Conversely, my stoicism brings out the nurturer in him. “Oh, Penelope Blue—what did you do?”
I should point out that Grant is the only person in the world I allow to call me by my full name. He infuses it with a playful, singsong quality that should make me annoyed but doesn’t. There’s something about a large, arrogant man falling into sudden outbursts of rhyme that gets to me.
He moves his hand over the eggplant-colored bruise running parallel to the arch of my foot, his touch featherlight and almost reverent. “What happened? Were the kids hard on you today? Lots of pirouettes gone wrong?”
Now, this is where things get tricky. In case you aren’t confused enough, my cover story is that my professional goals extend no further than teaching dance to a group of four-year-olds at a midtown rec center—something I actually do a few days out of the week to lend credence to the lie that is my life. But there is no class on Fridays, and Grant knows it. I know Grant knows it, but I’m not sure if Grant knows that I know he knows it.
See? Tricky.
“It’s nothing—I just fell when I was leaving.” I stick to reality as much as possible in situations like these. One thing I’ve learned in the past year is that it’s much easier to keep up a strong cover story if there’s an element of truth to it.
“Always so clumsy.” Grant makes a tsking sound. “Tripping up when I least expect it.”
My heart picks up, and I steal a peek at his expression. His eyes—always so innocent in their wide, sleepy way—seem sincere, but I’m unable to keep from testing him just to be sure. It’s a problem of mine, this not knowing when to stop. I push when I should back away, argue when I should agree, get married to an FBI agent when I should be running as fast and as far as my feet will take me.
“I’m not clumsy,” I say with a prim lift of my nose. “Everything I do is carefully arranged ahead of time. You could say it’s all part of my master plan.”
His eyes crinkle in what I think is amusement. “Is that right?”
“Yes. I just want you to believe I’m accident-prone. That way, when I dazzle you with my acrobatic grace and contortionist abilities, you won’t know what hit you.”
“Acrobatic grace?”
“And contortionist abilities.”
This proves too much for his gravity. His lips twitch. “I know you’re flexible, but don’t you think contortionist is taking things a step too far?”
I don’t even blink. “I could fit inside that bathroom cupboard and stay there all night without breaking a sweat.”
He laughs out loud at that, his chuckle deep and rich. I feel it tingling in places better left unmentioned. “Nice try, but I know how you get inside small spaces. You can’t even look at an elevator without cringing.”
Instead of making me feel comforted, his words only throw me into greater disorder. I never know what to think when he makes statements like that—so sure of himself, so sure of me. Yes, he knows I get a touch claustrophobic from time to time, but either he believes me to be a jewel thief capable of sitting in an air duct for eight hours, or he doesn’t. There isn’t a middle ground.
If he notices how flustered I am, he doesn’t let it show as he once again turns his attention to my ankle. “Do we need to have this looked at?”
“You’re the first aid expert. You tell me.”
He studies my foot for a moment, his brow furrowed in concentration as he gives the limb a delicate twist. I have to laugh at how serious he looks—as if he has X-ray vision on top of all his other superhuman capabilities.
Then I stop laughing, because there’s a good chance he does. Seriously. I wouldn’t put anything past this man. Secret government experiments and all that.
“You’ll live,” he asserts. “As much as I’d like to keep you chained up here for the rest of your life, you’ll be back up and dancing in no time.”
Dancing. Right. That’s what he’s afraid of.
I’m about to make the major mistake of saying more, of feeling him out on the subject of today’s events, but he lifts my foot to his lips and drops a kiss on the bruise. Gone are all thoughts of pain. No more do I care if he knows my secrets and intends to reveal them to the proper authorities. That foot is now the center of my entire being, linked to a million coils of sensation firing like pistons between my legs.
He’s that dangerous. If his lips moved a few inches higher, the pistons would start hammering so hard, I’d end up confessing everything.
Which is why I clear my throat and delicately take my limb back. Now is not the time for leg pistons. I obviously need to get a grip on myself. “First things first. I thought I heard you say something about a present?”
“Always so greedy.” He flicks my cheek with his forefinger before reaching into his back pocket and extracting a long, flat package wrapped in white paper. “It’s a good thing you’re so cute, or I’d have divorced you months ago.”
Sticking my tongue out at him is as good a response as any—especially since words are having a hard time rising to the surface.
“And be careful. You’re going to want to be gentle with this one. It’s expensive.”
My first thought is of the jewelry store and Grant’s declaration that I deserve something nice, as if I’m some sweet, docile lamb of a spouse who works with children and cooks regular meals. But this is clearly not a jewelry box, and the package is heavy—much heavier than I expected.
I look up, startled, but Grant’s expression is unreadable. “Happy anniversary. Here’s to another eighty incredible years.”
Damn him. He knows exactly what to say to make me feel as if the room has tipped on its side. “But I didn’t get you anything.”
“You don’t have to get me anything.” His fingers graze my bottom lip for the briefest touch before his entire hand—a big, capable, ex-football-player’s hand—cups the side of my face. I turn into it like a cat. “Being married to you is enough.”
He’s about two seconds away from kissing me and rendering the towel barrier between us null and void, so I crinkle the package and give it my full attention instead. In true man fashion, the wrapping job is clumsy and clumpy, and I have to unroll the paper for what seems like five yards before I finally reach the item inside.
And then I drop it.
Fast—too fast, his reflexes on the ready—Grant catches the necklace before it has a chance to hit the tiles below. I want to act normal, as if being presented with a two-million-dollar necklace for one’s anniversary is a girlish delight rather than a shock of ice water over the head, but I can barely breathe, let alone squeal.
“What the hell?” I can’t bring myself to touch it again. God, those diamonds were heavy. I mean, I’ve held diamonds before—uncut stones and gleaming, polished jewelry sets and once, an entire velvet bag full of gems—but never anything like this. Four people’s futures could fit inside these rocks. One little girl’s dream could be brought back to life. “Why are you giving me this?”
“It’s customary to give one’s wife a gift on an anniversary.” His tone is level and unreadable. His smile gives nothing away. “Or so I’ve been told. You don’t like it?”
I reach for it again, but my hand stops about halfway between our bodies. A trap. This has to be some kind of trap. He wants me to get my fingerprints on the necklace so he can plant the evidence somewhere. He’s going to put the stones around my neck and strangle me with them the second my guard is down. Something.
“It’s…lovely.”
“Lovely? Are you sure? That’s what women usually say when they’re disappointed.”
“Gorgeous,” I hastily amend.
“That’s better, but a little generic, don’t you think?”
“Too much,” is my final answer.
His expression gentles. “Nothing is too much for you, Penelope Blue.”
He makes a motion as if he wants to
hang the necklace around my neck, but I’m still stuck in place, glued by paranoia. I’m usually better able to parry with my favorite adversary, but this is what they call a killing blow. Nothing about this situation makes sense.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
All I have to offer is a feeble, “I don’t get it.” If it were possible to understate an understatement, I just accomplished it in four words. Yay me.
“No, you don’t get it,” he agrees. “Not permanently, anyway. This one’s just on loan. I’ve been asked to babysit it for a few days.”
“Babysit?” At that, I dip my head, drawing myself closer to the necklace. I can’t help it. There’s so much shiny coming my way. Besides, given the fact that I’m naked and trapped with a man who could bench press me two times over, playing along seems the safest course of action.
“Yeah. It was the craziest thing.” His hands are on my neck now, close enough to strangle me, though, of course, he doesn’t. Those aren’t murder hands—they’re seduction hands, and they linger on the slope of my clavicle as he fastens the necklace in place. A shiver works down my spine and covers me in goose bumps, the way it does when someone supposedly steps over the site of your future grave. “I was assigned to help a woman pick it up from a jewelry store today. It was supposed to be an easy task—no one in their right mind would try to steal a necklace like this in broad daylight—but someone actually made the attempt.”
My mouth goes dry at the full weight of his words. Of course I’m not in my right mind. If I was, I’d hit him over the head with our industrial-sized shampoo bottle and make my escape out the bathroom window—nudity be damned—without another moment’s hesitation.
But I stay in place, the biggest rock in the center of the necklace settling on my chest, right over my pounding heart.
“Really?” I say, feigning shock—and doing a decent job of it, if you ask me. “How exciting. I’d love to hear how you managed to save the day.”
Is it my imagination, or is that a gleam of appreciation in his eyes? “Well, there I was, keeping an eye on all the exits, the owner getting ready to pick up her package, and BAM”—I jump a little—“out go all the lights. It’s pitch dark. The security bars come crashing down over the windows, and there are no emergency backup generators coming on to bring the lights back up.”
“Sounds like maybe it was an electrical problem.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but then we heard the gunfire outside.”
Good old Jordan. “There was gunfire?”
“Heading straight for me. I barely made it out alive.”
I know it behooves me to fall into a ladylike swoon at this point. A good wife—heck, even a barely competent one—would show at least a little concern for her spouse being caught in the crossfire of a major jewelry heist. But of all the lies that are lodged between us, my being a good wife has never been one of them.
“How could the gunfire have been heading straight for you if you were locked inside the jewelry store?”
“I was speaking metaphorically, of course.”
“It was metaphoric gunfire endangering your life?”
“Gunfire is gunfire. If you’d ever been shot before, you’d show proper deference to the dangers of firearms.”
See? I told you. Gunshot wounds trump everything else. It’s like no other injury even exists for these guys.
“I’m sorry, you poor, highly trained field operative,” I say, since he’s obviously in search of some wifely sympathy. “You must have been so frightened. Whatever did you do?”
“Brat.” His fingers pinch my chin, forcing me to glance up and find his deep, brown eyes searching mine. “You wouldn’t care if I was killed in the crossfire, would you?”
My pulse leaps, but I’m not about to be coerced into a confession. Not when I have no idea how much he actually knows. “Well, we do have that lovely life insurance policy.”
“Lovely, huh? You keep using that word against me—I don’t think you realize how much it stings.” I’m saved from having to reply when Grant releases his hold on me and shrugs, his careful nonchalance back in place. “Anyway, nothing happened after that. The lights came back on, but no jewelry was stolen. Not even a wallet or a purse. We aren’t sure yet what happened—maybe the perps got spooked—but my section chief thinks the woman’s home is the most likely place they’ll hit next, so I’m supposed to keep a watch on the necklace for her. It’s a pretty brilliant plan, don’t you think? No one would suspect the underpaid sap in a federal suit is the chosen keeper of a piece like this. Our house is the last place they’ll think to look for it.”
I open my mouth and immediately close it again, unsure what to say or even what to think. His boss is absolutely right. Our house, located about an hour north of the city in good ol’ suburban Rye, would be the last place I’d think to look for it…if Grant hadn’t just given away the whole show by placing it against my heart.
“Are you sure my neck is the safest place to keep it right now?” I can’t help asking. “How do you know I won’t run off to Mexico with it the second your back is turned?”
“I guess I’ll have to trust you, won’t I?” is his glib response. “Besides, I couldn’t resist the temptation. It’s a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. I spent most of my day imagining what you’d look like wearing that necklace.”
There’s no mistaking the rumble in his voice or the way my body responds to it, every part sitting up and taking notice at once. We’re no longer talking about firing pistons over here. The whole engine is up and running.
“Well?” I give my head a playful toss, exposing all my neck’s curves so he can choose his favorite one. From the looks of it, he prefers the softly beating pulse in the hollow of my throat. The sensitive spot. The weak spot.
My breath catches, my body poised for fight or flight. That pulse is the only sound in the room. I wonder if this is what an animal hears right before it’s clamped in the wolf’s jaws, or if the world goes black first.
Either way, he’s clearly waiting for me to say something—anything—so I manage a feeble, “What’s the final verdict? How do I look?”
That’s all Grant needs to hear to get moving again. His eyes kindle a dark warning as he pulls the towel from around my body, and that’s when I know he plans to elicit a lot more than my fluttering pulse—and that neither flight nor fight is an option anymore.
“Actually, I spent most of my day imagining how you’d look wearing only that necklace.”
3
THE GUARD DOG
(Nineteen Months Ago)
“We’ve got a problem.” Riker slid into the booth where Jordan and I sat having lunch, the pair of us lingering over expensive coffee and miniature desserts, trying to eke out as much time as we could from a single shot glass of crème brûlée.
The overpriced bistro with metal stools instead of chairs wasn’t an ideal setting for a long-term stakeout—as my butt could attest—but it had one important benefit. The view of the high-rise apartment building across the street was crystal clear. Oz currently stood balanced on a rope-suspended scaffold outside the fourteenth floor, pretending to wash windows as he snapped photos of the interior.
His job was hard; ours was easy. He was in charge of reconnaissance, risking life and limb for a glimpse of the apartment layout. All Jordan and I had to do was create a diversion if anyone in a position of authority happened to notice an out-of-place window washer and decided to call it in.
Diversions have always been my favorite part of the job, even though I rarely get to do them. The secret is to make sure there’s plenty of backstory in place in case someone ends up asking questions they shouldn’t. In this particular instance, I was prepared to run outside and start pulling Jordan’s hair in a catfight over a cheating boyfriend we’d decided to call Manfred. Manfred was a jerk of the highest degree, a verbally abusive
manwhore, but he was a football player, so we could hardly be blamed for our infatuation. Women have been known to make silly decisions over that particular brand of athlete.
As I would soon come to learn.
“Is that you, Manfred?” I asked. Riker didn’t look at all like a football player, with his formfitting jeans and cut-glass cheekbones, but we’d been sitting there for two hours and were mightily bored. “How dare you show your face at a time like this? We’re on to your double-timing schemes.”
“I’m serious, Pen. I was just scouting the catering company so I could check up on things, and guess who was there?”
“Were you the one who invited this bastard to lunch?” I ignored him, turning my attention to Jordan instead. “I should have known you’d go back on our mutual vow of chastity. It was a ploy to keep him to yourself all along, wasn’t it?”
Jordan just compressed her lips to hide a smile and shook her head. She knew better than to poke Riker when he was in a high-and-mighty mood—or to indulge me when I did the poking—so she made the wise choice to back away slowly. It helped that her level of tolerance for us was at an all-time high at that point. She and Oz had been with our team for just a few weeks, so Riker and I were still charming instead of annoying.
We’d known Jordan and Oz for years, of course, but we’d only recently reconnected to indulge in some light larceny together. These sorts of things happened all the time in the criminal world, believe it or not. We’d been after a certain gold-plated statue; they’d been after a certain gold-plated statue… In the end, it was deemed wisest to split the profits four ways and form a partnership.
I know. It might seem odd at first, this implicit trust among thieves, but you have to understand that the four of us had practically grown up together. Oz and Jordan ran away from their foster home when they were about thirteen. I found myself abandoned and broke at the tender age of fifteen. And Riker was pretty much born on the streets. To hear him tell the tale, he’d been raised by feral cats in a back alley somewhere.
Stealing Mr. Right Page 3