a cab home again, when suddenly a movement in the shadows makes me yelp.
I leap back, my heart racing, as someone emerges from a hidden side door.
St. Clair.
He stops short when he sees me. “Grace? What are you doing here?”
I take in his black pants and black turtleneck- clothes made to disappear in the dark. The expression on his face is grim. “I could ask you the same thing.”
He shifts on his feet and glances back nervously and I notice what he has tucked under his arm: a carrier tube. Just like the kind you would use to transport a painting without a frame.
I feel a chill spread down my spine.
St. Clair. In a dark alley. With a painting.
My mouth goes dry. It doesn’t get clearer than this.
St. Clair follows my gaze.
“This isn’t what you think it is,” he says.
Suddenly, alarms sound from down the street, the shrill sound reverberating through the night. The gallery. We both turn our heads as a light flips on above us in someone’s apartment.
St. Clair grabs my hand. “We have to get out of here.”
I pull away. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!”
“We don’t have time!”
More lights turn on above us as the sirens continue their shrieking.
“You better explain fast, then.” Hot tears are burning behind my eyes but I refuse to let them fall. “Because if this is what I think it is, then you’ve been lying to me all along.”
St. Clair comes toward me, his face creased with worry but still agonizingly beautiful, his features exaggerated by the shadows and looking more statuesque than ever. My heart is pounding with hurt and fear, and the alarm bells are piercing, but he reaches his hand out to me and I have to fight hard not to take it. “I’ll tell you everything, Grace, I swear, I’ll explain. But we have to leave right now, it’s not safe.”
I waver, torn. I need an explanation. I need to know he hasn’t taken me for a fool. Because right now, everything feels like a fraud: my dream new job, this incredible opportunity, everything we’ve shared up until this point...
The love of my life.
“Please,” St. Clair whispers, his gaze darting around intensely before returning to meet mine. “Just ask yourself one thing. Do you trust me?”
TO BE CONTINUED …
What happens next? Grace and St. Clair’s whirlwind romance continues in THE ART OF STEALING FOREVER - Available October 28, 2015
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ONE
So a girl walked into a bar.
It wasn’t a joke, it was my life.
Which, actually, now that I think about it, sometimes feels like the same thing. No comments, please.
Besides, tonight was the beginning of my new life. It was the first step in a direction I’d wanted to go for a long damn time. So where was I? Ah, yes. I walked into a bar.
It was a nice bar, at least. In fact, it was really a lot nicer than any bar at a mid-range hotel—the only one my supervisors were willing to spring for—in a mid-range part of Charleston had any right to be.
The lighting was soft, but not so much so that I couldn’t read the print on the bottles, glowing yellow and orange lamps bringing out the warmth of the polished walnut bar and booths, as well as the striking red brick of the walls and the paintings that adorned them. Some kind of mournful violin music was piping over the sound system, just loud enough to make itself felt and give the chatting patrons a bit of privacy.
A profile caught my eye, a man silhouetted by the soft golden light, facing away from me. I admired the strong lines of his shoulders and the way that his auburn hair caught slivers of light even in the semi-darkness, throwing out glints of gold like sparks in a low-burning fire. Perhaps feeling my eyes on him, he turned. Before I could look away, our eyes met, and a shock of electricity pierced through the distance between us.
Those eyes…deep and knowing, traveling across my face before wandering down my body and back up again, slow and leisurely as if he could feel every inch of