He stops short when he sees me. “Grace? What are you doing here?”
I take in his black pants and black turtleneck- clothes made to disappear in the dark. The expression on his face is grim. “I could ask you the same thing.”
He shifts on his feet and glances back nervously and I notice what he has tucked under his arm: a carrier tube. Just like the kind you would use to transport a painting without a frame.
I feel a chill spread down my spine.
St. Clair. In a dark alley. With a painting.
My mouth goes dry. It doesn’t get clearer than this.
St. Clair follows my gaze.
“This isn’t what you think it is,” he says.
Suddenly, alarms sound from down the street, the shrill sound reverberating through the night. The gallery. We both turn our heads as a light flips on above us in someone’s apartment.
St. Clair grabs my hand. “We have to get out of here.”
I pull away. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!”
“We don’t have time!”
More lights turn on above us as the sirens continue their shrieking.
“You better explain fast, then.” Hot tears are burning behind my eyes but I refuse to let them fall. “Because if this is what I think it is, then you’ve been lying to me all along.”
St. Clair comes toward me, his face creased with worry but still agonizingly beautiful, his features exaggerated by the shadows and looking more statuesque than ever. My heart is pounding with hurt and fear, and the alarm bells are piercing, but he reaches his hand out to me and I have to fight hard not to take it. “I’ll tell you everything, Grace, I swear, I’ll explain. But we have to leave right now, it’s not safe.”
I waver, torn. I need an explanation. I need to know he hasn’t taken me for a fool. Because right now, everything feels like a fraud: my dream new job, this incredible opportunity, everything we’ve shared up until this point...
The love of my life.
“Please,” St. Clair whispers, his gaze darting around intensely before returning to meet mine. “Just ask yourself one thing. Do you trust me?”
TO BE CONTINUED …
What happens next? Grace and St. Clair’s whirlwind romance continues in THE ART OF STEALING FOREVER - Available October 28, 2015
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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.