Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JAKE

One second she's walking away from me, the next she practically flings herself at me.

Fuck me.

This woman is a menace.

A sexy menace. A hellcat.

But I'm not about to listen to the appreciative voice in my head—my dumb impulses are what got me here to begin with.

If I hadn't gotten loaded and brought Chloe— Cleo home, then she wouldn't have seen the necklace. If she hadn't seen the necklace, she wouldn't have hired someone to steal it. If she hadn't called up Elaine and asked to be part of her sour grapes project, then I wouldn't be in this fix.

I don't even know why I'm so intent on getting the real replica back. She knows about it now, so I couldn't leave it in the display case even if I had it. And all the lies that have spilled out of me over the last five minutes have given Jake Jeffries an even shorter shelf life. How long will it be before she tells someone else about the replica necklace?

All it would take is a word to Anthony…

Then there's another consideration: when the necklace disappears now, Elaine will know exactly who took it. No amount of playing with baby goats is going to make me above suspicion.

This needs to end tonight. You need to scrub Jake Jeffries from existence and lie low for a while. Ryan too, once he's released.

Everything in me is focused on that goal. Well, almost everything…

Because I still notice Elaine, huddled up next to me, her soft arm brushing mine as she uses the bushes for concealment, her eyes bright as she watches for whoever might be beyond them—catching the patches of color and making a person out of them.

Hellcat , my mind repeats.

Shameless about it too. She knows I know she's spying, yet it's not stopping her.

A voice speaks up, announcing that one of the flashes of white beyond the bushes is Nina. "This wasn't part of our agreement," she says, sounding pissed. It's nothing like the saccharine sweet voice she used earlier. This, I'm guessing, is the real Nina.

"Are you having second thoughts?" Anthony asks, identifying himself as the other blur.

Both of them pause a few feet beyond us, on the other side of that wall of green. I feel Elaine's skin against me—soft, hot—I hear her breathing hitch. I'm guessing she's excited to be listening in. From what I've gathered, she enjoys being naughty—pretending to be someone she's not, listening in on people who don't know she's there. Taking things that aren't hers, so long as she thinks she's doing it for justice. Getting pinned to walls…

My dick enjoys the thought.

"Are you ?" Nina presses.

There's a thirty second pause, which is probably longer than a man in love would wait. Then he says, "Of course not." He swears under his breath and takes her hand—or at least that's how I interpret the glimpses I get between the leaves. "Of course not. Let's get everyone inside so we can get this fucking nightmare over with. But I'm telling you right now, I'm flipping a few breakers before the slideshow. Give us an early night. No way do I want to pretend to reminisce over my childhood."

My heart starts racing, and I fight the urge to grin.

This is a lucky break. Beyond lucky. Not lucky enough to erase the whole mess with Elaine, but success is the only thing that matters.

If Anthony shuts the electricity off, then I won't have to assume the risk of doing it myself. I just have to be ready to react when it happens—to take the necklace and get out, and then go scorched earth on my Jake Jeffries identity.

Nina laughs and then says, "I asked for this ridiculous engagement party for you , you know. It's important for you to be seen as the heir to this estate. You can't let your mother run the show forever. That's why we need to have the wedding here too."

"Sure, yeah," Anthony says. "I know. My friend Jake's going to talk to her."

"You expect him to resolve this? You've only known him for three weeks."

"He's a good guy," he replies, defensive.

"We'll see about that."

If I were really his buddy, I'd tell him to run.

They walk off, and Elaine turns to me. Something flickers in her gaze. Then she swallows, and I can practically see her hardening herself. It would be fascinating if I weren't worried about what she's going to say next.

Studying me and finding me wanting, she says, "Why didn't you announce yourself since you two are such good friends?"

"Jesus, you weren't lying. You really do have trust issues."

Hurt flickers in her eyes, surprising me and making me feel bad for half a second. Then I remind myself that she took my necklace, with almost zero remorse. She's the one person who can absolutely wreck everything for both Ryan and me.

"You don't talk like any therapist I've ever met," she says pointedly.

"And you don't seem like much of a personal assistant."

Her eyes narrow. Shit, this isn't going well.

"I was giving them a moment alone," I say, trying to appease her. "I know Anthony's mother's resistance to the engagement has been a source of stress. He asked me to help smooth things over. You heard him say that." I cut off the for fuck's sake.

She tips her head up toward me, her expression defiant, and despite everything, I feel my body reacting to her. I only had a little taste of her, but I remember the needy way she ground against me, the pull of her teeth on my lip. And even though it was mostly an act, my ego wants to believe it wasn't all an act. I want to believe she felt the bizarre electric pull between us as much as I did.

She leans in toward me, maybe to intimidate me, but all it does is light a fire under my skin. "Three weeks isn't a very long time to know someone."

I laugh bitterly, leaning in too. I tell myself it's because two can play that game—not because I feel an unhinged need to be closer. "It took me less than three hours to know I wanted to stay away from you."

"Is this what you call staying away from someone?" she asks, lifting her eyebrows. Her voice is breathy, contemptuous.

Hot.

Her lips are inches from mine.

Stand down, stand down. Ryan's life might depend on it.

I gulp down air, then take a step back. I stop being an idiot, temporarily. "I'll see you at dinner, Elaine . Will you be serving me lobster?"

"No," she says with a feline smile. "But my friend Rosie will be. The one with the purple streak in her hair. She'll make sure your food is extra delicious."

And, because it's obvious this conversation isn't going anywhere good for me, I step away from her.

The seven-course dinner might as well have been pulled from a kids' menu at a two-star restaurant.

Most of the guests seem confused.

Anthony looks like he's going to blow an eye vessel, but then again he's sitting between his mother and his fiancée. He has a few friends here, but none of them have tried to intervene. One of them, a blond guy, looks noticeably amused by the whole thing.

The food looks pretty good to me, actually, and my stomach grumbles in complaint, but I'm not going to eat any of it. Because the woman with the purple streak in her hair served it to me, and when she caught me studying her, she winked.

"Not to your taste either, young man?" Mrs. Rosings says, from across the table. The "either" is because Nina hasn't eaten anything except for a piece of parsley that came as garnish—something she did dramatically, as if hoping every eye in the room would watch her lift it to her lips.

Anthony perks up, like he thinks I'm going to solve his life for him.

Honestly, and I'm not saying this to be a dick, but this guy needs a real therapist. Maybe I'll leave a note telling him so after I blow town with his mother's multimillion-dollar necklace.

"The food looks great," I tell her with a smile. "But I'm on a cleanse."

She makes a sound that suggests she thinks as much of people who do cleanses as she does Red Lobster waitresses. "What a delight. Why don't you tell us all about it?"

I make up a bunch of shit about resetting the limbic system with a diet of leafy greens, kale shakes, and protein powder. Half the table seems bored to tears; Elaine's friend looks like she's barely bothering to hold back laughter; and Anthony looks relieved that neither his fiancée nor his mother are currently talking to him. So at least I'm staying on his good side.

My eyes are on the clock over the door, ticking away the minutes before the "games." Will Anthony flip the breakers then, or after the start of the slideshow? How much time should I give him before I resort to doing it myself?

Truthfully, I'd prefer to miss the "games"—Elaine and her friend are both probably watching me, even though I haven't seen a glimpse of the former since our talk in the bushes. But I should try to mold my plan to Anthony's.

When dessert—individual cups of dirt and worms pudding—is cleared away, Mrs. Rosings claps her hands and gets to her feet. Elaine, who was apparently waiting for her summons, returns to the room from who-knows-where. She's carrying what looks like a custom-made wooden prize wheel. It's double-sided, so even though Mrs. Rosings is sitting across from me, I can see the different options.

Tag

Charades

Truth or dare?

Duck, duck, goose

Hide and seek

There's tittering laughter from the other guests, but Mrs. Rosings has a cunning look on her face that makes me feel like we're the group of people at the beginning of a horror movie in which almost everyone gets slaughtered. Something tells me Elaine Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Is would be the final girl.

"The moment of truth, my friends," Mrs. Rosings says, glancing at Anthony, whose jaw is so tight he's probably going to need dental work after this evening. Then she puts a little muscle into her arm and gets the wheel turning. I watch as the wheel slows.

For a moment it looks like thirty adults will be playing duck, duck, goose , but then the stylus clicks over to hide and seek .

A feeling of anticipation fills my gut, especially when I see Anthony give his fiancée a significant look, followed by a slight nod. He's going to cut the power now, before the slideshow. That means I'm about to make my move.

There's nowhere to hide in the drawing room. No closets, no human-sized ottomans. Just a table with chairs, pushed to the side for this event, a couch with legs and no fabric concealing the floor beneath it, a few armchairs that equally lack cover, and those display cases, of course.

No one with any sense will try to hide there.

Admittedly, I'm not getting a very sensible vibe from this crew, but I'm pretty desperate to finish my mission and get out of here. It's a go.

I feel eyes boring into me, and my gaze flicks up from the wheel to Elaine, standing behind Mrs. Rosings. Her friend is gone, probably back in the kitchen.

There's a scowl on Elaine's face as she watches me, her eyes that honeyed whiskey color, her lips lush and cherry red. I don't usually get off on women disliking me, but that look incites something in me. It makes me want to hear her scream my name.

I'll bet she's not the kind of woman who loses control often—not because she's type A but because she's tough as hell. I'd like to know what made her that way, but like so many of the people whose lives I've brushed against but never really touched, she'll have to stay a mystery. It's a bittersweet thought I don't have time to chew on right now…although something tells me it'll keep me up in the weeks and months to come.

Jobs do that sometimes.

They raise questions that'll never be answered, make you like people you're going to have to fuck over. Make you wonder what would have happened if everything were different.

There's a reason I turned away from this life before Ryan went and pulled me back in.

"Well, how fun," Mrs. Rosings says with a tight smile. "You'll have five minutes to hide, and then Anthony and Nina will come find you. The only place that's off limits to you is Adrien's old study."

God bless Mrs. Rosings. I'm guessing she just made all of us want to go in there, myself included, but I won't be giving in to temptation. I have to follow Anthony down to the basement to make sure he flips all of the breakers—especially the one connected to the drawing room—then I need to hustle up, grab the necklace, and disappear into the night.

Forever.

Roark will let Ryan go, and after this fuckup, I'm ready to move on from what my brother did to me last year. Maybe I can convince him to go legit with me. This whole mess can be left behind in our dust.

The only part of that scenario that disappoints me is that I won't be able to see the look on Elaine's face when she discovers I took the necklace.

Something tells me this is the one time a woman won't get off on being right.