gotta grab any and every opportunity for some loving that comes her way.”
Unbidden, Lucy’s favorite fantasy of Alejandro surprising her in the warehouse basement and making passionate love to her atop a bed once owned by Rudolph Valentino skittered across her mind.
Technically, Alejandro was a mark, so dallying with him before she stole his ring wouldn’t break her personal code. But for the moment, he was still her boss. She chafed at the idea of submitting to him so intimately when he was in a perceived position of power. Hell, he was in a real position of power. If he had any information about his father’s ring, he had access to something she needed.
Of course, maybe he’d help her find the elusive treasure if she appealed to his tastes in bed as much as she seemed to as an employee.
Did she dare?
The door to the office jiggled, giving Lucy a split second to hurry to the ladies’ room until she heard Michael and Special Agent Dawes exchange goodbyes with Alejandro.
Only seconds later, Alejandro called, “Lucienne?”
Leaning against the door, Lucy closed her eyes and let the sound of his deep, cadenced voice drift over her. Images of naked bodies in dusty, uncertain light curled in her imagination, spawning an electric tingle that danced down her spine and tweaked the tips of her breasts. She cursed herself for turning down the air-conditioning, because she was sweltering with need and nearly melting with lust.
And all he’d done was call her name.
“Lucienne?”
Alejandro’s voice echoed again through the empty gallery. She flipped on the faucet, wet her hands and splashed her neck. The cool droplets sizzled on her overheated skin, but gave her the dose of reality she needed. She wasn’t here to execute a seduction or fulfill her private fantasies. The auction was only a week away and her job at El Dorado was coming to an end. She needed to concentrate on finding and stealing the ring to save Daniel.
Once she accomplished that, Alejandro would want nothing to do with her.
“Just a moment,” she called.
She checked herself in the mirror and groaned with frustration. She really did look hot as a brunette. Lucienne Bonet was smart, sophisticated and sexy. Lucienne had degrees and professional bloodlines that had turned the head of a man who’d made a career out of exposing fakes and selling the most valuable originals for obscene amounts of money. Lucienne Bonet was the kind of woman who could seduce Alejandro Aguilar into her bed and steal his family heirloom while he was sucking her toes.
Lucy Burnett, on the other hand, had no such savvy. All she had was a sad childhood, a dubious past and a genuine longing to finish her mission and get the hell out before she made a terrible mistake—like falling for a guy who, the minute he figured out who she really was, would hate her forever.
3
LEANING PENSIVELY ON his fist, Alex alternated his gaze from the empty outer gallery to the ring on the desk. Despite his brother’s cajoling, he still hadn’t tried it on. But he hadn’t locked the ring away in the floor safe again, either. Something compelled him to keep Ramon’s treasure close to him—something he didn’t want to examine too carefully. He wasn’t sure he was ready to accept that thirty-six years should be sufficient time for him to finally forgive his father’s sins.
He tilted the floating arm of his magnifying lamp closer and then flicked on the light. Underneath the concentrated lens, the ring looked no different larger than smaller. Except now, while alone, he could study it not as an expert, but as a son.
As an heir to the long and storied Murrieta legacy.
Old, battered and scratched, the gems g
rabbed the light and held it with fierce tenacity. The rare black opals sparkled with veins of electric green and turquoise against a backdrop of glossy jet. The rough-cut emerald, marred by what he now accepted to be a crude version of the letter Z, possessed the vibrant, enduring color of a stone mined long before anyone conceived of lab-created imitations. The back of the band had eroded to a smooth curve, but overall, the gold remained thick and sturdy, dulled only by age.
If this ring truly had survived over a century of daily wear, the condition was a marvel rather than a shame.
Alex scanned again through the documents Michael had presented to him—the ones Ramon had painstakingly gathered and hidden in the floor safe along with the ring. He hadn’t wanted to read them, hadn’t wanted to paw through pages from a past he’d never known belonged to him. But Michael hadn’t given him a choice.
“What are these?” he’d asked his brother.
“Letters,” Michael had answered calmly, as if the information he was about to impart to his brother wasn’t utterly and completely remarkable, if not downright delusional. “Pages from journals. A few last wills and testaments. I think there’s a note from a priest. Pop traced the lineage of the ring all the way back to its original source. To the first Murrieta who owned it.”
Michael had then sifted through the papers and pulled out what looked like a Wanted poster.
Joaquin Murrieta.
“Why do I know that name?” Alex had asked.
Michael’s smile had been small, but lit his eyes with a flash of something wicked that Alex never would have associated with a man who carried a badge along with a gun.
“Go to movies? Read books? Joaquin Murrieta was famous when he was alive, and then in the early nineteen hundreds when his story—under another name—was made into a silent film. Later there were serials, television shows, radio programs and countless short stories and novels. And not too long ago, a set of movies starring one of your countrymen.”
Alex immediately made the connection. There weren’t too many Spanish actors who’d made the leap into American cinema.