Never pick a fight with your boyfriend when you’re in the middle of stealing a Van Gogh. Because he might just decide you’re not worth a hundred million dollars and it’d be better for him to ditch your ass at the scene of the crime.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
“Elek, what the fuck?” I hissed, finding it difficult to hide my exasperation. “We’re in the middle of a job. Now’s not the time to start talking about what comes next.”
I bent back over the hundred-million-dollar painting lying on the floor in front of me, carefully running my gloved hand along the ragged edges of the canvas to smooth it before gently starting to tuck it into a roll. It felt almost sacrilegious rolling a painting as valuable as this into a tube, but it was the only way to practically transfer it.
“You won’t even consider it,” Elek continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “It’s an easy job. Security is minimal. We’d barely break a sweat.” He paced through the room as he talked, the beam of his flashlight sweeping in arcs across the floor.
My shoulders tightened, a rebuke on the tip of my tongue, but instead I closed my eyes and blew out a breath, trying to keep calm and focused. I hated distractions while I worked. Which Elek knew, but it never seemed to stop him.
I tried to tell him distractions made people sloppy. They got you caught. I should know—as an art history student, I’d taken an interest in art theft and forgeries which included quite a few stories of art thieves getting caught. I’d thought that perhaps it might lead me toward the FBI or working for an auction house or insurance company sniffing out fakes.
But then I’d met a charming older man and ended up on the other side of the equation.
Distractions.
“This should be obvious, yes,” he said.
He wasn’t going to let it drop, which meant the only way to end the conversation was to respond, “I just don’t see the point.”
He stopped his pacing and turned toward me. “It’s on the list,” he said evenly. “That’s the point.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Elek and his damned list. Over the years he’d compiled a wish list of items he wanted for his own personal collection. In the past he’d only stolen items on the list if the opportunity arose—like if he was on a job at the same location as one of the items on the list, he might make a detour to nick it. But recently he’d been planning jobs around the list itself, which seemed like a lot of risk to take just to steal something we couldn’t turn a profit on.
I shrugged. “It’s not a job I’m interested in.”
“Since when does your interest in a job matter?”
I rocked back on my heels and looked up at him. “Since I started thinking for myself.” I knew as soon as I said it that I shouldn’t have. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared as he drew in a sharp breath.
I held up a hand, hoping to placate him. “Look, let’s just get this finished, and then we can discuss it when we get home.”
Elek met my eyes for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Sure thing, macska.”
I turned back to the painting, starting to gently slide it into the tube. The next thing I knew, the light from Elek’s flashlight swung in a sharp arc, and then there was a loud crack followed by a bright explosion of pain radiating across the base of my skull.
My first thought was confusion.
My second was shock.
My third was that head wounds tended to bleed and I didn’t want to get blood on the canvas. I fell back away from the painting, landing on my hip. My entire head rang with pain, and I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting against it.
“Elek?” I asked.
I felt his hand, warm and reassuring, take mine. “Sorry, macska,” he said softly.
I was about to ask sorry for what when I felt something sharp and plastic tighten around my wrists.
My eyes flew open. “What the fuck?”
I was so disoriented by the pain that it took me a moment too long to understand what was going on. By then Elek had bound my hands and was dragging me toward the wall.
Instinct took over and I struggled against him, but that earned me a knee to the stomach. While I was doubled over, trying to catch my breath, he finished zip-tying me to the radiator.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
“This is the end of the road for us, kitten.” He didn’t even bother looking at me when he spoke. Instead he knelt over the painting, and I winced as he shoved it into the protective tube as if it were a boy band poster being sold on Black Friday at the mall.
My mind spun, not just from the pain but also the confusion. “I don’t understand. What happened?”
He stood, surveying the study with a critical eye, making sure no evidence of the break-in remained. Except for me of course.
Fuck. If I got caught in here… I fought against the zip ties, not caring that the sharp edges bit into my skin.
Elek’s gaze landed on me, and it was creepily devoid of emotion. “It seems our interests don’t align as well as they once did.”
I blinked at him. Was he fucking kidding me? “Is this about the job? I’ll do the damned job,” I shouted.
He shrugged, tucking the tube with the Van Gogh under his arm. “Too late. I don’t know when I let you get so much control. I don’t need this. I made you into the tool I needed, and I can do it again with someone less trouble. Maybe make them even better.”
Anger boiled inside me. I strained forward against the restraints. “Good luck,” I spat. “There is no one better than me.”
He lifted an eyebrow and grinned. “Any art thief not currently tied to a radiator at a crime scene would seem better, eh, macska?”
I growled low in my throat. I was going to throttle him the moment I got out of here.
If I got out of here.
Fuck.
My heart, which had already begun hammering harder than normal in my predicament, stuttered for half a beat before thundering so loudly, my ears whooshed with it. It was like a scene out of a movie—the one where the bad guy double-crosses his partner in crime. Only we weren’t just partners in crime, we were also partners in life.
Or so I’d thought.
“Elek,” I said, trying to keep my voice conciliatory. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Sorry, macska,” he said again, sounding about as sincere as a child apologizing for taking candy he shouldn’t have.
With that he turned and left. There was utter silence for a few moments, broken only by my strained breathing. I waited for him to turn back. To come cut me free.
Instead I heard the sound of breaking glass and a shrill alarm cut through the night. Emergency lights along the wall began to flash.
The motherfucker tripped the alarm. On purpose.
Which meant the police would be here in minutes.
I was seriously screwed.
I redoubled my efforts against the restraints. The plastic was slick now, probably from my blood, but I didn’t care. It was a small price to pay if it meant evading capture. They still weren’t budging. I was going to have to think of something else.
My head pounded, my nerves lit like live wires from adrenaline. The flashing lights and screaming alarm only made it worse. Panic threatened, but I held it at bay. It wasn’t my first rodeo—okay, heist—and, thanks to Elek, I’d spent the past three years earning a reputation as one of the most successful art thieves in modern times.
I could figure this out. I was not only quick on my feet, but well versed in high-level security systems. I was familiar with the layout of the interior minister’s house, I just hadn’t anticipated needing an exit plan that included getting out of plastic handcuffs.
I looked around, assessing my options. The empty study was still in the wee morning hours, and the wood paneling of the large room glowed honey brown in the flashing security lights. The thick picture frame in front of me housed a blank space as if the Van Gogh had never been there.
If I’d been wearing my normal gear, I’d have had pockets full of tools I could have used to free myself. But tonight I was dressed in the same slim black trousers, white button-down shirt, bow tie, and hipster framed eyeglasses I’d worn as a server earlier that evening at the cocktail reception held in the interior minister’s house before I’d hidden in a storage closet for hours until it was time to let Elek into the building for the heist.
Even a damn corkscrew could have come in handy right now. But my pockets were empty. Elek had promised I didn’t need anything since he’d bring it in when he came. In hindsight, believing his bullshit was a critical mistake. And without something to cut through the plastic, I wasn’t getting out of here.
My skin flushed hot, my mouth going dry. This couldn’t be happening. Elek couldn’t have done this to me. We were partners. We loved each other. We’d made plans for the future together.
It couldn’t have all been a lie on his end. No one can be that convincing.
“Elek,” I shouted to be heard over the alarm. “Please don’t do this.” I swallowed back the sour taste in my mouth at having to beg. “Please come back.”
His voice crackled through my earpiece, indicating the distance he was putting between us with his escape. “Sorry, kitten. You’ll be okay. Play dumb.”
I tried not to think of how familiar his voice was, how just the night before he’d murmured his Hungarian endearments into the back of my neck as pressed me into the sheets of the bed, holding my hands high above my head and resting his weight on me.
My stomach churned, anxiety reaching a fevered pitch. “Elek, dammit,” I ground out. If begging didn’t work, maybe threats would. “If I get caught, I’m sending them after you. I’ll make a deal, immunity for the real art thief.”
He had the fucking audacity to laugh. “No you won’t. Because you forget about the forgeries.”
Fuck. He was right.
My brain spun in a million different directions. Part of me wanted to replay every moment of the previous three years with Elek, dissecting whether or not he’d been lying to me this whole time. If any of it had been real. Could I have really been that naive and stupid?
Another part of me was desperately struggling to figure a way to get out of here. Some argument I could make, some object I could trade. Anything to make Elek come back for me.
And then there was a third part that was always curled up in the corner of my brain worrying about what my family would think and what I would ever say to them if word got out their beloved son, grandson, brother was the infamous art thief nicknamed Le Chaton—the man currently being hunted by Interpol, the FBI, and French National Police.
I couldn’t let any of that happen. I needed to get out of here. “Elek—” But I didn’t know what to say.
Was any of it real? Did you ever love me?
That’s what I wanted to ask. But the answer was pretty obvious given my current situation. However he may or may not have felt about me in the past, I meant nothing to him now. My eyelids slid shut, a burning at the back of my throat. His betrayal cut so sharply it was like a knife had been driven through my chest.
“You didn’t have to do this, Elek.” My voice cracked. “Whatever you wanted, I would have given it to you.”
There was a pause, and I strained to hear his reply under the cacophony of sirens and alarms. “I know, macska.” He let out a laugh. “Now you sound like my wife.”
“Wh-what?”
Nothing.
My mind exploded with questions. “What do you mean wife? What are you talking about?”
He couldn’t have a wife, I told myself. There was no way he could keep a secret that big from me. But then again, he’d just tied me to a radiator and left me to get busted by the cops, so it wasn’t like he was the most trustworthy man in the world.
But a wife? We lived together for fuck’s sake. How would that even be possible? Except then I remembered how much he traveled delivering the pieces we stole. And how adamant he was that he do it alone. I’d always assumed he wanted to keep his art underworld contacts to himself and I was happy to let him. Now I wondered if he could have been using those trips as a cover to sneak home to a second family.
“Dammit, Elek! Why are you doing this?” I cried through the comms unit again.
I waited for him to explain but was greeted with only static. He was either out of range or had decided he no longer had any interest in talking to me. I’d been dismissed.
That’s when it really sunk in. He’d actually left me behind. He wasn’t coming back.
I was on my own.
The sound of approaching sirens was like a shot of adrenaline to my heart. The police would be here any minute. My pulse kicked into overdrive, sweat beading along my forehead.
“Think, King, think,” I hissed at myself, pushing Elek’s taunt of having a wife from my mind. It was clear there was no escaping the zip ties which meant the police were definitely going to find me at the scene of the crime. From their point of view, there were only two possibilities to explain my presence: I was the criminal, or I was an innocent bystander.
My choice was pretty obvious. I did a quick mental check for any evidence they might find on me. The only actual incriminating items on my person were the earpiece and latex gloves I wore. Since the gloves were the same ones we’d used to load canapés onto the trays for the reception, I stripped them off and shoved them in a pants pocket, hoping I could explain them away easily enough. Thankfully, Elek had bound me to the radiator face-first which meant I could use my hands if I contorted myself against the restraints enough. The unforgiving plastic hurt like hell and cut into my skin as I fought to reach my pocket, but it was worth it to get rid of evidence.
The earwig also needed to be destroyed and hidden. I struggled to remove the little thing and crushed it with the heel of my shoe into as many tiny pieces as I could before scattering and crushing them deep into the pile of the Persian tribal rug nearby with the heel of my shoe.
I bent as best I could, trying to probe the base of my skull where Elek had struck me with his flashlight. I let out a hiss when my fingers found the knot, but there wasn’t as much blood as I expected. Damn.
Blood would be more convincing.
From the front of the house I heard banging and knocking. The police arriving. I was running out of time. My pulse spiked, my heart going into overdrive. This was my life on the line. If I couldn’t sell that I was innocent, I was screwed.
Holding my breath, I gritted my teeth and slammed my head forward as hard as I could against the solid metal of the radiator. Pain exploded in my cheekbone, radiating through my skull so intensely it sucked the breath out of my lungs and brought tears to my eyes. Within seconds, I felt the warm sticky trickle of blood and leaned my face down to my hands to feel the cut. Sure enough, faces bled like crazy. I ran bloody fingers through my hair and then pulled my knees up close to my chest and tucked my head against them, making myself appear as small as possible.
I was used to trying to calm myself, to pushing away panic and anxiety and fear. Now I had to embrace it. I closed my eyes, letting the full force of my emotions rise to the surface. Letting them overwhelm me to the point that it became difficult to breathe.
I was on the edge of a full-bore panic attack by the time I heard the first set of footsteps approaching.
“Don’t shoot!” I cried out in both English and French. “Il est parti par là!” With my hands tightly strapped to the radiator, I couldn’t point toward the exit Elek had used, but I could hitch my shoulder in that direction.
The Parisian gendarmes came in shouting instructions for me to put my hands where they could see them. When I didn’t do what they commanded, they shouted louder, more frantically.
“I can’t!” I yelled, yanking my wrists against the plastic ties.
Their voices blended with the blaring siren, creating a cacophony of chaos. I grew terrified they might think I was resisting arrest and become violent.
At that point it was easy for me to let go and allow my fear to take over.
I burst into tears.
“I’m innocent! I didn’t do this,” I repeated over and over in English and French like a desperate chant. “I swear. Please help me!”
Law enforcement officers buzzed around, making sure I wasn’t carrying any weapons but not really asking me any questions. They seemed more interested in clearing the building and staring at the gaping blank space where the Van Gogh used to be. By the time someone approached me who actually looked to be in charge, I was hoarse, bleeding, covered in snot, and worn-out.
Perfect.
Right as he reached me, the security system alarm cut off. The silence was deafening. For a moment everyone hesitated, the change so sudden and severe. Then the man spoke, and in the sudden quiet, every nuance and cadence of his gruff voice stood out.
“My name is Special Agent Falcon. I’m an FBI agent working with the global art crimes task force here in Paris.”
Oh shit.
I blinked up at him as the American accent hit me and the name sank in. I recognized it immediately. I’d read it in dozens of articles and heard it mentioned in the news and on the radio whenever a famous piece of art went missing. For the past few years he’d been hunting Le Chaton. Now he’d found him.
Now he’d found me.
I looked him over, sizing up my adversary. He sported a two-day beard made up of mostly pepper with a few sprinkles of salt. Despite the scruff, I recognized the square jaw and chin dimple from his many appearances in press conferences. He was taller than I expected, and wider through the shoulders, the rest of him trim and lean. His shirtsleeves were rolled up muscular forearms, and his striking gray-green eyes focused on me between furrowed brows. His hair was cut short like I’d expect of an FBI man.
In person, Agent Falcon was goddamned flipping gorgeous. I blinked and almost slipped out of my chosen role of panicked innocent victim to peruse the thickly muscled body looming over me.
He took in my appearance with a frown. “What happened here?”
I hiccuped. “I… I… Oh, you’re American, thank god. Y-you see… th-there were some men here and they… oh god, I think I’m going to be sick. I feel dizzy.”
My eyes fluttered closed, and a strong, warm hand landed in the middle of my back to hold me steady. “Get me some snips,” Agent Falcon barked at someone across the room.
He knelt on the floor next to me and pulled out an honest-to-god cotton handkerchief. I wanted to ask if he was a thousand years old, but the man was maybe in his late thirties, early forties tops. He put a finger under my chin and pressed the handkerchief to the cut on my cheekbone.
“Did you see who did this?” he murmured while working the cloth gently over the blood on my face.
I sniffled and blinked some more tears out, trying to appeal to his do-gooder protective side. The “doer of right and righter of wrongs” side. “They were wearing masks. Black ones and… they had on camo like… lots of pockets pants? What are those called?”
He glanced at me. “Cargo pants?”
“That’s it. Sorry, I’m just…” I flapped a hand and winced when the zip tie bit at my battered skin. “So fucking scared,” I admitted in a whisper. It wasn’t a lie.
I’d given up everything for the man who’d been able to walk away as easy as going out for groceries. I wondered what he would say when I got back to our apartment. If I got home.
Not only had he been the one to manipulate me into this life of crime, he’d also been the reason I’d pulled away from my family. The Wildes of Hobie, Texas, weren’t the kind of people who became global criminals. They didn’t take from people. They gave.
And now my long string of bad decisions was going to land me in prison.
Someone raced over with a multi-tool and handed it to Falcon. He nipped off the tie while telling the person to send in medical help. “We’ll get you fixed up, okay? And then I’ll need to ask you some questions.”
I sniffed again, rubbing my wrists. “Like what? I didn’t do anything.” I looked up at him in shock, trying like hell to project all my real-life terror into the innocent-victim act. “You don’t think I did this, do you? Oh god. My parents are going to kill me. They don’t even know I took this job.”
“What job?” Falcon asked, looking between me and the doorway in anticipation of an EMT maybe. He wasn’t fully listening.
“Building’s clear, sir,” someone said to him after announcing it in French to the rest of the first responders.
“Thanks,” Falcon murmured. His eyes returned to mine. “You were saying?”
I wiped at my eyes with the heel of a hand, deliberately mashing my injury and yelping in pain. “Oh god. Ow. Um… the catering. I worked with the… appetizers. You know… serving them on trays for the party? Someone at the art school said it was easy money and would get you around some really cool pieces you couldn’t see otherwise. But… if I’d known it was going to be… dangerous.” I looked down at my hands and sniffed again lightly, rubbing at my raw wrists. “My parents made me swear not to take a job outside of my work-study program,” I said under my breath. “When they find out…”
Falcon’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “Just take a deep breath, and we’ll get this sorted out. Here comes someone to take a look at your injuries. Hang tight.”
A medical first responder came bustling in with a kit and checked the knot on my head before cleaning the laceration on my cheek. Throughout her ministrations she asked me questions in French about what had happened. Knowing Agent Falcon was listening, I told her about the man who’d knocked me on the head, leaving me dazed and half-conscious and unable to resist when he’d forced me into the storage closet behind the kitchen toward the end of the party. I described him speaking a foreign language I didn’t understand and told her it sounded like maybe Russian. I explained how several hours had passed before he pulled me out of the room toward the study where I’d tried to get away. “That’s when he smacked me and I fell against the radiator. He tied me in place and just left me here.” It all happened so fast, I didn’t really see what was happening…
The woman tutted over me while she cleaned me up and used some kind of skin glue to close the wound on my face. When she was done with the bandages, she went to work on my wrists, cleaning and applying ointment to them before bandaging them too.
When she was done, I pulled my knees up again and buried my face in them to wait. I’m just a passive little wallflower victim here… so very scared, Officer Handsome.
“You need to come with me,” the now-familiar voice said. I lifted my head up to meet Falcon’s gaze, trying to make mine look as tired, scared, and innocent as possible. The agent’s eyes flared wide for a split second before his face returned to its formidable neutral position. “Let’s go.”
His gruff words didn’t fool me. I’d seen the momentary empathy in his stormy eyes. And all I needed was a spark of empathy to manipulate the guy. I was as good as freed already.
And already I’d started thinking ahead, to what came next.
Elek.
Just the thought of the name caused a tide of rage to rise inside me. Elek would rue the day he left me at the mercy of the FBI, Interpol, and the French police. He would regret walking away from me without a care in the fucking world. As if I’d meant nothing to him. As if I was nothing at all.
As soon as Falcon let me go, I was going to teach Elek Kemény a lesson.
By leaving me to be captured, he’d tried to take everything from me. I would return the favor in spades. Except I would find success where he had failed.
He’d underestimated Kingston Wilde. He’d taken advantage of me, used me, and cast me aside.
And he would pay.
NautiCal #8
1
Cal
My brother Kinghad tried to warn me about this. Well, not this specifically. Even King wouldn’t have anticipated me being shoved buck naked into a closet on a superyacht in the Caribbean.
“If you never listen to another word I ever say,” he’d said, “at least remember this: never trust a rich older man trying to get into your pants. They’re manipulators and users.”
If only he could see me now.
I looked down at myself with a sigh. At least there was a tiny sliver of light coming in under the closet door to illuminate my surroundings. The master closet was full of clothes, but none of them looked like they’d fit the showy style of the man who’d brought me here. Prescott Resnick was a pompous ass who’d probably popped his Izod collars when he was growing up in the 1980s. When I’d first seen him at the club in St. Mitz, he’d been wearing a yellow linen shirt unbuttoned about six spaces too many. I couldn’t blame him, really. The man had a nice body. If I had a body like that when I hit forty, I’d probably want to show it off too.
It had been the bartender’s whispered words in my ear that had finally lured me past the warning bells clanging in my head about the man.
“Says he owns the Worthington, and I heard she’s looking for a new chief mate.”
Suddenly, the preppy linen-clad peacock had been the possible ticket to a new job and an extension of my time in the Caribbean. If I could find an excuse to stay here a little longer, I wouldn’t have to return to Hobie and deal with facing my future now that all of my original plans had gone to shit.
We’d spent the rest of the night dancing, drinking, and eye-fucking. When he’d finally brought me back to the yacht, my heart had tripped in my chest. The Worthington was stunning. She was eighty-eight feet of pure perfection, custom-crafted by an English company called Sunseeker and probably worth at least fifteen million dollars. I’d already scoped her out after finishing up my last gig captaining a small catamaran for a family’s vacation. With the busy season ending, I’d been released from my job at the charter company and had been planning on flying home to Texas.
But the opportunity to stay a little longer as chief mate of the largest private yacht in port? Too good to pass up.
I wasn’t proud of myself for giving him a little more credit because of his yacht, but I also wasn’t going to forgo a night of hot sex with a fit older man in thousand-thread-count sheets when the alternative was the St. Mitz youth hostel with shared rooms and bonus cockroaches.
And the sex had been plenty hot. The man sucked dick like a champ, and if he’d slipped into referring to himself in the third person a bit there at the end, well, so be it. It wasn’t like I was marrying the guy. More like I needed him to consider hiring me or at least introduce me to his captain.
Before I’d had a chance to inquire about the position, however, we’d been awoken by happy chatter just outside the stateroom windows. Prescott had shot out of bed like a missile.
“Jesus fuck! It’s worth. Fuck, fuck,” he’d squawked.
“It’s worth what?” I’d mumbled, unsure of where I was and who he was. I’d rubbed my eyes and looked around at the lushly appointed room. Ah, the Worthington. I remember now.
“Hide! Fuck. Get in the closet!”
I’d blinked at him. Had I woken up on the set of a 1970s sitcom?
“Cal, get in the fucking closet. I’ll distract them and you’ll sneak off once we’re clear, okay? Now go.”
He’d scrambled to put his clothes on while I remembered mine were still on the top deck by the hot tub. Crap.
“Why am I going into the closet? And who’s on board without your permission?” He’d spent way too much time last night lamenting how hard it was to keep hangers-on away from his precious ship since it was such a standout in every marina it docked. It had gotten to the point I’d started to feel a little guilty about being one of the people he’d been complaining about, but then I’d quickly distracted him by stripping down and luring him into the hot tub on the top deck.
The voices had come closer, and this time they’d seemed like they were right outside the bedroom door.
Prescott had looked at me with panic in his eyes. “Ah… work, um, people. Clients! And they can’t know I have a… a…”
The handle on the stateroom door had jiggled, causing Pres to shove me hard into the closet and slam the door closed after me.
“Cheap fuck?” I muttered, feeling like gutter trash. I heard the snick of the stateroom door, and then Prescott’s voice was loud and commanding.
“Oh there you are. I was just making sure everything was in order before your arrival. I’m afraid the cleaning crew hasn’t gotten to the master suite just yet, so you might want to have a talk with the captain, I’m afraid.” His voice faded away until I heard the snick of the door again.
I let out a breath and reached for the handle to open the closet door. There was no handle. I pushed on the door. No movement whatsoever.
“Fuck.”
I moved my hands all around the edges looking for any way to open the closet door from the inside.
“I will not make a joke about being stuck in the closet,” I murmured, guessing at the time. Maybe it was around five in the afternoon. We’d stayed at the club till at least 2:00 a.m. and then had come back and raided the fridge in the galley before starting the sexfest. By the time we’d finally fallen asleep, the sun had been rising. Still, I felt completely out of sorts considering I’d been keeping sailor’s hours all summer.
My stomach let out a loud grumble. I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours. Fine. At least I’d gotten up an hour ago to pee. I couldn’t imagine Prescott appreciating my urine puddled in his fancy leather deck shoes.
As my eyes adjusted to the clothes around me, I began flicking through the hanging items to select something to put on. At least when Pres realized he’d locked me in here, I could confront him with my dignity intact.
The softest shirt I came to was a T-shirt that felt like it had been washed a million times. I couldn’t read the logo on it in the dark, but I figured at least it was old enough not to be anything too special. I slipped it on, noticing the fresh scent of the laundry detergent mixed with the faint traces of a Tom Ford cologne I recognized from a tuxedo I borrowed once from my brother-in-law Augie. That was expensive shit, way too rich for my blood. But it was sexy. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it on him the night before. He’d smelled more like rotten limes and cheap tequila.
I slid into a pair of uber-soft cotton lounge pants since they were the only thing I could find with a drawstring. At least I was comfortable. I pulled a thick bathrobe down and used it as a pillow to make myself a little nest after several bouts of banging on the door had only resulted in loud pop music being cranked up somewhere on board.
Stupid asshole. My brother was right. Older rich guys weren’t worth the trouble. I closed my eyes and wondered how long it would be before Prescott returned to his stateroom. If only I hadn’t left my phone in the shorts I’d tossed aside when I came on board, I could have at least been playing a game or catching up with my family.
Time passed like watching fresh paint peel on the side of a barn. The temperature climbed in the little space until the Tom Ford scent was intimately comingled with the Cal Wilde scent. At some point the engines began rumbling, and I reassured myself that while Prescott Resnick may have been a pompous ass, he didn’t seem like a felony kidnapper to me.
I was wrong.
“What the fuck?” I yelped when I felt the ship begin to move. The familiar sounds of the dock hands calling out and tossing ropes made it through the space under the closet door now that the music had been turned off. I banged on the door again and called out. “Hey! I’m stuck in here! Let me out!”
I racked my brain trying to remember the specs I’d read about the Sunseeker Ocean Club. If I wasn’t mistaken, the master closets were right underneath the bridge where the captain would be currently sitting if we were underway. So why the fuck couldn’t he hear me banging? Was the master suite soundproofed?
I thought back to the night before and couldn’t help but hope it was, if only so the crew didn’t lose respect for poor Prescott. He’d had a moment of begging and sobbing that hadn’t reflected well on his ability to command a ship. There’d also been an unfortunate moment where he’d wanted to role-play pirate and mate, and let’s just say the interlude had gone in a more… prisoner/warden direction.
“Fuck,” I said again for the millionth time. “Fucking asshole.”
The sex for sure hadn’t been worth it, and now it was looking less and less likely I’d even want a job working for this jackass. How could he not have realized my fucking clothes were still on board?
Suddenly, the closet door opened and an arm shot in to grab something.
“Ah!” I squawked, jerking out of the way of the claw.
“What the hell?” the man shouted back. It wasn’t Prescott. I could tell right away from the deeper voice and the dark arm hair this wasn’t the prissy blond I’d spent the last few hours plotting to murder.
“Thank fuck,” I said, shooting out of the closet and heaving in a big gulp of fresh air. It was blessedly cool in the dimly lit bedroom, and I was surprised to see the room was clean with all fresh linens on the bed as if I’d never been naked and coming all over the sheets. Had someone been in here cleaning while I was just on the other side of that damned closet door?
“Who are you?” the man demanded.
“Where’s Prescott?”
He blinked at me. My eyes adjusted to the light enough to make out his features. He wasn’t super tall, but he was certainly taller than my shrimpy self. He had wavy, dark hair sprinkled with a little salt at the temples, and his dark brows were furrowed as if confused about why a perfectly good closet would have spit out a semi-sweaty and cum-stained sailor.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
I mustered as much dignity as I could manage. “I’m a guest of the ship’s owner.”
He raised his brows in surprise. “Are you?”
“Yes. And I’m not sure he’d be happy with you sneaking around in his bedroom messing with his clothes.”
The man crossed his arms in front of his broad chest, his mouth turning down in a frown. “Hm. I think he’d be fine with it actually.” He squinted at my chest. “Wait. Are you wearing my shirt?”
Oh shit. Ohhhh shit. Was this guy married to Prescott? Had I just accidentally stowed away in someone’s marriage… closet?
“Um…” I looked around desperately, wondering if I could make a run for it. Were we still close enough to the marina for me to make it on a midnight swim?
The man took a step closer, and I instinctively took one backward. He was giving me distinct predator vibes, and not the sexy kind. More like the pressing charges on a Caribbean island kind. “What’s your name?”
“C-Cal…” I began. I was distracted by his piercing steel-blue eyes. I wondered if I’d find them this attractive when they glared at me across a jury box in court at my trespassing trial. “And yours?”
“Jonathan Worthington.”
Worthington.
My eyes flicked over to the small brass plaque over the stateroom door. The Worthington.
“Oh,” I said weakly, reaching out behind me for the closet door handle. I slid it open slowly, stepped back into the dark space, and slammed the door closed in front of me.
Forever Wilde in Aster Valley #9
1
Miller
“Take him down, mother… fudger!” Ginger Marian screamed at the giant television screen, loud enough for the Riggers players to hear her in Los Angeles.
I was starting to believe this special football-viewing room had been the key selling point to the Marians’ rental of Rockley Lodge in Aster Valley for the family reunion in the first place. Not only was it large and filled with comfortable leather recliners, but it was also decorated with priceless NFL memorabilia owned by Tiller Raine, the celebrity quarterback who apparently owned the lodge itself. And the acoustics were…
“Yeah!” Ginger’s shout echoed around the room, and she jumped to her feet to perform a kind of rhythmless bump-and-grind that made the baby girl in her arms—a baby I was almost positive didn’t belong to her and my cousin Pete—shriek with contagious laughter.“Tackle him! Eat dirt, Nelson Evangelista! Isn’t that right, Reenie?” she cooed at the baby, who laughed even harder.
“So I told him no,” Nico Wilde continued as Ginger and the baby kept dancing. “I refuse to ink any version of a spider, even if it is a cartoon one. That’s too creepy. Find someone else.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Ben muttered, absently rubbing his calf through his blue jeans. “Some spiders are sweet.”
Ben was my cousin Griffin’s biological brother, and I was pretty sure he was married to the tall guy named Reese, who was outside with some of the Wilde cousins. I knew for sure that Ben had a memorial tattoo of his daughter’s tarantula right at the spot he was rubbing, though, because he and the other guys had been showing off their ink the day before, and that experience had been seriously memorable.
It turned out I had a thing for guys with tatts. Who knew?
“Pfft,” Nico replied. “Your tattoo is the only exception and only because you’re my best friend’s baby bro. And… okay, maybe if Georgie wants her own one day, I’ll do it. But only because no one else is touching her virgin skin.”
The Marian and Wilde men sitting around him collectively shuddered at the idea of anyone even thinking about inking one of their precious, perfect babies.
It was kind of adorable.
“Holding!” Ginger shouted. “Blatantly holding! Come on. Is that ref sleeping? Jesus help us.”
Nico’s daughter climbed off his lap and walked over to Ginger to pat her knee with a chubby toddler hand. “Jesus can’t help,” she said, knowingly. “He’s a bad man.”
West choked on his beer and sputtered. “Pippa, baby, who told you that? That’s not true.”
Ginger lifted an eyebrow of accusation at West and Nico. “I thought Texans loved their Jesus.”
“They do,” Nico assured her. “I mean, we aren’t churchgoers ourselves, but we aren’t haters either. I don’t know where she got—”
Otto Wilde blurted, “Jesus fucking Christ, is this ref insane?”
Pippa nodded and shot a sympathetic glance at Ginger. “See, Auntie Ginge? Told you. Jesus is a bad man.”
Ginger bit her tongue to keep from laughing while West buried his face in his hands and Nico sighed.
“As I was saying,” Rebecca Marian said sweetly, pulling me back to her earlier conversation while ignoring the antics of her daughter-in-law and her… Huh. What relation were Nico and West to Rebecca, exactly? My brain throbbed just trying to piece together the complex relationships there. “You have to use the hand mixer because stirring it with the whisk doesn’t break up the clumps of sugar well enough. It will make the chocolate sauce lumpy.”
I nodded even though there was no way I’d retain any of this information.
My senses were completely overloaded, and I felt a horrible headache coming on, and that was before I even started processing all the emotional baggage of finding out that I was part of a huge family I hadn’t known existed. While I could tell the Marian and Wilde families were made up of very good people, and I knew just how lucky I’d been to learn I was related to them through that DNA registry last year, being in the midst of so many new faces and personalities was exhausting and overwhelming.
I was an only child of an only child sitting in a room overflowing with new-to-me cousins. There were at least twenty of them, and that didn’t even include their spouses or kids, my biological grandparents, grand… uncles, and all the various friends they’d brought with them on this holiday vacation to Colorado.
Not for the first time in the seven months since she died, I wished my mom was with me. It had been just the two of us for so long, but she would have thrived in a situation like this, and it felt strange enjoying it without her. Now, despite the crowd of loving family around me, I felt a little… lonely.
The idea behind the trip was very kind. The Wildes and Marians had wanted to meet up somewhere to get to know each other better and welcome me into the fold. Now that my mom was gone, this crazy crew was all I had left, and I barely knew them.
“We’re going to fix that,” my grandmother had said with a firm jaw and determined glint in her eye. Tilly—because god forbid I call her Grandma—was a force to be reckoned with. When she set her mind to something, it happened. And when she’d heard that I was planning to spend the first Christmas since my mom’s death alone, I’d practically seen the wheels turning in her brain.
Which was how I ended up sitting between all these gorgeous men with a bowl of popcorn in my lap and a life-sized cutout of a famous football player staring at me from the corner of the room.
“I’m not much of a cook,” I told Aunt Rebecca. “But I’ve always wanted to learn.”
She wasn’t technically my aunt, but I’d learned early on that the Wildes and Marians played fast and loose with familial endearments. I kind of liked it. I’d never had aunts or cousins, so it was fun to try it on for once. Trying it in a setting like this, though, was a bit like taking a toddler’s training wheels off and dropping him in the Tour de France.
She smiled and nodded. “It’s tough when you work as much as you do. You’ll need to make an effort to take some time out for yourself. Tilly said she worries about you. It’s one of the reasons she was desperate to go away instead of hosting the reunion in California. Not that I would have minded visiting you down in Monterey. It’s so beautiful there.”
I ignored for a moment the strange concept of Tilly worrying about me. Rebecca was right about my work schedule, and it wasn’t the first time someone in the family had mentioned it. There had been several special occasions the Marians had invited me up to San Francisco or Napa for that I’d had to decline because of a work commitment.
I hadn’t realized that being the marketing director for a regional orthodontics chain would require such long hours, but I’d been wrong. The only reason I’d been able to take time off for this trip was because I’d appealed to my bosses’ old-fashioned sense of family obligation.
But the overworking I’d been doing lately was also due to my need to take on some side projects to pay off debt my mom had left behind. The extra work was definitely a contributing factor to my stress levels peaking right now. I’d come into this trip to Aster Valley already exhausted and overwhelmed, so being among this many new people put me over the edge.
“I think I’m going to turn in early,” I said to Rebecca. “Unlesss…” I glanced over at a card table in the corner of the room, where my grandmother was playing cards with Harold, Irene, and Granny. “Unless you think that might upset Tilly? I don’t want her to think I’m avoiding everyone or being antisocial.”
Rebecca’s expression softened, and she leaned over to pat my arm. “She’ll understand. Everyone had a long day of travel to get here. Don’t forget, she and the girls came yesterday with Dante and AJ and stayed at AJ’s parents’ house. I’m sure that’s the only reason she’s still up. If she’d traveled today with the rest of us, she’d probably be heading to bed early, too.”
I thanked her and stood up, hoping to sneak out of the room as if I was just wandering to the men’s room. The last thing I wanted to do was bring attention to myself, especially since I seemed to be the first adult to call it quits.
As I headed toward the door, though, laughter broke out in the corner of the room, and my eyes strayed toward the card table again.
I’d only known my grandmother for a year or so, and I still didn’t know what to make of her. Sometimes when she smiled or lifted her eyebrow in a snarky way, she looked so much like my mother that I couldn’t help but love her. Other times, though, my feelings were… more complicated.
We’d done the ancestry DNA test because one of my mom’s bucket list wishes after learning of her terminal lung disease had been to find her birth parents. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to happen when we’d gotten our DNA matches, but I definitely hadn’t been prepared to have Tilly ignore my mom’s attempts to reach out for weeks and weeks.
When she’d finally come around, which had only happened after I’d tracked down Grandpa Wilde and he’d convinced her, Tilly had explained to my mother and me the whole story of how she’d come to put my mother up for adoption. Hearing about her unplanned pregnancy at age eighteen by a young Harold Cannon—long before he’d become a senator and fathered a United States president—and how her family had sent her off to a home for unwed mothers and taken her choices away, it was hard to resent her for any of the decisions she’d made in the past.
But seeing the strong, confident woman she was now, a woman with plenty of financial resources, a loving family, and even a second-chance romance with Harold, it was hard to understand why she’d hesitated to get to know her dying daughter. Why she’d wasted months she could have had with my mom.
She’s trying to make up for it now, I reminded myself. That’s why you’re here. And I was going to try to let my resentment go, too. My mom would want that.
I stopped at the card table to kiss Tilly on the cheek. “I’m heading to bed. Can I get you anything before I go?” I said in a low voice.
“If he’s slipping you the ace of spades, I’m calling bullshit,” Granny snapped. “Son, step away from the table right now and show me your hands.”
I stepped back and turned my hands back and forth like I was a dealer in Vegas. “All clear. Promise.”
“Mpfh,” Granny mumbled before frowning back at her hand.
“Besides,” I added, pretending to sneak a peek at Granny’s cards, “How could I slip it to her when it’s already in your hand?”
Irene tittered, and Granny let out a squawk of indignation until she realized I was teasing.
After Tilly laughed and shot me a wink, and my grandfather gave me an approving smile and a handshake, I left the room feeling a little happier. It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable with the Marians. Not at all. In fact, it was impossible to feel uncomfortable with people so kind and welcoming. I’d been around them in smaller groups several times since being reunited with my mother’s biological family, and I liked them a lot. It was the sheer quantity of people in the same place all talking over each other and demanding each other’s attention that got to me.
I did better one-on-one.
The large lodge was quieter outside of the TV room. I made my way upstairs to the main level, where I could hear the clink of dishes coming from the kitchen. I poked my head in and saw our host, Mikey, hard at work washing dishes.
“Can I help?” I offered, moving over to the counter where a dry towel lay next to a stack of wet plates.
“No need. You’re our guest here. I usually have help with this part, but the young lady we hired to help us out has a bad cold, and I don’t mind stepping in. Besides, it keeps me from worrying about Tiller while he’s playing.”
“Tiller’s your husband, right? The football player?” I asked, grabbing the towel and a plate despite his protests. I loved feeling useful.
Mikey brightened. He was a cute guy with a friendly demeanor and had been very welcoming to all of us so far. “Fiancé. He plays for the Houston Riggers. They’re in Los Angeles for a game tonight. He’s recovering from a hamstring strain, and I know he’s probably fine, but it’s better for me to stay busy and away from the television until I get the all clear. I can watch the game after I know he came through it okay.”
“Ginger—my, um… cousin—is a football fanatic. I think she would actually faint if she saw him in person.”
He chuckled. “Then we’ll have to keep an eye on her when he gets here tomorrow. They have a bye week this coming week, so he’ll be able to come spend a few days here.”
I joined him in his laughter. “Oh my god, she’s going to flip. My grandmother and her friends will probably flirt with him. They’re incorrigible.”
“I don’t mind as long as everyone knows he’s mine at the end of the day,” he said with the same quiet confidence my cousins had when talking about their relationships. For the briefest moment, I let myself imagine what that would feel like to have someone like that in my life.
“What about you? Are you dating anyone?”
Reality came crashing back. I shook my head and reached for another plate. “I don’t have much time for dating. My job is demanding and—” I hesitated. I usually didn’t share too much about my personal life with people I didn’t know well, but Mikey had been nothing but kind, so I continued. “My mom was sick for a long while, and I was helping to take care of her. She passed away over the summer.”
“Ah, man. That sucks. I’m sorry for your loss.” Mikey gave me a look of genuine sympathy.
“Thanks. I do sometimes wish I had time for dating. But don’t tell anyone in my family I said that. They’re notorious matchmakers, and the last thing I need is to be set up by my fifty closest family members.”
After I stacked the dry plate, Mikey handed me another. “My family is the opposite. They weren’t very supportive about my being gay, so their idea of setting me up involved lots and lots of women.”
I groaned. “I’m sorry.”
He grinned. “It was fine, actually. I made quite a few good friends that way. Besides, I think if I’d still been single when I moved to Aster Valley, it would have been worse. My friends here are just as bad, and they’re mostly gay guys. I’m not sure which is worse.”
“Is there a good community here?” I asked, mostly just to make conversation. I was enjoying his easy company and the coziness of the kitchen.
“Really good,” he said sincerely. “A gay couple owns the local diner, and they latched onto us right away. Introduced us to a ton of other guys. We have a pretty good group now. I’m sure you’ll meet most of them this week while you’re here. A few of them promised to help us decorate the lodge for Christmas. Our friend Truman has been making homemade garlands for the mantels and bannisters, and his partner, Sam, has a crew of guys coming to put lights on the lodge. He’s in charge of all the facilities and physical operations of our ski resort. And Tiller’s friend Julian will be in town through the holidays, too.” A worried expression flickered over his face before his sweet smile reappeared.
“And that’s… a problem?” I guessed.
“What? Oh, no. Not at all. I love Julian. He’s a wonderful guy and a brilliant attorney. He’s just been a little…” Mikey hesitated. “Unlucky in the love department. Hey, are you sure you’re anti-matchmaking? Because I wonder if—”
“I’m positive,” I assured him quickly. I had enough to handle keeping up with my work, getting my debts paid off, and navigating my way through my new family. Romance, even with a brilliant attorney, was not on my to-do list.
We talked a little more about the ski resort they were opening in another month, and I learned they were deliberately keeping it low-key for the first season in hopes of ramping up slowly and preparing for a larger launch the following winter. Mikey was easy to talk to, and before I headed off toward my room in the south wing of the lodge, he made sure I knew he was available to talk to anytime.
“I know what it’s like to feel like the odd man out,” he said softly. “Even though I can tell from the looks on everyone’s faces downstairs they adore you.”
“Did someone tell you my story?” I asked. I didn’t mind—it wasn’t like my mom’s adoption and my recent inclusion in this large, extended family was a secret. But I was surprised since we hadn’t been here a full day yet.
Mikey turned off the sink and turned to me, reaching for the towel in my hands so he could dry his own. “Your grandmother told me a little bit about it. She was worried about you. Said she wanted to make sure you felt welcome and had some space to yourself to get away from the noise.”
I smiled. “Tilly’s not afraid to share her opinions, but she can also be very kind and thoughtful,” I said. It was one of the things that made my feelings toward her so complex. “But… yeah. It’s a little overwhelming. I mean… I’m really glad to be here, but it’s very different from what I’m used to.”
“I think it’s cool that you found your mom’s biological parents like that. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to realize you came from a giant family of…” He stopped and blushed.
“Influential politicians? Talented musicians? Actual royalty? Mostly gorgeous gay men?” I suggested with a smirk.
“Yes, that one.” He blew out a breath and clapped a hand over his heart. “Holy cow. I think Tiller is going to freak out when he realizes I’ve been hosting the cast of Magic Mike while he was away.”
I laughed. “To be fair, he gets to be in the locker room with dozens of pro football players.”
Mikey swatted my leg with the towel. “Hush. I don’t want to think about it.”
“Don’t you, though?” I teased.
Mikey stepped over to the large double fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. When he handed it to me, he thanked me for the help with the dishes.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” he said. “If you need any help settling in, please let me know.”
“If you need any help while your assistant is sick and Tiller’s away, please let me know. I’d love a chance to be helpful, especially if it gives me a break from the crowd.”
He nodded and thanked me before sending me off to my room. After spending several hours trying and failing to fall asleep, I finally fell into a fitful slumber for a little while. I awoke before six in the morning and stumbled out to the kitchen in search of coffee.
Mikey was already up and looking as bleary-eyed as I was.
“Is your offer to help still valid?” he asked.
“After I get this cup of coffee down, it sure is.”
With the address to the local bakery programmed into my phone and the keys to Mikey’s SUV in my hands, I made my way out into the frigid December morning to pick up the special order of breads and pastries Mikey had ordered for breakfast. I loved driving down to the valley as the earliest bands of warm pink sunlight washed across the tips of the mountains on the other side of Aster Valley.
This part of the Colorado Rocky Mountains was beautiful, and the town itself was quaint and quirky, with unique shops and restaurants making up the small downtown area. I found a parking spot on a side street and walked up the shoveled sidewalk to the bakery. A large plate-glass window revealed the baker himself kneading a giant blob of dough on a well-worn wooden table in the back of the shop.
Something about the sight stopped me in my tracks and caused me to watch him a little longer than I should have. A little longer than was probably polite. Maybe it was the rhythm of his movements or the fact he seemed to be talking to himself. Maybe it was the way he fit the landscape—solid as the mountains, warm as sunlight, simple and magnificent at the same time. Maybe it was the way his big hands kneaded the dough with such total competence that shivers danced up my spine. Whatever it was, I couldn’t look away.
After standing still a few moments, I realized he was singing. He had headphones on and nodded his head to a silent beat. The man’s face broke into a wide, white grin as his hips began to sway, and his whole body moved with the music as he went about his work.
The baker had a messy brown bun on top of his head and a short beard with dark brown eyebrows over an expressive face. I wondered idly if he had dimples I couldn’t see from this far away. His smile was breathtaking.
He looked to be around my age, mid-to-late thirties, but it was hard to tell through the window. He wore a denim button-down shirt under a beige apron sprinkled with flour. The rest of him was hidden by the table.
I couldn’t stop watching him. I felt like a kid outside of a candy store with sticky hands pressed to the glass and big eyes filled with want.
I liked to think I was a fairly practical sort of person, a person who made the best of what he could have and didn’t spend his time yearning for things he couldn’t, but the baker had me captivated.
This one, a voice in my head whispered as I watched the baker’s biceps bunch and flex under his shirt. Yes, please.
“You have to try the melomakarona,” a woman said from behind me, startling me out of my weird, lusty fantasy. “I can’t believe this place hasn’t been overrun with people clamoring for it. It’s only a matter of time. Or… it would be if they’d do a little advertising or start a mail-order business for them. The only other place I know of that had Greek treats as good as these was a bakery I went to once in Chicago when I was in college. That place had people lined up around the corner this time of year, just to get the melomakarona.”
I turned to face the stranger, finding it harder to look away from my baker—the baker, I silently corrected myself. The baker, who was in no way mine—than I could have imagined. The woman was bundled in a puffy purple jacket with a gray wool hat over blonde hair and had a baby strapped to her chest. She smiled at me way too brightly for this hour of the morning.
“What’s melomakarona?” I asked politely.
“It’s a Greek Christmas cookie made out of honey, walnuts, and orange juice. You have to try it. Come on,” she said, grabbing my elbow. “I’ll get you one.”
I couldn’t help but laugh when I realized I’d left my own meddling family just to find myself being woman-handled and managed by someone else’s, but I was more than willing to go along with any scenario that got me closer to my—the—baker. “Okay, if you insist. I hope they have good coffee, too.”
“Definitely. And they also do an incredible kourabiethes cookie that melts in your mouth. The only reason I let myself come here so often is because I’m nursing. Surely that earns me some extra calories to spend at the bakery, right?” She continued her friendly chatter as she led me around the corner to the front door.
When we entered, I immediately felt at home. The warm space was extra cozy with an old brick fireplace in one corner and deep, comfortable-looking sofas and chairs clustered around it. Holiday music played softly from hidden speakers, and it was noticeably different from whatever up-tempo beat the baker himself had been playing in his headphones. The air was fragrant with sweet cinnamon and a dozen other spices I couldn’t name but wished I could.
A young woman smiled from behind the counter. “You’re up early, Tessa. Is Hoss teething again?”
The lady who’d brought me into the shop groaned. “The baby’s name is Conley, dammit, Hannah,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t listen to his Uncle Declan. And yes, he’s teething, so he’s been up for hours. It was a good excuse to come grab what I wanted before the crowds turn up and take all the good stuff.”
I had no problem believing that they’d sell out quickly, considering how tempting the pastries looked and smelled. But I was still focused on something far more tempting than sweets.
While the young lady behind the counter began filling a bakery box, I moved to the side to try and catch a peek through the arched doorway into the back of the bakery.
I could hear the clank of metal sheet pans, and I spotted a glimpse of the baker’s denim sleeve rolled up over his thick forearm. His thick, tattooed forearm.
Oh, man. Tattoos, too? Hngh. My palms went sweaty, and I had to swallow past a lump in my throat. I was a sucker for a man with ink.
I tried to tell myself firmly that this baker was none of my business. That I didn’t know a thing about this man. That I was a tourist, for heaven’s sake, and I was already dealing with a ridiculous number of new people in my life on top of all my work stress at home. But none of it seemed to matter. Something about this total stranger called to me, and I was dying to get a closer glimpse of him.
