The Art of Stealing Forever

by Stella London

  He turns on his heel and heads back inside – to the cellar full of valuable incriminating evidence.

  Crawford’s car leaves his own driveway with several cop escorts as many more uniforms patrol the ground, setting up police tape, taking photos and doing whatever else cops do at a crime scene, but I’m not worried. The proof is in the paintings, and they are all sitting in Crawford’s estate.

  St. Clair squeezes my hip, pulls me a little closer. He kisses me, full of victory. “We did it!”

  We did it. I almost can’t believe it. If Lennox weren’t here, I think I would jump for joy as high as I possibly could, but instead I nuzzle into St. Clair’s neck and sigh with contentment. The risk paid off – and now we’re free. No more looking over our shoulders, no more waiting for Lennox to pounce and snatch St. Clair away from me or send us both to jail.

  There’s nothing standing in our way now. Our happily-ever-after can finally begin.

  “Where do you want to go now?” Charles asks, taking my hand as we stroll back to his car.

  “I don’t know…” I tease. “Didn’t you say something about the Caribbean?”

  EPILOGUE

  I feel like I must be dreaming.

  A sparkling turquoise sea fills my vision, swirling like paints on a living canvas I could watch for hours. White crests of waves crash gently on sugary smooth sand just a few feet in front of me, sending cool sprays of saltwater into the air, pleasantly misting my warm skin. If I couldn’t wiggle my toes and feel the soft sand between them, or smell the coconut scent of my tanning oil, I could easily believe I’d slipped into a fantasy.

  Especially when St. Clair, shirtless and sexy with his perfect abs and sculpted shoulders, appears at my elbow with a fruity drink complete with a tiny, festive umbrella.

  “Have I died and gone to heaven?” I ask him, running my fingers down his chest and tugging playfully at the waist of his swim trunks.

  His eyebrows shoot up. “It seemed like you went to heaven last night…” He bends his head to kiss my belly button above my bikini bottoms. Heat not at all related to the Jamaican sunshine rushes between my legs.

  “Mmm,” I say, pulling his face to meet mine. “I didn’t hear any complaints from you.” His luscious lips are salty from the air and sweet from the cocktails and he sinks into the kiss, leaning into my body, our sweaty skin sticking together as our mouths explore each other. I wonder if we’ll ever get tired of each other’s bodies, but I only want him more with every touch, every night of passion, and he seems to feel the same.

  St. Clair finally pulls away and inhales a deep breath.

  “Did I take your breath away?” I ask innocently.

  “Always,” he responds, kissing my hand. “Here, I have something to show you.”

  He pulls the London Times out from under his arm. There’s a story about Crawford’s arrest and trial. The picture shows Crawford, his face pinched with anger, being escorted by lawyers down the courthouse steps. The headline reads: Art Collector Turned Thief Found Guilty.

  “It’s over!” I let out a little squeal of delight and kiss St. Clair.

  St. Clair nods, smiling. “He’s going to prison. Just a couple of years, but it’ll teach him a lesson.”

  “And no one can come after us now.” I feel so relieved.

  “Yes. I can finally relax,” he agrees. He puts a strong hand, the hands I’ve come to love, on my bare knee and I feel a little spark. “I couldn’t have done this without you.” He looks into my eyes. “I never wanted to get to this point with anyone else.”

  St. Clair’s eyes are gleaming with a tempting glow; he’s up to something. Are we going to plan another adventure already? “What point, Charles? I’m not sure I’m ready for another…scheme just yet. ”

  He laughs, his dimples showing. “I just have one more ‘scheme,’ Grace, and I’ve been waiting my whole life for a woman who could pull it off with me.”

  My heart starts pounding as he moves from my lounge chair to kneel at my side. “I love you, Grace. You are the most amazing woman I have ever met; you make me feel like the best version of myself, and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to be my best self for you.”

  He pulls a little velvet box out from under the newspaper, and my heart clenches in anticipation. Butterflies swarm my stomach, but they are happy nerves and I wait, looking into the beautiful blue eyes of the man I adore. He opens the box and a small gasp escapes my lips. A huge glittering diamond, surrounded by two rings of smaller blue diamonds, winks at me in the bright light. “Grace Bennett, will you marry me?”

  I jump up and wrap my arms around his neck. “Yes!” I whisper.

  “Yes?” He pulls back to gaze in my eyes, and to me he looks like an optimistic little boy, giving me a glimpse of what our future might hold. The possibilities are as open as a blank canvas, just waiting for the first lines of color.

  “I love you so much, Charles.”

  He picks me up and spins me around, and I’m full of joy and faith and wonder at this life, at my life, at where I’ve ended up. I look at St. Clair, his blue eyes reflecting the same love and hope I feel in every fiber of my being, and I know, the adventure is just getting started.

  THE END

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  Hunter Knox comes straight up – with a side of trouble! Meet the bourbon heir making life complicated for ad girl Ally in BILLIONAIRE WITH A TWIST – Available now!

  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 me through his gaze alone. I felt my body heat up under his stare, my blood singing in anticipation at the offer his eyes were making. A smile began to stretch across his face, as if he could read the eager acceptance in mine.

  I looked away quickly. Research, Ally! I reminded myself. Not banging hot guys. Research is why you’re here tonight.

  I hurried away to the other side of the bar before I could give into temptation.

  The bartender—a wizened old guy with kind brown eyes and a face that looked like it had been there to meet Mark Twain—didn’t bat an eye when I told him what I was after, and after a brief chat with the waitress he got me a corner booth, tucked away behind a stuffed cougar that looked like
it had time-traveled directly from the print ads for a 1950s Boy’s Adventure magazine.

  Camouflage was definitely necessary; I’d overheard the Douchebros—and I promise I’ll go into more later as to why I even have a group of people in my life worthy of that title—bragging about how tanked they were going to get, and my plans for the night did not include fending off drunken advances, trying to tune out comments about the size of my ass respective to my brain, and counting how many times they could fit the word ‘bro’ into a single sentence.

  (So far, the record was seven.)

  My plans for the night, however, did include the next thing the waitress brought me: six different shots of bourbon, and a glass of water.

  And no, I’m not an alcoholic. This was research.

  Fun, delicious research, but research.

  Maybe I should back up a little bit. My name? It’s Ally. Allison Bartlett. I’m five foot four, have grey eyes, tolerate the straight brown hair that slides out of every ponytail I put it into, and frequently wear an anxious smile that I’m working hard to make not broadcast my ambition, desperation, and general worrywart nature. It’s an uphill battle.

  Anyway, I’m twenty-four, and I’ve been working at Geisel & Son Advertising in Washington, D.C. for two years now. I was an intern my senior year, and I lucked into an entry-level position opening up a month after I graduated. It’s full-time, benefits, the whole package. So I should be thanking my lucky stars, right?

  I sure would, if anyone at Geisel & Son ever managed to remember that I wasn’t the intern anymore.

  Time and again over the last two years, I’d heard my ideas shot down, only to turn around and see them accepted as brilliant when suggested by whichever man did the least possible amount of rephrasing. I’d been talked over in meetings, told to fetch coffee, and confused with the receptionist. And I think I might have been able to handle all that, if it had been coming solely from the old guard within the establishment. But no, more than half of it was coming from people barely older than me, who seemed to have watched too many episodes of Mad Men and taken all the worst bits to heart.

  So this was it. My possibly last big job, where I was going to try my hardest, stand up for myself and fight for my ideas, and give this advertising job one last chance before it ground me down into dust and I packed my bags and waved the sad white flag of surrender on my career dreams.

  In case you’re wondering how all of this has anything to do with my solo bourbon sampler party, our latest client was Knox bourbon.

  I decided to start and end with said bourbon, in order to better compare it to the others. I leaned over the first glass, parting my lips as I inhaled, both smelling and tasting the aroma of burnt caramel, old wood, and cinnamon. A promising start…I took a sip of the amber liquid, letting it roll slowly across my tongue as I memorized and savored the taste. It had a bold, spicy flavor thanks to the high rye content, with a hint of charred oak and honey, and a strong bite.

  I breathed out through my nose and mouth at the same time, and the flavor intensified until I swallowed. I smacked my lips in satisfaction as I set the glass back down. I generally drank a wheated bourbon rather than a rye, and I did miss that slight hint of sweet vanilla, but this wasn’t bad at all.

  Glass number two was a rye after my own heart, vanilla like the first lick of ice cream on a hot summer day, cool and refreshing, with a bit of biting heat like a miniature sun right after it washed down my throat. I took another sip of that one, in the interest of more fully appreciating that fine flavor. Maybe I was playing favorites a little, but who was going to tell?

  And here came number three. That distinctive flavor that said Kentucky, Bourbon County, that long tradition of Scots-Irish immigration. All the old ways carefully preserved and kept going: a hint of cedar, a touch of honey. A little rough around the edges, but in a way that soothed with its familiarity. I sighed, letting my eyes fall shut, the taste of the bourbon becoming my entire universe.

  “Ah, a lady who knows how to savor the good things in life.”

  I started, blushing, my eyes popping open and my hand nearly dropping the glass in dismay. Dammit, I’d wanted to be discreet! I hadn’t wanted anyone seeing me geek out like this, and now—

  I looked up, and my annoyance at being interrupted died on my lips as I let my bourbon take a rest, and drank in the sight of the interloper instead. It was the same man who’d caught my eye just minutes earlier. Of course. And here I was sighing and drooling shamelessly over an entire smorgasbord of booze. Damn but he was even tastier up close.

  Had he said something about the good things in life? Well, he would know, since he was definitely one of them. Golden-brown eyes like the sun shining through a tumbler of bourbon, freckles sun-kissing the bridge of his nose, and a chiseled jaw you could cut diamonds on. His auburn-gold hair was swept back from his forehead and his navy polo shirt clung to all the right places of his shoulders and chest. I bit my lip and resisted asking him to do a spin so I could check and see if those khaki pants clung in all the right places, too.

  Barely resisted.

  And that accent he spoke in, oh, it made me regret all the work I’d done to lose my own. A warm honey-slow drawl that drew attention to his lips and the way they quirked up at the corner.

  “I didn’t think it was good enough to stun you into silence,” he teased.

  I blushed and shot back, “I’m just trying to figure out what criteria led you to hone in on the girl with the highest alcohol content in the room. Your self-esteem that low?”

  I regretted the sarcastic remark the second it left my mouth. In high-stress situations, I tended to blurt out exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time; it was an adrenaline-fueled, involuntary, and very unfortunate defense mechanism of mine. One that got me into trouble more often than not.

  He only grinned, and sauntered closer. “As a matter of fact, I have extremely robust…self-esteem. Show you mine if you’ll show me yours?”

  “The hell kind of pick-up line is that?” I said, flummoxed by both his nonchalant demeanor and the sweet scent of masculinity radiating off his delicious body. Stop it Ally, I mentally scolded myself. You’re indignant. Be indignant!

  “I’ve got all kinds,” he promised. “Want something more traditional? I’ll give it a go: let me buy you a drink?”

  I gestured at the drinks already in front of me.

  “I think I’m covered,” I said wryly.

  “Then do you mind if I buy myself one and drink it here with you?” he asked.

  I considered. I was doing research here. Important research. Research that could change the very trajectory of my career and make all those dreams come true. I didn’t need any distractions.

  On the other hand, those shoulders. And those lips, mm-hmm. And truth be told, for all my defensive posturing, there wasn’t a damn thing about him that didn’t scream ‘charming’ and ‘good company’ and, most importantly, ‘eye candy.’

  My old science teacher did always say that it was important to have a research partner.

  “Well, it certainly would improve the view,” I said, relieved to have finally given myself permission to cozy up to this intriguing stranger.

  He grinned wider then, sliding into the booth opposite me, our legs bumping together slightly. Butterflies danced in my stomach. Damn, what was this, sixty seconds and I already had it this bad? Guys this hot should come with a warning label. Not that I’d stop to read it.

  Hottie McHotterson—also, damn, how had I not asked his name yet, was I really that far gone into the Lust Canyon?—flagged down the waitress, and ordered a Knox whiskey.

  I made a face.

  “Not a fan?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Of the whiskey? Sure,” I said. “It tastes great and gets the job done.”

  “What is it, then?” he asked. He seemed genuinely curious, and that made me open up. “What’s missing?”

  “Well, it’s just—” I gestured at the label. “Look at th
is packaging. Just the name stamped on there in an old-timey font, and the same barrel logo they’ve been using since B.F. Skinner first strolled up to an ad agency with some rats in a box and a lot of fancy promises. It does nothing to catch the eye.”

  “The label?” He raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

  “That’s hardly it!” I shot back. “Their whole branding approach is the same, stuck in the past! Print ads whose copy never changes, radio jingles with slang from the second World War, TV spots with the same Bob Hope lookalike every year—it doesn’t matter how good it tastes, it looks old-fashioned. Like something my grandpa would drink.”

  My mysterious visitor’s drink arrived, and he quirked a brow in amusement and raised his glass in a salute. “To your grandfather—a man of excellent taste.”

  I snorted, but raised my own glass to match his. As they clinked together, his fingers brushed against mine, and I felt a spark leap where our skin met. He must have felt it too—he started, looking up at me, and our eyes locked. His eyes were so deep, golden-brown like molasses swirled in honey, and they warmed me up inside with a heat like the sun, spreading out from my heart down to my toes, and up to my head until I was dizzy, my heart pounding. I wanted nothing more than to sink into those eyes. I wanted nothing more than to keep touching his fingers.

  I wanted nothing more than to invite him up to my room, then and there.

  Focus, Ally! You have a presentation tomorrow! No rando is worth throwing away your entire career for a roll in the hay.

  Maybe the whiskey was just getting to me.

  I pulled away hastily and downed my drink, all of it this time. This sample had more of a honey flavor, less of a bite. If I were writing copy I’d call it ‘soothing, charming, a genteel liquor.’ Since I wasn’t, though, I didn’t pull any punches. “The truth is, though, my grandfather and his friends aren’t the customers of the future. You see this same trend in advertising for comic books—the company panders to its original base—not even all of the original base but a small, vocal fraction of it—and alienates all of its potential new customers in the process.”