The French Thief: An International Legacies Romance

by Camilla Stevens

  “Seems like a cop-out. Maybe they should pay for what they’ve done, what they’re trying to do?”

  “And you want to be the heroine to take them on?” he asks with a sad, but admiring smile. “Non, Brielle. There are other ways of doing it without putting yourself in danger, without putting Georgette in danger. After you steal the painting, my grandmother will buy it and from there she will bring them to justice. As I said, she’s dedicated most of her life to this.”

  I’m still not completely sold on the idea of stealing the painting, but this certainly puts it in perspective. Now, a tiny seed has been planted. I’m not sure if it’s the thrill of doing something so daring, the nobility of bringing these people to justice, the ridiculous idea that this is the safest plan, or…just the fact that Andrew will be doing it with me.

  Good grief, what the hell is the matter with you, Brielle?

  The painting is hardly worth going to prison over. It was bad enough when I planned on working behind the scenes just to harmlessly get a glimpse at the back of it. That would have earned me, at best, a slap on the wrist, or getting fired (not such a terrible prospect). Now, I’m actually considering a felony?

  “How long have you been doing this?” I ask, reaching for the champagne bottle to pour more for myself.

  He pauses, looking off to the side in thought. At first, I think he’s just calculating the years in his head, but when he turns back to me, he seems almost angry.

  “My mother died when I was only fourteen. A hit and run.”

  I stop just before pouring and stare at him in shock. “Andrew, I’m so sorry.”

  “C’est la vie.” He shrugs and his mouth curls up into a half smile, but there’s no humor in his eyes or his voice. “My father disappeared long before that, so I went to live with my grandmother in Paris. She…saw something in me early on.”

  He stares hard at the table, eyebrows creased into a vee instead of a straight line this time. I can only imagine. He at least seems to have loved his mother. When mine died, I only felt the loss at what could have been but never was. The happy moments were too few and too far in between to even register in my memory.

  “What was it your grandmother saw?” I ask as I continue to pour.

  Now, his lips twist into a genuine smile, with a bit of a wicked flair in it. “She saw me with the butler’s daughter, sneaking out of the wine cellar I’d somehow managed to unlock. That was when I was fifteen.”

  “Fifteen?” I ask, raising an eyebrow before taking a sip.

  “In all fairness, she was seventeen, and hardly my first.”

  “Andrew!” I say, wrinkling my nose at that.

  He laughs. “When my very stern grand-mère realized just how many bottles had gone missing over the course of six months, and more importantly, how easily I’d slipped by undetected during that time, she decided to put me to…better use.”

  The smile disappears as he continues. “That’s when I learned who she was and what she was involved with.”

  I continue to drink and raise an eyebrow. “I guess I could see how gymnastics could come in handy as an art thief.”

  “Ah yes, la gymnastique,” a wry grin comes to his face.

  With the chocolate cake settled in my stomach and the champagne firmly entrenched in my veins, I’m feeling slightly more liberated. Slightly more…amorous.

  “You know, I never got to see the demonstration of what your body is capable of.”

  A gleam slowly comes to his eyes. “Was what happened earlier not enough?”

  I feel a broad smile come to my face, something I’m not used to. Then again, this much champagne for the evening is also something I’m not used to.

  The same goes for being with a man like Andrew Mercier.

  “I want more,” I say with a taunting eyebrow raised.

  “I wonder how I should interpret that?” he says, leaning back in his chair to consider me.

  “You should interpret that as making Brielle Christopher hungry for more French—if she’s impressed,” I say giving him a challenging look.

  He laughs softly before replying. “In which case, bon apetit.”

  His gaze bores into me so deeply that I feel the challenging look on mine begin to falter.

  “Mais d’abord,” he says, standing up and heading past me toward the bedroom.

  “Where are you going?” I ask, thinking he really is trying to get me back into bed with him.

  Not that it would be such a terrible thing.

  “This robe is too restrictive and without it…I think that might be too much French for you to handle,” he says with a grin.

  I laugh to myself and return to the champagne in my glass. In his absence, my eyes fall to the blueberry tart thinking maybe tonight is the perfect night for overindulgence. Before I can even pick up the fork, Andrew is back, dressed in nothing but the boxer briefs he wore underneath his tuxedo.

  His body makes the blueberry tart look like chopped liver.

  “Regarde,” he says before sitting on the floor.

  His back is perfectly erect, legs spread out into a wide vee. He rests his palms flat on the surface between them. The way his muscles flex is unreal, like watching some kind of humanoid robot from a movie give a demonstration of how superior they are to humans.

  When he lifts both legs up so that his entire body hovers in a sitting position held up only by his palms, any hint of a skeptical smirk disappears from my face.

  From there, he completes a handstand, pulling his body backward and up until he’s perfectly perpendicular to the floor in one rigid expanse of muscle. I gasp in surprise.

  How the hell…

  When he proceeds to do five handstand push-ups while in that position, I know he’s just showing off. But hell if I don’t feel a big, stupid, goofy grin come to my face.

  Andrew flips into a standing position, landing in a way that would win gold at the Olympics, then allowing his body to dip into a lazy bow.

  My tongue slips between my teeth, maybe to keep it from salivating too much.

  “That was…definitely impressive,” I say, biting my lip to keep it from spreading so wide the skin cracks. It breaks free and turns into a broad smile anyway.

  Andrew cocks his head to the side and stares at me with a thoughtful look.

  “Tu es belle quand tu souris.”

  I blink in surprise, wondering what he’s just said, then deciding maybe I don’t want to know. French is the only thing on my mind right now.

  “I want more.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Andrew

  I’m the first to wake up the next morning.

  Twice in one night is not unusual for me. Enjoying it so much is a little rarer. I stare down at Brielle in my arms, enjoying the feel of her warm body pressed into mine. In sleep, her face is peacefully serene, not strained with intensity the way it often is while she’s awake. It’s touched with a hint of a smile, the way it is when she’s most beautiful.

  “Tu es belle quand tu souris,” I whisper softly.

  Brielle is beautiful when she smiles. If spending the entire day in a handstand brings about that glow from last night, I could find a way to do it.

  My own pleasant thoughts fade as I recall everything else we discussed.

  Specifically, the diaries.

  Merde.

  It’s the proof I was looking for, the proof I’m supposed to steal from her.

  “This is about your legacy, André.”

  Georgette’s relationship to my great-grandfather Victor Ardant, and thus me, was presumed, but to have it confirmed has me strangely conflicted. I have yet to meet the woman, so I can only assume my internal discord is due to Brielle, who seems to have a relationship with Georgette similar to that of mother-daughter.

  I feel Brielle stir in my arms.

  “Mmm, you smell good in the morning,” she says, burying her face into me.

  The smile comes back to my face. “And you feel good in the morning.”

/>   She laughs and presses closer to me, lifting her face so that her chin rests on my chest.

  “So…how are we going to steal this painting then?” she asks

  “Non,” I say, putting a finger to her lips.

  She frowns around it and pulls away.

  “I have you for the weekend. No business, just play.”

  “You want to stay in bed all weekend?”

  “I think we can be more inventive than that.”

  She smirks and sits up, bringing the blankets with her to cover herself. Quel dommage.

  “I’m still weak from last night. Twice is a bit much. Some of us didn’t grow up in an environment where physical fitness was prioritized,” she says, poking one finger into my unyielding chest.

  “So lay back down and tell me what kind of environment you did grow up in.”

  The smirk disappears and her guard goes back up. I have to remind myself to go slow with her. She’s like a delicate flower, only opening up under the right circumstances. One wrong move and she’ll close up for good.

  For some reason that makes me want her even more.

  My own background is just as complex, and I’m just as reluctant to open up. I realize my own hypocrisy and it irks me. But my desire to know every intricate petal of the flower before me far outweighs that.

  The obsession with her has become a reality and I have no desire to let go. I reach up to once again stroke the cheek that I’ve mostly touched before through the cold, hard resistance of my phone.

  “Tell me more about Georgette and Frank,” I urge, plucking two names out of everything I’ve learned that I know will soften her defenses.

  Instantly, a sentimental smile comes to her face.

  “There it is,” I say, allowing my thumb to brush across her lips. “Tu es belle quand tu souris.”

  The smile deepens and her eyes fall to me. “What does that mean?”

  “You’re beautiful when you smile.”

  The look on her face tells me she already had an idea of what it meant but wanted me to say it. I sit up and slide back against the headboard. I reach out to pull Brielle closer to me.

  “Dis-moi, tell me,” I say, wrapping my arm around her as she presses against my side.

  “I won’t talk about the woman who gave birth to me,” she says in a monotone voice. “There’s nothing more there worth telling.”

  Her voice softens noticeably as she continues. “Georgette and Frank,” she chuckles. “At first they were just this couple from across the hall I’d see in passing. I didn’t think much about them except for the fact that they always seemed so…happy.

  “It was something so odd and almost foreign to me. How could anyone smile that much, laugh that often, just enjoy life even when there didn’t seem to be anything worth enjoying? They were always holding hands or pecking each other on the lips. Georgette was always laughing at something Frank said…”

  She pauses before continuing. “I think they knew something was wrong from the beginning when we moved in across the hall from them. They had this habit of chatting me up when they saw me. I didn’t trust it at first. No one—no one had ever been that kind to me. Even to the teachers at school, I was just another warm body in the seat of an overcrowded classroom, the girl who never spoke up or participated or even managed to finish most of her homework.”

  “Then, one night it was just…really bad. My—” Brielle pauses, seemingly unable to say the next word. “She was well into her vodka that night and, as usual, I’d done something to set her off.”

  I feel my muscles tense, wishing I could reach back through time and snatch those memories away. I’ve never been one for physical violence toward women. Those who impose it on their own children are a different subset. The lowest of the low.

  “In retrospect, that was the night that saved me. Georgette came knocking on our door and took me back to their place. From there it was a gradual process,” She smiles at the wall. “They would somehow be outside when I came home from school and invite me over for dinner, which would lead to me spending the night with them. They had turned their second bedroom into a library and decided to just stick a twin bed in there for me. That was…like heaven. Imagine going to sleep surrounded by books? They’d always send me to bed with cookies or hot chocolate or something sweet.”

  Thus explains the sweet tooth. It’s tied to Brielle’s favorite memories.

  “They were the best thing to happen to me, really the only good things in my life,” She laughs a bit. “Frank was so silly, always making these stupid jokes. Georgette would laugh, which is what eventually made me laugh. As for her, she was always teaching me how to do things like sew or knit or garden or ride a bike. They were my parents,” she finishes with a shrug.

  I nod at that, still not saying a word as she continues.

  “I was in college when my mother died. Drunk as usual, she’d stumbled into the street and was hit by a car.” Her voice is back to being monotone again, narrating this to me as though reading from a textbook. “I suppose I was sad for a quick moment, she deserved that much.”

  I would disagree.

  “But, by then, she was just a distant memory. When Frank died three years ago, that was the first time I truly felt anything like mourning. I cried with Georgette the whole night.” I see tears welling in her eyes. “The sad—or maybe more sweet than sad—part is, she was the one who maintained the strong front even though it was her husband who had died. She’d make sure I ate something, ply me with chocolate to calm me, just hold me. I suppose that’s what a mother does…”

  Now, I understand Brielle’s motivation more than ever.

  Georgette deserves the painting, not because of anything as impersonal as a birthright, but because it’s the one way Brielle can pay her back for everything she’s done.

  Which has just made my job harder.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brielle

  “You didn’t!” I say with a laugh.

  “C’est vrai,” he replies with a grin. “I had to stay crouched in the armoire until they were done.”

  I’m lying on my stomach, finishing off the blueberry tart from last night. Andrew is sitting up against the headboard, regaling me with tales from his past heists.

  After my emotional breakdown earlier, we tried our hand at the New York Times crossword puzzle. I’d heard Saturday was the hardest (Sunday the biggest), but for a French speaker, Andrew was pretty adept. Now, he’s telling me more about his past. I should be appalled at his criminal history, but it has me strangely intrigued…and aroused.

  “I suppose there are worst situations to be stuck in. Heaven knows the porn industry makes a killing from people watching others have sex.”

  “Non, Brielle,” he says, shaking his head. “This…no one would have wanted to see. The man was…a pig.”

  I wrinkle my nose and take another bite. “But you got the jewelry box though?”

  “Oui. Eventually. The museum was happy. Monsieur Delgado, not so much.”

  “You weren’t scared? I mean, you knew he was a mobster right?”

  “Oui,” Andrew replies, getting serious all of a sudden. “The people I deal with in this profession are not good people.”

  The blueberry in my mouth is suddenly less flavorful. I think about Gaultier and this Werwolf Order.

  “Let’s go out,” Andrew says, studying my face and brightening up all of a sudden.

  “Out?” I repeat, wrinkling my nose with doubt. “Have you forgotten how we arrived?”

  “So we go get your purse, you go home and change clothes and I’ll take you to one of my favorite places to eat in the city. You can practice your French while you’re there.”

  “That sounds awfully dirty,” I tease. “I’m almost tempted.”

  “We can practice some more tonight after we’ve refueled,” he responds with a wink.

  I feel the grin come to my face.

  Tu es belle quand tu souris. Was that how it went? I don’t think
I’ve smiled with any man as often as I have with Andrew. Maybe it’s merely a matter of finally releasing this pressure cooker that my life has been since I decided to go after this painting. Maybe it’s his offer to help.

  Maybe it’s him.

  The thought sends a sudden wave of panic through me. I’ve loved exactly two people in the world, Frank and Georgette. As far as men or boys went, I’ve had crushes, mild infatuations, certain degrees of respect or admiration, and pure lust. Never love.

  Obviously, this isn’t love, but it’s definitely moved beyond the pure lust stage.

  “Allons-y, Let’s go. It’s a beautiful day and I want to show you off.”

  “Show me off?”

  “When you have a beautiful work of art,” he says, that serious but thoughtful look coming to his face, “the world deserves to admire it as much as I do.”

  A smile of pleasure broadens my mouth. “I’m sold.”

  “Mais d’abord…a shower,” he says, lifting one arm and making a show of smelling himself.

  “We’re just going to be putting on the same clothes from last night,” I point out.

  “Who says it’s about getting clean?” he replies with a wink and a grin as he slides off the side of the bed.

  I follow him with my eyes. The muscles in his back are like thick, curved slabs of hard flesh slithering down to an ass that is just…heaven. I watch the flex of each perfectly smooth, round globe, with that slightly concave impression on each side making it easier to grab onto.

  “If you’re going to ogle me then I expect payment, to be proffered when I turn on the water,” he says without looking back.