by Zoe York
Arielle crossed her arms and scowled.
Brayden’s heart sank.
“Another round of drinks?” he asked, but she shook her head.
“It’s a work night,” she said. “We’ll head out soon.”
He puffed out his cheeks. “So…hey, Will. Daphne has a sailboat.”
Will loved sailing. It was a good segue, right?
Wrong.
His friend leaned back in his chair and grinned. “That’s fantastic. Are you a member of the yacht club? I’d love to join.”
Daphne’s mouth dropped open, then she snapped it shut and set her jaw firmly. “No. They won’t have me. Little matter of me being riffraff. Oh, and I live on my boat. Also, I’m a hippie who makes her own soap. And of course, there’s the topper that I think rich people are selfish, out-of-touch, navel-gazing-dillholes.”
~
Arielle shoved to her feet. “Okay, thanks for the drinks, guys.” She pointed a too-bright smile at Will, even though she shared Daphne’s clearly projected opinion that he was probably a self-entitled jerk. “See you later Brayden.”
She hauled her best friend out of her seat and dragged her out of the bar, shushing her every time she tried to say something else.
They were across the parking lot and on the sidewalk when Daphne finally stopped laughing. “That was awesome.”
“No it wasn’t. It was awful. Why couldn’t you keep your trap shut?”
“Because he was being ridiculous.”
Arielle sighed. He had been, a little bit. “You couldn’t just play along. Yacht club, blah blah blah. So lovely. Fabulous regatta. Would that have been so hard?”
Daphne nodded grimly. “I think that would have actually killed me. A dead body at the table would have been more awkward.”
Arielle groaned. “Jeez. So much for trying to hang out with Brayden in a not-so-secret way.”
“Next time it’ll be better.”
“Right. Like you won’t come better prepared next time with an entire Robin Hood-esque treatise.”
“You read my mind.”
“Stop it.”
Daphne waved her hands. “Sorry?”
“You’re not.”
“No. My principles matter. And the way Brayden was looking at you, I don’t think he cares that much. He’d have been happy to let Will and I duke it out while he stared at you adoringly.”
Adoringly? Well, that did make her feel a bit better. “I should text him with an apology for rushing out of there.”
Daphne snorted. “Pretty sure he’ll be sneaking into your bed in an hour. Apologize then.”
She wasn’t wrong.
And Arielle did, all night long.
EIGHTEEN
ARIELLE WAS ALMOST TO THE SCHOOL WHEN SHE REALIZED SHE’D LEFT HER LESSON PLAN ON HER KITCHEN TABLE.
She turned around and sprinted back to her apartment. She had time still, but so much for arriving in her classroom with enough time to exchange dirty good-morning texts with Brayden.
Her phone rang as she rounded the corner on her block. She slowed down and pulled it out of her backpack.
“Hey Dad.”
“Bébé…Are you at work?”
“Sort of. I’m heading there now. What’s up?” She darted into her building—and ran right into her father.
He put his phone into his pocket and grinned. “Hey, there.”
“Ah.” She rolled her eyes. “Was that about wanting to stay here.”
“I’ll make you dinner tonight.”
“Okay.” She kissed his cheek. “Come on up. I need to grab something and head right back to work, but we’ll catch up this afternoon?”
“Can’t wait.” He picked up an oversized backpack and followed her upstairs.
~
It turned out the property butting up against the plantation was for sale.
“We should buy it up,” Will said over lunch as he picked up the real estate listing.
Mick started to say something when Cara called out from the front entrance that a delivery had just arrived. He excused himself to go and grab it.
Brayden shook his head. “Man, this why Daphne lost it on you the other night.”
Will just grinned. “She’ll come around. And in the meantime, I’m serious. It’s for sale, we want to get started on construction, and the estate is still tied up in probate. This seems like an obvious solution.”
“Obviously expensive.”
“What good is having money if we can’t use it?”
Brayden frowned. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Come on. You know we’re all in on this. You and Mick are doing the heavy lifting here on the ground. I’m providing the start-up capital. I promise that’s equal investment in my books.”
The thing was, Will truly believed that. It was hard for Brayden to wrap his head around, but they’d been talking about this plan for two years. Will had been completely consistent on this point.
He leaned in. “And it’s not like the investment won’t grow. At some point in the future, I can slide the start-up money out if it makes you feel better.”
Brayden let out a frustrated breath. “Sure. Right.”
“Let’s go see the realtor this morning. You’ll see. This is going to be good.”
Mick returned carrying a medium-sized cardboard box that was obviously heavy. “This is for you, Will. Box of bricks, apparently.”
Will sliced through the tape with his pocket knife, then lifted out an official-looking letter on thick cream letterhead. “Ah. It’s about my grandmother’s estate. It sounds like because of her multiple wills, they’re all being adjudicated by a neutral third party. As a named beneficiary,” he read out loud, pointing at the paper. “You are requested to complete the following questionnaire about your relationship with the deceased. What the hell?”
He looked at the next page and snorted. “This is ridiculous. She was my grandmother. Why do I need to justify why she willed me a piece of property? And…” He rifled through the box. “And they want me to do some due diligence and waive a claim to anything else in the estate.”
“What does that mean?” Brayden leaned in. “What else could you claim?”
Will shrugged. “Art, I suppose. That was really my grandfather’s thing, and my grandmother didn’t have a detailed enough will on that front. But I have no idea what any of this stuff is. This came up before on a conference call with my cousins. I don’t even want any art, but I suppose it’s my due diligence to go through the catalogs…” Will kept talking, but Brayden didn’t hear the rest of what he said.
Because Brayden knew what at least one of these pieces was.
On the cover of a dusty catalog that was at least thirty years old was a picture of a bronze statue of a black man walking with a cane.
He got up and strode into the hallway. The vent popped out easily this time. Of course it did. He’d loosened it, hadn’t he? And then he’d boosted Arielle up so she could safely stow the statue just inside the wall. But he was tall enough to reach in there himself. He hadn’t needed to boost her up. He’d just wanted another chance to touch her.
He’d been blinded by lust. Then. Now. All the days in between.
Because the statue was gone.
NINETEEN
ARIELLE HAD A STUDENT PROGRESS MEETING AFTER SCHOOL, BUT AS SOON AS THAT FINISHED, SHE HEADED STRAIGHT HOME.
She hadn’t texted Brayden yet, but she wanted to find out just how long her father was staying before she said anything to her…boyfriend? Lover? Sexy-times buddy?
Man, feelings were complicated.
If her dad was planning on coming to the wedding, that would mean he was staying for a week. Or maybe he was back in town because he was looking for an apartment and planned to stick around, but that wasn’t his style. It hadn’t been since she returned from Teacher’s College and settled into her apartment. It was like he’d been keeping a home for her until she was able to keep one of her own.
He’d been a bird in
the wind ever since.
But when she got to her apartment, her dad wasn’t there. His stuff was in the spare room, and there were groceries in the fridge, but no sign of her old man.
She frowned. He knew what time she got off work. She pulled out her phone and called him, but it went straight to voicemail.
Rolling her eyes, she headed for her room. Might as well change into something more comfortable. She stripped off her fitted skirt and sleeveless blouse and pulled on shorts and a t-shirt.
Then she went back to the spare room.
There was no reason for her to unzip her father’s bag other than a weird sense of intuition, but as soon as she did, she knew she’d had that feeling for a reason.
In front her sat the statue from Villa Sucre.
“Merde,” she whispered to herself.
~
She steered her bicycle to a quiet stop at the edge of where the jungle cut back, opening up to the sprawling plantation. The light was fading, but the moon was already on the rise. No darkness to hide under tonight if they were here—but the estate looked quiet.
Maybe if they were all down at the bunkhouse, she could get in to the main house and get out again without anyone being the wiser.
The statue was in her backpack. She could feel the heavy weight of it in more ways than one.
She tucked her bike into the foliage, then took a deep breath. She could do this.
Skirting around the front gardens, she headed around the side of the building. The night Brayden had caught her, she’d gotten in the front door with bobby pins. It was the oldest trick in the book, but it really worked. One served as the tension wrench, the other unfolded into a decent small hook pick.
Except she knew she couldn’t do that now, because Mick had recently upgraded the locks on both the front and back doors. And using bobby pins, while not ethically inviable, had a least an air of “happened to have them on me”. She could have brought her father’s lock-pick set. She didn’t.
She wasn’t a criminal.
Sure, she was breaking-and-entering for the second time in a disturbingly short period, but there were reasons.
She stopped at the side of the verandah and pictured the inside of the house. This was the ballroom on the main level. That room got pretty hot later in the afternoon, and Cara had a tendency to leave the windows open with the shutters pulled to over the screens.
Arielle climbed onto the railing and reached for the nearest shutter.
It moved. She leaned out, got a better purchase on it, and pushed it open.
The screen was harder to pop out of the frame, but after a minute of lip-biting jimmying, that too gave way. She carefully lowered it to the ground before tossing her bag over the ledge, then hauling herself up and in.
Her heart pounding was the only thing she could hear as she settled onto the balls of her feet and oriented herself to the silence of the mansion.
She really was alone in the space.
She took a deep breath and leaned back out the window, grabbing the screen resting on the ground below. She lifted it back into place. It passed a cursory inspection right now, and she’d go around the outside when she was done and pop it more firmly into place.
She crept to the hallway and peered in both directions before darting into the kitchen. She’d need a chair to reach the vent.
But she pulled up short as she reached the kitchen table, because crossing the back gardens between the bunkhouse and the main house were Brayden and Will.
And Brayden looked murderous.
She spun around and dashed for her backpack. Picking it up, she sprinted up the main staircase, sliding a desperate look at the vent. From this angle, she could see it was a bit ajar, and her heart sank.
How had he known it was missing?
How long had her father had it in his possession?
She felt so betrayed, but worse than that, she was terrified that Brayden did, too—by her.
She wasn’t wrong.
As she slid into a bedroom upstairs, right above the kitchen, the door below slammed open. She ‘pressed her back against the wall and willed herself not to make any noise.
“Okay we talk in here,” someone said. Will. “Although I think at some point soon, we’re going to need to loop Mick in.”
Her stomach heaved. Cara. She’d be so disappointed.
Brayden groaned. “I’m so sorry about this, man. I should have—”
She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“I get why you didn’t. Now we need—you need—to find her.”
“She’s not at her apartment.”
“Call her.”
Arielle’s pulse jacked up and she silently reached for her phone. Her fingers shook as she powered it down. She wouldn’t put it past them to be able to track the signal or something.
Oh God, this was a nightmare.
After a long stretch of silence, she heard Brayden move again. “No answer.”
“Then let’s ask Cara where she might be. They’ve been friends forever, you said.”
“You think Cara will be on your side in this? The three of them are thick as thieves. Ha. Thieves.”
A tear rolled down her face. He sounded so bitter, and rightly so, although he was wrong. Cara wouldn’t be on her side in this. She looked at the backpack clutched against her chest and her eyes burned.
“Come on, let’s go down to the ocean and have a beer,” Will said.
“No. I need to find her. I need to find your God damned statue.”
“I don’t care about it. I care about you getting to the bottom of this, for your own peace of mind.”
“Don’t be so fucking cavalier.”
“Okay. Sorry.” Another long stretch of silence, then Will sighed. “What do you want me to do? Call the police?”
Brayden growled. “No.”
That made her heart crack. What a mess she’d gotten them into.
“Look, nobody’s missing the statue. I didn’t even know it was here until you said it wasn’t. Why don’t we just wait and see how this shakes out?”
“Because…Fuck, man. I trusted her. You know?”
“That’s what this is about.”
“Damn fucking straight. Love makes you stupid.”
Love? Her arms shook and her heel skidded out from under her. She bumped her head back against the wall, then froze.
Below, a chair was pushed out of the way.
The scrape of wood on wood was louder than a starter’s pistol.
She stepped away from the wall, leaving the bag behind her, and stood there, as if made of granite, while Brayden took the stairs two at a time. She could see him bound onto the landing, then stop. He moved his head slowly, sorting out which room was right above the kitchen.
Which room he’d just heard that noise in.
Which room contained the thief he’d capture, yet again.
She couldn’t move, but she could turn her heart to stone. She could force herself not to cry, not to give him that.
He stopped in the doorway. She was in the shadows, but there was no mistaking that he saw her.
“So you’re here,” he said quietly, prowling toward her. “You returned to the scene of the crime.”
“I didn’t take it.”
“But you know exactly what I’m talking about. The statue’s gone.”
“I brought it back.”
“Overwhelmed by guilt?” He stepped into her, moving her back until she bumped into the wall.
He didn’t glance down at the backpack beside her feet. His gaze was locked on her face.
She swallowed hard. “We’re not the only ones who can search a house from top to bottom.”
“That was Will’s statue. His family. You stole something from my best friend.”
“I didn’t. I know it’s his. I’d never—”
“You know? How long have you known?”
“I didn’t give it to my father. I didn’t tell him where it was.” That was the most impor
tant piece of information here. She had to make Brayden understand that. “I knew you wouldn’t want me to, so I didn’t.”
She’d chosen Brayden over her father. It made her feel ill, but she’d done it.
And it still wasn’t enough.
He shook his head. “Wrong answer, pretty girl. The right answer is, you knew it was wrong, so you didn’t.”
Your terms, no matter what. He’d lied to her. He’d forgotten to add the caveat that she should have known anyway—that his absolution didn’t include her being a thief, if even an accidental one. Hot tears sprang to her eyes again, but she wouldn’t let them fall. His loss.
Her heart cracked open. No, it was her loss. One she’d totally seen coming and let happen anyway. Love was a cruel mistress that way. She’d forgotten that while she could trust him with her silly fears—kinky preferences, dirty fantasies others might have judged—it had been foolish to transfer that trust to more meaningful fears.
Abandonment, for one.
That fear was seriously grounded in reality.
“I’m nobody’s pretty girl.” Her voice shook, but she was rock steady inside. “The statue is in—”
“Stop talking.” Cold as ice, he leaned in. “Just…stop.”
“Why?” She glared back at him. “Did I disappoint you? Did I let you down? Was I not enough? Newsflash, asshole. That’s the story of my life. There is nothing you can say or do that will make me feel shittier than I do right now. I brought the damn statue back. I searched my father’s belongings and found it and I immediately returned it, because of you. Because of some misguided sense of loyalty to a man that doesn’t value me for shit, so don’t even start with me. Go on. Frisk me. Tie me. Call the cops. Do your worst. I promise it will mean nothing.”
“You want me to frisk you?” His voice dropped, but the heat ratcheted up.
“Do. Your. Worst.”
“You didn’t let me down,” he said softly as he turned her around and kicked her feet wide. He coasted his hands over her back. “You pissed me off. There’s a difference.”