by Michele Hauf
She'd taken his livelihood away from him. She had castrated The Fox and stuffed him into a windowless prison cell. She had…
…told him she loved him. He remembered that part. He'd been coughing and spitting up the nasty river water, but he did recall those words leaving her mouth.
He hated her for that. He loved her for that. He…didn't know how to feel, actually. In all his years, he'd never loved a woman. He'd never once considered running away with her, despite the risk to his freedom.
I called the police and told them you planned to steal the Hortensia diamond.
Bitch. He had underestimated her. Again.
And yet, all he wanted right now was to see her. To look into her blue eyes. To smooth his thumb over the tattoos on her wrist. To taste her kiss. To see if he could forgive. Because if he could, he'd have her in his arms again.
Was he crazy? Was he on drugs?
He turned and studied the label on the IV drip plugged into his arm. Just saline. He tore off the tape from over the needle and pulled it out with a hiss. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and assessed his condition. Not so dizzy. And the only pain he felt was in his ribs from the beating he'd taken. Yes, his leg hurt. It wasn't broken, but probably deeply bruised. All in all? He was good to go.
And if he were to be sent back to prison, or worse, the grave, he wanted to steal as much freedom as possible before that happened.
Pulling on his pants, he bent over and read the chart at the end of his bed. His eyes wandered over the date entry. “Two days?”
Had he been asleep this whole time? Crazy. Now he really did need to escape.
Tugging at the gown, he decided to leave it on until he got outside. Good cover. And with hope, he could snag a shirt on the way out. No shoes that he could see, but he’d worked under worse conditions.
He probably wasn't allowed to simply walk out without signing forms, or even the ECU's permission. Xavier popped his head out the doorway. No guard. The nurse's station loomed down the end of a long hallway. Looked like only one nurse, facing away from him and staring at a computer screen.
The elevators were on his right. Nice.
The first floor was practically deserted. It must be well after midnight. Xavier marched toward the front. There was a gift shop, but a gate barred the door. T-shirts hung on display inside, but it wasn’t worth the effort of picking the lock when the doors to the outside loomed just ahead.
Walking swiftly, Xavier made it outside, pulling off the gown and tossing it behind a shrub. The cool night breeze hardened his nipples and rippled goosebumps across his skin. He recognized the area. He'd been inside le Hôtel Dieu, the city hospital on the main island. The streets were dark, and the streetlights were overwhelmed by the tree canopy. Limping, he quickly crossed the street. He was still standing, and that was all that mattered.
He didn't get far before he sensed someone behind him. He didn't hear footsteps or breathing, but his thief senses knew. The ECU? Or one of Blackwell's thugs? Dodging left around the end of a long stretch of greenhouses, he waited for someone to swing around the corner.
And waited.
Moonlight glistened on the river. Had his senses gone haywire while lying on the plastic sheet for two days? He had heard someone.
He edged closer to the corner of the building, weighing the risk of glancing around the side, when she spoke. “It's me.”
Shoulders dropping in relief, Xavier tilted his head against the wall. He didn't need to look around the corner. Seph was there.
And he wasn't sure how he felt about that.
“I've had the hospital staked out since they took you there the night you almost drowned,” she said.
She stayed on her side of the building. He was grateful. Facing her would bring up too much stuff he wasn't ready to deal with.
“I befriended a fence a couple years after you robbed my mother's home,” she said. “One who liked to talk. I showed him the drawing of the fox you'd made on my mother's safe, and he told me about you. That you liked the colored stuff. That you were the best.”
Xavier closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“He tipped me off that your next hit was Venice. I followed you there. Watched from a distance, taking pictures, studying your movements, your reactions. Your style. I managed to follow you on four jobs. A few other times, you pulled back like you thought someone was watching you. You're always aware of your surroundings. So I never got close to you. Didn't want to spook you. I admired you so much.”
He winced. She should not have. A jewel thief as her hero? That was wrong. So wrong.
“But I still wanted revenge. At the time, I wasn't so good at controlling my feelings. So you became the scapegoat for my terrible life; my uncaring drug-addict mother, her ruthless boyfriend. But when I saw them slap the cuffs on you? My heart broke. All I could do was walk away from it all. It was over. I had no reason to continue what I was doing. The heists.”
He had been her inspiration and her downfall. As she had been his. Because yes, she had inspired him these past few days.
“I'm sorry, X. I had to tell you. I had to do it. At the time it was the stupidest thing I've ever done. It was revenge. It was twisted attraction. It was me triumphing over the greatest jewel thief I'd ever known. It was…”
“Enough,” he said. “I get it.”
And, oddly, he did. If she had witnessed him stealing from her mother's safe, and that callous theft had left her destitute? The catalyst to her mother dumping her in a foster home? Of course Seph would seek revenge. He would have done the same thing, had he witnessed someone robbing his family home when he was a kid.
But the facts didn't make him hate her any less. She'd stolen a part of him. His reason for being. His career. His…excuse for not trying harder to live in the real world.
And that realization didn't make him love her any less.
“You still need to recruit me, don't you?”
Did he? He wasn't sure if he were even an active Elite Crimes Unit agent. Had he used up his last chance?
“I went to your place. Had to feed Chloe. I was going to get a hotel room, but, well, I left her there because like I said: stakeout duty. Uh…that means I'll have to return to get her. You can tell me a time tomorrow when you won't be around and I'll stop by.”
He wasn't sure what tomorrow would bring for him. He needed to sort out things. Everything. And he didn't know if he could do that if she peeked around the corner and he looked into her devastatingly gorgeous eyes.
“Eleven,” he said. “I'll make a point of not being there.”
“Right. X?”
The wobble in her tone cut through his cracked heart. He hated to hear her hurting. “Yes?”
“We could have been great together.”
Probably.
She sniffed a tear. “I love you.”
He waited for more, but wasn't sure why. That's all he needed to know. Should he return the same endearment? He wanted to. But not without looking at her.
His heart pulsed with anticipation and he tossed aside his reluctance. He swung around the corner, his arms open for the woman he loved. But instead of Seph, Xavier saw only the steel-and-glass greenhouse wall and the bare sidewalk. Not a shadow betrayed her presence.
The thief had slipped away in the night.
With his heart.
* * * *
Chloe greeted him with a meow. And Xavier's cell phone rang the moment he entered his apartment. Par for the course.
It was Kierce, reporting that a car would pick him up in the morning. With the recruit.
Right. The recruit he was supposed to bring in to the ECU. Xavier muttered a thanks, then tossed the phone onto the bed. He stripped off his pants and headed for the shower.
The pick-up was scheduled for after eleven o'clock. How to play this one?
* * * *
“Sorry, X, I had to break in.” Josephine leaned over the man
lying on the bed. His eyes blinked open. “You've been through a lot. You needed the sleep. It's past eleven. I'll take Chloe and leave.”
But she couldn't force herself to move from Xavier's bed. It might be the last time she saw him. Would she remember his face? That sexy midnight stubble? The piercing Dresden green gaze and tousled hair? Looks didn't matter; it was the way he'd made her feel that she hoped to never lose. Imbued in her veins, Xavier flowed through her.
She touched the corner of his eye where a cut had scabbed. The skin around his left eye was maroon, but it wasn't swollen. He wore no shirt, and bruises lashed his ribs and over his kidney. He'd suffered for her. And she couldn't begin to imagine the emotional suffering he endured.
Check that. Of course she could, because her heart hurt. Desperately.
“You said you loved me the night by the river,” she said. “You don't have to love me. I mean, it was just cool that you once did.”
“Yes, well…” He reached for the cell phone on the nightstand and wobbled it in display. “Got the order last night before I dozed off. I'm to bring you in for recruitment.”
“I thought that was supposed to be voluntary?”
“Apparently, they've changed their minds.”
So she'd take that as a warning that she should get the hell out of here. Instead Josephine stayed on the bed. And when Xavier sat up and leaned against the headboard, apparently in no rush to shackle her and drag her off to some secretive pseudo-prison filled with ex-cons, her heart only beat faster.
“Did you mean it?” She searched his gaze.
“Did I mean what?”
“That you loved me? At least once?”
He nodded, raking his fingers through his hair, and looked away. A sure sign that he was struggling, too. “I thought about taking off with you. Leaving the grid. Going under.”
“We can do it.”
He shook his head.
No, he couldn't betray his organization. The risk was too great. And she'd learned that no matter what he did, the man did it well and to the highest and most satisfying completion. He took pride in his work. Even if that meant his actions benefitted the very law he once stood against.
So she touched his jaw, turning his face toward hers, and waited for him to look at her. “Then maybe I could live with the kind of freedom you deem so tolerable to an ex-thief?”
“Don't say that, Seph,” he snapped. “All you've ever wanted is freedom. I know that. Get out of here. Walk away from me. Have a life. Because you won't have one working for the ECU.”
“I'd be doing something I enjoy. Something I have a talent for. It could be a life with you.”
“Why do you believe that?” He forced himself to meet her gaze. She stared at him so intently, it hurt to look at her.
Josephine took a deep breath. “You're saying what you need to make me leave,” she declared. “I thought it was your job to bring me in.”
“I love you too much to do that.”
“Oh, you bastard.” She kissed him, hard and long and deep.
He pulled her tightly against his body. His hands clutched her derriere and glided up her back and along her thighs. And in her kiss, she gave him all that she could. More than she had ever given another person. Trust, respect. Truth. A promise that she was his. Always.
“Go,” he whispered. “I'll never stop thinking about you, Seph. But when I do think about you, I want to picture you as a free woman.”
“You can't force me to do anything, X.”
“No. But the car to take me in to the ECU will be here in twenty minutes. Don't force me to hurt you this way. Please?” His jaw tightened as he tried not to let the pain taint his voice. “Josephine. Take the damn cat and go.”
She touched his cheek where the bruising didn't show, but she suspected it hurt like a mother. He shook his head, knocking away her touch. She didn’t know what she'd do without him. So much of her past had been about him. Following him, learning from him, hating him. And now, loving him.
Of course, she had loved him since that first night she'd watched him rob her mother. He hadn't destroyed her life then. He'd only welcomed her into a new and exciting way to survive.
But now he was giving her an opportunity to walk away. From sacrificing her to his Last Chance Ops.
From ever being happy again.
She nodded and stood, turning to hurry out of the bedroom. Picking up Chloe's carrier, she opened the front door and walked out. Without a look back. Without a goodbye.
As it should be.
Taking the elevator down, she clutched the plastic carrier like it was a life vest. “What should I do, Chloe?”
The cat meowed.
Exactly.
It was time to take control of her life. And live it in the manner that would make her most happy. Outside, she hailed a cab and promised the driver a big tip if he'd chill for a while.
Chapter 31
Xavier entered the underground headquarters for the Elite Crimes Unit. He wasn't sure what to expect when he faced the Boss and told him he had failed the recruitment. By now, he hoped Seph was well on her way out of the country. Destination? Somewhere. Anywhere he didn't know about.
He missed her already. He could find her if he utilized all of the ECU’s resources. But he wouldn’t. He’d have to fight the urge to find her every day for the rest of his life, but it was in Seph's best interest.
He had to stop thinking of her as Seph. She was Josephine Devereaux. Jewel thief. The woman who had put him behind bars. The woman who had nearly gotten him killed because she didn't know how to drive. The woman for whom he'd suffered torture to secure her freedom. The woman…
…who would never vacate his heart.
Get your act together, man.
He needed to play this right for Dixon to buy his story about losing her trail. But no matter what he said, it would go over like a steaming pile of bullshit. Kierce could follow the tracker Blackwell had planted on her, which could still be on her. And the ECU knew he'd had the cat and she would have come back for it.
How to play this?
Kierce nodded to him, then went right back to whatever he was doing behind the computer monitor. Xavier hadn't been connected to the guy since the night of the handoff. The communications device had literally been blown out of his ear when he'd hit the Seine with Katirci.
Kierce's head went up at the alarm bell that indicated another agent had entered.
Xavier didn't care who walked in. He strode past Kierce's desk without a word.
Prison or the tombstone? No matter how he was punished, it would suck. Would he get credit for the year he had been out and working for the ECU? Doubtful. He’d only done it under the threat of death.
Hunter Dixon strolled down the hallway, bent over a file. He didn't notice Xavier until he stood right before him. “The handoff went well. Katirci was expendable. Smart move, Lambert. The Paris police have taken Lincoln Blackwell into custody. We'll be letting him stew in prison for a few months before we move in. Escaped from the hospital, eh? To be expected. And you have…”
Hunter looked over Xavier's shoulder. Just as he summoned his courage to confess, someone behind him reached around to shake Dixon’s hand.
“Josephine Devereaux,” she offered, balancing the cat carrier in her left hand. “I'm here voluntarily on behalf of Monsieur Lambert's suggestion.” Chloe meowed. “Sorry, my cat and I are currently homeless. She goes where I go. Just so you know. That's a deal breaker.”
Dixon's eyes glittered as he exchanged a smiling glance with Xavier. “Mademoiselle Devereaux. And…Chloe. We have a lot to talk about. This way.” Dixon gestured for her to follow him down the hallway to his office.
Xavier grabbed Josephine's hand. “Don't do this.”
“I have to. It wouldn't be a life if you weren't in it.” She kissed him quickly. Too quickly. Then sauntered down the hallway after the boss.
Xavier touched his cheek whe
re her kiss warmed his skin. He hated her for making such a sacrifice.
And he loved her for following her heart.
* * * *
Four months later…
Josephine dashed through the streets of Paris. Her heartbeat thundered, and her skin glistened with sweat. Her thighs ached, but she smiled. The exertion always gave her a high. So did the thrill of running loose and free, not being watched twenty-four/seven. Every day at the end of her martial arts training for the ECU, she went for a run and ended up at the little apartment she'd been granted temporary custody of in the 4th arrondissement. No one from the ECU physically tracked her because they didn't have to. She wore a chip at the base of her skull.
So far? She did not regret walking into the ECU headquarters and turning herself in. And while the organization seemed to go out of their way to keep her and Xavier apart—lately he was only assigned jobs out of the country—he did have downtime. And they'd developed a code so he could let her know when he was in town.
Today the red chalk marks on the curb opposite the ECU's gym had advertised a sale at a trendy clothing shop.
Josephine veered off the main street, slowing her pace and blowing out her breath to cool down. The clothing shop she entered was air conditioned, but even in her running shorts and tank top, she wasn’t cold. She said bonjour to the hipster clerk texting on her iPhone and made a show of looking over the racks as she headed toward the dressing rooms.
The dressing room attendant recognized her, grabbed the black tag from the wall, and handed it to her with a wink. Josephine strolled to the back stall, which was the only one with a full-sized door—used for more upscale clients—and plunged into Xavier's arms.
He kissed her neck and licked at the salty sweat dripping down to her breasts. The man quickly tugged up her shirt as she unzipped his fly. Clothing was shed amidst frantic kisses and dangerously teasing touches. Standing before her naked, his cock full mast and ready for action, The Fox winked. “You here to try something on for size?”
Josephine's gaze dropped to his erection. “It looks a little large. But I think I can make it fit.”