Stealing Mr. Right

by Tamara Morgan

  “He’s either the smartest bastard on the face of the planet or the stupidest,” Riker said, his sentiments echoing mine. “I’m getting tired of trying to figure out which. Are you?”

  I blamed all the lawyers and cops milling around the hallways for my lack of understanding. “Am I tired of trying to figure him out?”

  “No, going to bolt?”

  “Of course not. We’ve talked about this, Riker. It’s what’s best for all of us.”

  “Sorry. My bad. I keep forgetting how you’re doing this for my sake.”

  I didn’t say anything. Not because we were done with this argument—far from it, especially given how many times we’d repeat it after that day—but because we approached the heavy wooden courtroom door where I was supposed to meet my groom.

  Supposed to being the operative phrase.

  “He’s not here?” I whirled, looking for signs of the wide, capable shoulders that were supposed to carry me through this thing. “Oh God. He’s not coming, is he? It’s a trap. He lured us into a courthouse, and we’ll never be able to get out in time.”

  “Relax,” Riker said, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice. “He’s waiting for you inside. He wanted to make it a big old thing with you walking in on a cloud of pillows and light. Where’s Jordan?”

  “I’m coming!” she called, a bouquet of English daisies in her hand as she jogged to catch up. I’d always liked English daisies—to most people, they were an obnoxious, difficult-to-eradicate weed. I thought they were pretty. “Here you go. Flowers, check. Veil, check. Dress, check. I think you’re ready. You’ve got everything you need.”

  “Don’t forget: Jordan, check,” I said, smiling at her. And then, my smile not quite as wide, “And Riker, check.”

  “Riker, check,” he echoed.

  No one made a move to open the door or head inside, our sudden silence heavy with meaning. Just when it seemed we’d stand there awkwardly until the courts closed for the day, a bailiff rounded the corner to escort us inside. The tan uniform added an air of authority to the proceedings, only serving to make me more nervous about our possible escape routes, until the man paused and cleared his throat.

  “Oz, check.”

  I almost burst into tears at the sight of him.

  “You came!” I cried, fighting the urge to throw my arms around his neck. Only the knowing press of his finger against his lips stopped me. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. My whole family is here now.”

  “You ready?” Jordan asked, her own eyes suspiciously moist.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Truth be told, I wasn’t ready—not even close—but if I didn’t go through with this ceremony now, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to.

  “Then it’s go time.”

  * * *

  The groom wore black.

  He looked good in it, too—all those muscles of his packed into a tuxedo that molded to his body, outlining his handsome physique. His hair gleamed, his crinkly-eyed smile was pointed right at me, and there wasn’t a single part of him that wasn’t perfection in shirtsleeves. Still, none of it floored me quite as much as the single daisy tucked into his lapel.

  He must have stolen it from my bouquet or asked Jordan for a spare. It looked wilted from his body heat and lonely without the rest of my bunch to keep it company, but the message was the same.

  He wore it for me. Sad and scraggly and pale in comparison to his splendor, that flower was nonetheless nestled next to his heart.

  “Hey,” I said for the second time that day. I was really killing it in the moving speeches department.

  His response couldn’t have been more different from Riker’s. There was nothing sullen in his posture, nothing lacking in the way he lit up at the sight of me. Despite the fact that we were in a court of law and his mother was present, he pulled me into his arms and crushed every last finishing touch Jordan had made on my coiffure.

  He also kissed me in a way I was pretty sure was supposed to be reserved for after the ceremony.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said, his lips moving against mine. “I sure am glad to see you here.”

  For the second time that day, my eyes welled up with tears. Poetically speaking, it was hardly the stuff of legends, but no words had ever sounded sweeter to my ears.

  “I sure am glad to see you here, too,” I managed.

  The judge who was marrying us, a kindly-looking woman in sober black robes, cleared her throat. “I take this to mean we’re all present and accounted for?”

  I cast a quick look around the room to confirm. Everyone I wanted was there. Grant’s mom, wearing a floral dress and a hat straight out of a horse derby. Simon, looking dour and uncomfortable among so many thieves. Jordan, beaming at me as she sniffled into a tissue. Oz, feigning professional indifference over by the door.

  And Riker, of course.

  I was half-afraid Grant was going to say something to set him off—send him on another errand or comment on his sullen expression—but instead, he nodded once. Riker waited a full ten seconds before moving, but when he finally did, it was to return the gesture with a quick nod of his own.

  And that was it. Without a word being spoken aloud, the ceremony was underway.

  I barely heard any of it—not the vows the judge asked us to repeat, not Grant reciting after her, not me reciting after him. Everything moved so quickly and swept along without any help from me, it was almost as if I was sitting in the defendant’s chair, watching someone else’s story being told.

  I did, however, feel the constant pressure of Grant’s hands on my own. I couldn’t bring myself to look up in his eyes, but that touch, that reassurance, was all I needed to make it through.

  Until, of course, the judge released a soft chuckle. “I apologize for this next part, but it has to be done. Is there anyone here who knows of any legal impediment to this marriage? If so, now would be a good time to bring it up.”

  Although Jordan and Myrna offered an obliging laugh, the rest of us froze. Legal impediments abounded on all sides—they boxed us in, trapped us, built a cage that no amount of kisses and soft words could break down.

  I didn’t even know if an FBI agent’s alliance with a known criminal was allowed. There had to be some kind of rule in place about this sort of thing, an escape clause so Grant could arrest me, prosecute me, and testify against me all in the same day. Maybe our marriage certificate would be a lie committed to paper. Maybe he could turn around and annul it at any moment, with no more pretext than a list of my sins.

  Maybe this entire day was nothing more than a sham.

  “I can’t think of a single reason why I wouldn’t want to make this woman mine,” Grant said. “Legal or otherwise.”

  I glanced up at him, surprised at how confident he sounded, how sure.

  “There are no impediments,” he said. “You may proceed.”

  “But—” I began.

  He turned to me, his expression melting into one of inexplicable tenderness. “Not a single reason, Penelope. Not now, and not in the next hundred years. I’m ready to do this thing. How about you?”

  There were literally hundreds—no, thousands—of reasons why it made sense for me to turn on my heel and run, not the least of which was the fact that this man stood, upright and honorable, for everything I didn’t. Yet, as I stared up at him, falling into the affection of his gaze, I couldn’t think of one.

  Not a single one. Not now, and not in the next hundred years.

  I nodded.

  It was all the consent the judge needed. With a triumphant shout, she formally announced us husband and wife. “And now you may kiss your bride,” she said.

  Grant was all too willing to comply. He swept me up into his arms, crushing my daisies and my mouth with a single movement. For the longest time, I couldn’t breathe, so caught up was I in his embrace. But it
didn’t matter, because I didn’t need to. In that moment, surrounded by the people I cared about most in the world, air was only a secondary consideration.

  I was happy.

  “You won’t regret this, my love,” Grant said, pulling away just long enough for the words to settle like a blanket over my heart. “I can’t promise you much, but that’s the one thing I’ll always make sure of.”

  Yeah, right. That turned out to be the biggest lie of all.

  31

  THE PROMISE

  (Present Day)

  There aren’t many places you can hide from an FBI agent who also happens to be your husband.

  I come up with at least a dozen destinations that are immediately discarded for being too obvious. I can’t go home, since his name is on the deed. I can’t go to the rare books room, because I’m pretty sure he has the librarians there on payroll. My friends’ apartments are probably being watched, and the rec center is closed today. The obvious answer—to find a small, dark hole I can wedge myself into until the world stops spinning—is the worst option of all.

  Grant always knows I’m in there. He’s seen me—seen through me—right from the start.

  That’s my excuse, anyway, for why I end up casing a bank in the middle of a busy downtown street. There’s a sewer grate at my feet and an apartment building about two blocks away that I could theoretically crawl underground to.

  Not that I will, mind you. There’d have to be someone I love an awful lot waiting for me at the other end.

  “The first thing I’d do is get Oz in as an employee,” I say aloud. A few passersby look startled to hear me speaking to thin air, but this is New York, after all. Stranger things than a tearstained and disheveled woman standing on the street corner talking to herself happen all the time. “Not as a security guard, because that would be too obvious. A teller, maybe, or the custodial staff.”

  I nod once, liking the sound of that last one. He’d need to get on early in the planning process so we could use his input to inform future decisions. The layout of the bank, employee protocols and habits, any weaknesses in their daily routine…in order to pull off a job of this caliber, we’d need all the eyes we could get. If we got Jordan in there, we might even be able to plant explosives that would rip the safe door right off its hinges.

  For all of five minutes, I entertain myself planning a heist I have no intention of performing. It’s soothing, this familiar act of what-if and what-next. We could go back to the way things used to be—me and Jordan and Riker and Oz—taking on the world and winning.

  But, of course, that’s impossible. I took that option away from us that day in the courthouse.

  There was never any coming back from that, I realize now. Optimism, arrogance, naïveté—call it what you will, but the truth is that I let my feelings for Grant blind me to the reality of my situation. I am and always have been a thief. A good one, if what my father says is true. One of the best.

  My spine straightens as I replay my father’s words in my head, hearing him this time with perfect clarity. No tight spot was ever too tight for me, no escape so difficult I gave up and let the authorities take me in. I might not be the fastest or the smartest thief out there, but the one thing I’ve always had in abundance is determination.

  Penelope Blue doesn’t give up easily.

  “Casing the bank again, I see.”

  I don’t turn at the sound of Grant’s carefully casual voice by my ear, though my pulse leaps. I wish I could say I’m surprised to find him here, but Grant Emerson doesn’t give up easily either.

  We’ve always been evenly matched that way.

  “A girl’s gotta eat,” I say with a shrug. “Especially since somebody took the only thing of value she had.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about Penelope Blue being able to land on her feet,” he replies and nods across the street. “She’s got at least half a million dollars stored in a safety deposit box over there.”

  I release a short, bitter laugh. “You know about that, too?”

  I’d opened the account in a fit of perversity a few days before our wedding—an attempt to ensure he wouldn’t stumble onto my ill-begotten goods, my last-ditch attempt at holding onto something of my own. A safety net, I realize now. A safety net against the inevitability of despair.

  “Wait, what am I saying?” I add. “Of course you know about it. In the past year and a half, I haven’t done or said a single thing that you weren’t aware of ahead of time. My dad, the painting, Oz, Tara, the first place I’d run to get away from you…you know everything.”

  His lips fall at the corners. “That’s not true.”

  Something about how sad he seems—how betrayed, of all unfair sentiments—reminds me of how upset he was at the motel before my dad’s thugs whisked him away.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say. “You didn’t know about Erica being my grandmother. Well, that makes two of us, so that doesn’t count.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What, then?” I turn to him, anger pricking at my eyelids. I want to play it cool and aloof, become the devil-may-care jewel thief who always has an escape route, but it’s hard. Mostly because for the first time in my life, I don’t want to get away. The place I want to be most in the world is right here with him. “What could possibly be left for you to know?”

  “You have no idea, do you?” he asks.

  I shake my head. I really, truly don’t.

  His voice drops to a low rumble. “No matter how hard I try, no matter how many hours I spend by your side, I’ve never been able to figure out if you love me even a fraction as much as I love you.”

  My knees wobble and grow unsteady beneath me. I want to clutch his arm to hold myself up, fall into him and let him catch me, but I don’t.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “You were using me as bait. You admitted as much back there at the diner.”

  “Not only as bait.” He runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the tawny strands in what looks like desperation. “Did I know about your father being alive? Yeah, of course I did. A man like that doesn’t just disappear. Did I know he put all his money in the de Kooning painting that went missing fifteen years ago? You bet your ass I did. He was my thesis at Quantico.”

  “He was?”

  He drops his hands and casts that stricken glance my way, ensnaring me like prey in headlights. “I told you all this. That day at Christmas, at my mom’s house, I told you that nothing and no one disappears without leaving a trace. I promised I would find him for you.”

  He didn’t. He hadn’t. I would have remembered something like that.

  “Why? So you could turn around and put him in prison for the rest of his life? Forgive me for not being grateful.”

  Grant releases a short, bitter laugh. I don’t like the way it grates, so far from the genuine joy I’ve seen in him in the past.

  “He won’t be there for long,” Grant says. “When I checked in with Simon, they were already working on the negotiations.”

  “Negotiations?”

  “I told you that, too. Like you, like Riker, like Oz and Jordan and Tara, your father is more valuable as a resource than a prisoner.”

  He doesn’t need to elaborate, as I remember all too well his description of my kind of people: slightly shady but useful enough for the good to outweigh the bad. For the first time, I start to detect a glimmer of hope on the horizon, see the shape of a future in which a life with this man isn’t impossible.

  “There are quite a few suits at the Bureau who would like to see him behind bars, but he has some valuable contacts we’d like to get our hands on. Half of his known associates are wanted by Interpol, and I’m willing to bet the other half are wanted by the CIA. As long as he’s willing to cooperate, I should be able to get him a light sentence in exchange for information.” He settles a heavy glance on me. “Espec
ially since he has such a good reason to stick around now.”

  “So you knew you might be able to get him a light sentence this whole time? But that means—”

  His laugh is short and bitter again. “That I never set out to hurt you or your family? That I would do everything in my power to keep you out of harm’s way? That I would run interference between the FBI and your friends for years to ensure their safety as well as yours?”

  I can feel my lips start to wobble along with my knees. “You did that?”

  “Of course I did,” he says roughly. “There were times—so many times, so many temptations—when all I wanted to do was slap a pair of handcuffs on Riker and drag him into the twisted depths of the justice system. It would have been so easy to separate you two that way, to get rid of my competition with the snap of my fingers and a day’s worth of paperwork.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Grant draws close, strength radiating off his body. “That man will never be my favorite, but as long as your happiness depends on his, I promise to protect him. It kills me every time you look at him with that unquestioning love and loyalty in your eyes—that unquestioning love and loyalty you can’t seem to give me—but I will protect him. You have my word on that.”

  “Oh, Grant.”

  The hard edge of his anger ebbs away at the sound of my voice, but he still doesn’t reach for me. He’s watching, waiting, a man who knows that moving too soon could result in a loss of the prize.

  He’s not too different from me in that regard. He might have a badge in his pocket and a gun at his hip, but this man has lied and cheated and stolen since the day we met. And he’s been good at it, too. Better than me.

  He’d make a hell of a jewel thief, if only he’d put his mind to it.

  “I know you may never be able to forgive me for taking that record cover from you, but you have to understand that the way I handled it has always haunted me,” he says. “I had to act fast. I didn’t expect to find the painting in your apartment that day—I’d long since given up on it by then. I only planned to find your dad.”