“I think I’ve lost the appetite for it.”
“Oh really. Then what are you doing here running a scam?”
“I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Lucky, I just happen to know the perfect job for you. It’s a family concern. You’d eat it up.”
“Fin, it’s—” his throat jammed. Did she love him, or the game and the money? They were seductive all on their own.
She shoved her wrist in front of his face. “See this bracelet? An eight-year-old Namibian kid made it for me right before he conned me out of my watch.” She put her hand to his cheek, and it knocked the breath out of him.
“He was being treated in a clinic Sherwood funds, and his mom has a D4D loan. I didn’t have to give him my watch, but I couldn’t not give it to him, and I felt better after I had. He reminded me of you. He’ll be a doctor or a teacher or a politician or a brilliant con man one day.”
Cal laughed. Only Fin would make that kind of comparison.
She rested both hands on his chest. “The reason I know all those Marilyn Monroe quotes is because she once said she’d spent most of her life running away from herself. I thought if Marilyn felt that way and still became a great actor, maybe I could make something of myself. It just took me a while to find out what that was.”
It started to rain again, and Fin leaned into him. “You, Cal Sherwood, make a lot of right things happen from a lot of wrong situations, and I want you to keep doing it, so I can be in love with you and do it, too.”
He put his arms around her and drew her against his body. She’d made a mistake coming back, offering him a chance at happiness again. He was an expert at profiting from people’s mistakes. He would play for keeps. “You know the thing about an outsider becoming an insider is that it’s a one-way trip.”
“Return fares are overrated. Do you still have the velvet box? I hope you didn’t hock that ring, because I’ve got my heart set on you going down on one knee and asking me that question.”
“If I did, what would you say?” It was smart to rehearse the pitch because he wouldn’t be lucky enough to get another chance at it, and since Zeke was an excellent cutpurse and Cal had discovered the red velvet box in his jacket pocket, it was smarter still to seal this deal before Fin wised up and backed out.
She put a hand to his face, thumb tracing along his cheekbone. “I’d make you believe I was doing you the biggest ever favor, and every day I’d scam you into loving me more. For the rest of our lives, you’d be grateful you let me kiss you in an Irish pub and then steal all your money.”
Fin as his every-night wife. It was the con of the century, and if it meant he got to keep her in his life, he’d proudly be her hopelessly lovesick, gullible mark for as long as they both lived.
He took the box out of his pocket, and an array of micro-expressions flitted across her face. Surprise, delight, excitement, expectation, forgiveness, acceptance, devotion, trust, love, so much love.
It was raining heavily now, and the sky was low and mean. They were both getting wet. The traffic had built up with rush hour underway. “This is the least romantic place in the entire world to propose to the woman I am desperately, urgently in love with.”
“The least romantic place in the world is anywhere you’re not. Marilyn said love and work are the only things that really happen to us, but you can’t curl up with your career on a cold night. I know what I want to do with my life and who I want to do it with. We’ve got this. We get to noodle and to snuggle and to do everything in between. I’m fatally in love with you, Cal. I want your hand at the center of my back and my hand over your heart. It’s not negotiable.”
He stared at her, his miracle second chance, his unwinnable game with no rules, his wildcard, his singular shining star of truth, his partner in crime and twisted justice, his utterly stickable forever wife.
“What are you waiting for?” She took hold of his coat and pulled him closer, glanced a kiss across his lips, and said, “Roll with it.”
It was the best advice from a fellow con he’d ever received, and he was going to take it for the rest of life.
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About the Author
Ainslie Paton always wanted to write stories to make people smile, but the need to eat, accumulate books, and have bedclothes to read under was ever present. She sold out, and worked as a flack, a suit, and a creative, ghosting for business leaders, rabble-rousers and politicians, and making words happen for companies, governments, causes, conditions, high-profile CEOs, low-profile celebs, and the occasional misguided royal. She still does that. She also writes for love, and so she can buy shoes, and the good cat food. More here: www.ainsliepaton.com.au and on Twitter @AinsliePaton.
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