Billionaires Prefer Blondes (19 page)

Rick, though, operated differently. She’d seen him do business, and he could at a moment’s notice turn into a Great White shark, filleting every opponent within reach. But he also stuck his neck way, way out for her, and he’d done so on more than one occasion. It usually turned out well for both of them, or it had so far, but that seemed to be as much a matter of luck as anything else.

A car pulled up behind her as she hefted her backpack and headed for the front steps. She didn’t look around, but she shifted her grip on the heavy pack. It would make quite a dent in somebody’s head, if that turned out to be necessary.

“Sam.”

Even with that one syllable she recognized the voice. Veittsreig. Of course he wouldn’t call to set up a meeting when he could just drive by and grab her. So much for leaving a note for Rick. Dammit.

She turned around. “Are you lost?”

He shook his head from the front passenger seat of the black Ford Explorer. “Get in.”

“The cops are probably watching the house.”

“So get in fast.”

Putting on an annoyed expression, she complied. “That was pretty stupid, don’t you think?” she said, climbing into the middle seat as the two other men there shifted to give her room.

“Maybe I want the cops to see you with us,” Nicholas returned. “Just to make sure you’re one hundred percent committed to the project.”

“Oh, now it’s a project? I thought it was a robbery. I should have brought Popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners instead of glass cutters.”

“You want me to search you for wires again, Sam?”

“Nope. Who’re your friends? I recognize Bono, of course.”

The guy sitting next to her with the long, greasy hair, hawk nose, and sunglasses frowned. “Bono. That’s good.” Nicholas snorted. “He’s Eric. The one by the window is Dolph. Our driver is Wulf.”

“Who’s missing, besides Martin? You said it would be a seven-way split.”

“That’s right. Two shares for me. I set this all up, after all.”

“I guess I won’t know until Tuesday if you’re worth it or not.”

Nicholas turned from the front seat to face her. “I’m not the one we’ll have to worry about.”

Threats again. In her business they were as common as wire cutters. “If this is the big meeting, where’s Martin?”

“We’re joining up with him. I decided I would save you the cab fare and having to lose all the police following you.”

“Thanks, as long as they’re not following
you
. You have shown up at my house four times now.”

“Wulf?” Veittsreig asked.

“No one’s following,” the driver returned in an accent heavier than Veittsreig’s.

Despite Wulf’s apparent confidence, the Explorer looped up, down, and around Manhattan for the next half hour. Samantha applauded the caution, though the attention to detail didn’t bode well for her or Martin. When Interpol came down on these guys, they were going to have a pretty fair idea about who’d leaked the information. If what Rick had said about his conversation with Martin was true, and she
had no reason to disbelieve him, she needed to come up with an escape plan. A good one.

“Are you lost?” she finally asked. “If you’re not, I’d really like to get the battle plans before Tuesday. And the wiring schematics.”

“Five minutes. And hand Bono your backpack.”

Bono, aka Eric, said something in German about how not funny Veittsreig was. Samantha pretended not to understand, and instead with an annoyed breath dumped her backpack onto Eric’s lap.

“Don’t break anything. It’s all new.”

Eric lifted out the splitter. “GPS,” he grunted.

“It’s an electronic splitter, you moron,” Samantha retorted. “It’s for shutting off parts of alarm systems.”

“Why is it new? Don’t you own one already, Jellicoe?”

“Yes, I do. It’s in Palm Beach. I came to New York on vacation. You guys started all this. I’m just trying to be prepared.”

Eric’s next muttering in German confirmed that the rest of the stuff in her pack was legit. He shoved everything back in and returned it to her.

“Thanks. Does this mean I passed? Do I get to be in the club?”

“Yes. Go ahead to the warehouse, Wulf.”

Gangs—or crews, rather—of thieves always rented warehouses. Since she generally worked alone, Samantha wasn’t entirely certain why, unless they’d all gone to see the same movies and didn’t want the other robbery crews making fun. To her a group of guys suddenly taking over or renting a warehouse and not bringing in a lot of stuff to store screamed suspicion, but she was a fellow lawbreaker, not an enforcer.

They pulled up in front of a nondescript storage warehouse along the river and facing New Jersey. Dolph climbed out,
keyed an entry code—which she immediately memorized—into the door pad, and then pushed up the corrugated metal door. The Explorer slipped under, and Dolph pulled the door down again.

“So this is the top-secret headquarters,” Samantha said, getting out of the SUV. “It’s…spacious.”

Martin rounded a stack of boxes and walked up to her. “Jellicoe and Jellicoe, back together again.”

“Hi, Martin.”

“So much for your short retirement, eh? I always said a true champ can’t retire at the top. It’s not in their blood. They have to keep fighting all the way down.”

“And we know which side of that hill you’re on, eh, Martin?” Veittsreig chuckled, slapping her father on the back. “Let’s take a look at those blueprints, shall we?”

“Before we get started,” Samantha said, dumping her backpack on another ubiquitous box and noting the UPS truck behind them, now black and with “SWAT” painted over the delivery company logo, “I have a question.”

“And what might that be?”

“I assume you guys have been planning this for weeks. Why are you bringing me in three days before the job?”

“First of all,” Nicholas said, tossing her a beer, “we didn’t know you would be in New York at such an opportune time, but since you are, we’d be foolish not to take advantage of that fact. Second, the request for the Stradivarius came in last week, and we couldn’t work out how to cover it along with everything else.”

“You needed more manpower.”

“Womanpower,” Dolph said, gazing at the chest area of her tank top.

Great. Raging hormone guy.

“And third, some hack, as you call us,” Nicholas contin
ued, “wouldn’t be able to play catch-up and be ready in three days. I’m betting that you can be.”

“That makes you smart,” Samantha said, favoring Veittsreig with a smile. “But are you any good at a B and E?”

Nicholas rolled out the blueprints and wiring schematics. “Take a look and see.”

Sunday, 10:47 p.m.

R
ick pulled open the front door just as she reached it. “You didn’t leave a note,” he said, taking her hand, key and all, and drawing her into the house.

“I didn’t have a chance,” she said tiredly, dumping her backpack into the front closet and pulling on a sweatshirt hanging there. Wulf had dropped her off a few avenues away, and she’d taken a cab the last chilly mile home. “They did a drive-by and picked me up right outside here.” The sweatshirt said “Oxford” across the chest, and it smelled like Rick’s aftershave.

Stoney came up behind Rick. “You shouldn’t leave your gear in there. If the cops bust in, that’s the first place they’ll look.”

“I know that,” she grumbled. “Can I get a damn sandwich and an aspirin before you start playing good billionaire, bad fence? Or vice versa?”

“Of course you can.” Rick took her shoulders and guided her toward the kitchen.

“Good,” she returned. “And no bad news from anybody on my empty stomach, got it?”

Rick’s hands tightened briefly, then relaxed again. “Got it.”

Partway to the kitchen she turned around to see Stoney walking behind them. “And what are you doing here? Talk about the cops being suspicious.”

“Addison called me when you didn’t show. I came up the fire escape and climbed in through the window.”

Despite her tiredness, she snorted. “
You
did a B and E?”

“Just an E,” Rick said. “I opened the window for him.”

She slid an arm around Rick’s waist. “You’re my guys.”

Rick sat her down at the small kitchen table and then went over to the pantry. He pulled out a plate and a couple of slices of bread, set them on the counter, and headed for the refrigerator.

“Where’s Vilseau?”

“Under the circumstances, I thought Wilder and Vilseau might be safer elsewhere,” he returned. “I gave them the next few days off. Ben, as well.”

“But they sleep here.”

He grinned. “Allow me to clarify. I paid for them to take the next couple of days off. Generously.”

“Okay, then.”

“Peanut butter, or turkey?”

“Turkey. Soft on the mayo, extra mustard.”

Rick lifted an eyebrow at her. “Do I look like a cook?”

“You do until Vilseau comes back. Because anything beyond microwave pizza is your territory, sweetheart.”

With a grin he began slathering mustard on one of the slices of bread. “Wonderful. So now I have to negotiate a
multimillion-dollar deal
and
cook? Do you want tomatoes?”

“Hell, yes, my darlin’.”

“Ahem. Innocent bystander trying not to barf over here.” Stoney waved a hand at them from the doorway. “What’s the gig?”

“Food first. Do you want Rick to make you a sandwich?”

“Hey,” Rick protested.

“No, thanks. I ate at Delroy’s.” Stoney made a face. “The man makes great pastries, but he can destroy a steak like nobody’s business.”

“What happened to the hotel?”

“I tried to leave, but Delroy got one of those hurt, puppy-dog looks on his face. So I’m still sleeping on the damn lumpy couch and eating lumpy whatever that was he piled next to the steak.”

“You’re such a softy.” Her sense of humor beginning to return and her headache beginning to fade a little, Samantha went over to the counter to tear off a piece of lettuce for her sandwich.

“Remind me again that you two are criminal masterminds and I’m a real estate magnate worth billions, will you?” Rick leaned sideways and kissed her.

As Samantha had requested, Richard did his damnedest to keep the mood light until she’d at least eaten. Her evening was going to get worse than even she realized—she wasn’t the only one with bad news.

She went over to the refrigerator and poured herself some lemonade, then scrounged around until she found a bottle of aspirin. “Stoney, I found the tortilla chips,” she said, shaking the bag over her shoulder.

“Hey, quit rattling them around,” Barstone grunted, coming forward with surprising speed for so large a gentleman.

“You’ll break off the corners.” He took the bag and retreated to the table. “Get me some of that lemonade, would you, honey?”

“Sure. Rick?”

“I’m fine.”

They made a bloody odd family, Rick reflected, but a family seemed to be exactly what they’d become. He didn’t know if he’d ever like Walter Barstone, but over the past two days he’d gained a much larger measure of respect for the man. Walter genuinely cared for Samantha, clearly, though his influence over her left a great deal to be desired. Compared to Martin Jellicoe, however, the man was a saint.

“You okay?” Samantha murmured, nudging him in the back with her elbow as she crossed to the table.

He shook himself. “I was just thinking about how dinky you look in my old college jersey.”

“‘Dinky’?”

“Oh. Cute.”
Yanks
.

“Mm-hm.”

Stacking her substantial sandwich together, he pulled a knife from the case and sliced the monstrosity in half. “Dinner is served, my lady,” he said grandly, carrying the plate to the table and taking the chair beside her.

She wolfed down half the sandwich, then snatched a handful of tortilla chips from Walter. “Veittsreig’s got three Germans with him, plus Martin and me.”

“Do you know any of them?” Walter asked, grabbing a corner of the chip bag and carefully sliding it back into his possession.

“No, I don’t. If they always crew with Nicholas, though, I probably wouldn’t.”

“What’s the plan?”

“We go in twenty minutes before closing. I disable the
central alarms—that’s the fire and safety doors and barriers and shit—” she explained, glancing at Richard, “and I do the outlying sensors—the video, and the ones that call the cops. And then I head for the Music Room to get the Stradivarius while the guys go after the paintings.”

“People are going to notice you,” Richard said, clenching his hands together so hard his knuckles showed white, “cameras working or not. Twenty minutes before closing is—”

“It’s nuts. I think Veittsreig figures with more people there’ll be more chaos, and more chance for us to get out before they get the system rerouted.” She picked up the second half of the sandwich and took a bite. “If it was me planning this, I would have gone in at two a.m., with a three-man crew, and winched in from the ceiling. Not that I would hit a museum in the first place.”

“They’ll be armed, I presume?” Rick reached over and feathered a lock of her hair behind her left ear. From hearing her talk and knowing some of what she’d done previous to their meeting, he would have imagined her to be some kind of biceps-rippling Amazon with superpowers, not a five-foot five inch, hundred-and-twenty-pound dynamo.

“Yes. They gave Martin a Glock, even. And they were kind of pissed when I said I wouldn’t carry.” She frowned at her turkey and mustard extravaganza. “Since it’s going to end up being four against two, maybe I should have taken a piece.”

“I’m not so sure about those odds,” Richard said, wishing he could be telling her in private—or mostly that he didn’t have to tell her at all.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I made some calls this afternoon.”

She slammed the remains of her sandwich down. “You called Donner, didn’t you? Dammit, Rick, don’t you realize
how rough these guys play? If they smell anything—
anything
—they’ll shoot Martin and me in the head, and then go after you.”

“There’s nothing for them to smell.”

Her brow furrowed. “What do you m—”

“Tom knows some people in the State Department, who know some people in the FBI. He put out that I might be interested in loaning some of my pieces to the Metropolitan Museum, and with a few more arm twists, he was able to learn from one of the FBI officials about a sting happening in New York. The FBI and Interpol
are
all set for the hit—on Friday. They’re even going to put undercover agents inside the museum to pose as visitors.”

“On Friday,” Walter echoed quietly, his dark skin going gray.

Samantha sat at the table, silent, for a long time. If it had been anyone else he would have said she was simply stunned. Numb. Not his Samantha, though. She was thinking, running scenarios through her head.

Finally she nodded. “In a way, that makes me feel better.”

“Better? Because Martin’s crossing Interp—”

“No, Stoney, because Martin’s not setting me up to take a fall. I figured he was going to cross somebody, but I just thought it would be me. But he got me pulled into a legit job. Or his version of one, anyway.”

“At a museum. And with guys carrying guns.”

“Martin never had a problem with hitting museums. That was my thing—me being a snob, he used to say.”

Richard looked at her. “If I might point out, you are now involved in the planning of a straight-up theft.”

“One thing at a time.” She started to push away from the table.

“No, this first,” he countered, wrapping a fist around the back of her chair, keeping her in her seat.

“I have to go in, Rick,” she said, her voice harder. “If I don’t, the same penalties still apply. They’re finally trusting me to the point that I’m not at a complete disadvantage. If I do or say anything the tiniest bit hinky, I’m dead.”

“And if you go in, there’s a whole other set of penalties. Going in to steal something in the middle of a crowd, carrying guns, is not cat burglary. It’s armed robbery. Do you have any idea how many things could go wrong? And even if no one shoots anyone and you still happen to get caught, you get twenty years in prison. Life, if they dig into your past.”

She smirked at him. “Have a little faith, studmuffin. And give me a few damned minutes to think without you being Dudley Do-Right, okay?”

He released the chair, and she slammed it backward. Standing, she headed for the hallway. “Dudley Do-Right is Canadian,” he said succinctly.

Samantha slowed, sending him an exasperated look over her shoulder. “Sir Galahad, then. I’m going to take a shower. Stoney, go back to Delroy’s. I’ll call when I think of something.”

After she left the room, the two men sat facing one another. “She’ll find an angle,” Walter said after a moment. “She always does.”

“But she won’t be trying to find a way to back out of the job,” Rick returned. “She wants to do it.”

“Just to see if she can, I think.”

“It’s her not knowing for certain that worries me.” That and the fact that if she did flat-out steal something again, their relationship would be finished. He could justify, at least to himself, her reasons for breaking into the Hodgeses’.
This robbery was on a much grander scale, with much more serious repercussions involved. And as much as he loved her, he would not let her use his home, his life, as her base of operations or something. With a breath he stood. “Come on. I’ll help you out the window.”

Walter climbed to his feet, as well. “Okay, but I’m taking the tortilla chips.”

Samantha had said she wanted some time to think, but Richard wanted to remind her that this was about more than just a dangerous job. This was about their future together, as well.

He helped boost Walter out the back window and watched him down the fire escape, then closed and locked the thing and trotted downstairs to set the perimeter alarm. Obviously the system wasn’t worth the wood and plaster it was fastened to, but he refused to make things any easier than they already were for whomever chose to break in to his house next.

As he marched back upstairs he heard a door click closed. Samantha was already running the shower—he could hear it through the closed master bedroom door. He walked past it, and stopped at two doors down.
Shit
. “John?” he said, knocking softly.

A few seconds passed, and the door opened. “Yes, sir?”

“How are you settling in?”

“Fine, sir. I, um, with your cook gone, what’s the rule for meals? For breakfast?”

“Help yourself. The cupboards are full. Or order out.” He paused. “Do you need any towels or blankets or anything?”

“No, sir. Everything is fine. I’m fine. The…you have a lovely house.”

“Thank you.” He backed away a few steps. “Good night, then.”

“Good night, sir.”

“And remember, it’s Rick.”

“Yes, sir. Rick. I’ll remember.”

“Oh, and the perimeter alarm is set. If you open an outside door or a window, it’ll go off.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Rick. Thank you.”

The door closed, with the same click and cadence he’d heard a few moments earlier. Where had John Stillwell been during that conversation down in the kitchen? And how in hell had he managed to forget that someone else was staying in the house? It wasn’t like him at all.

Richard pushed open the master bedroom door, then closed and locked it behind him. He kicked off his shoes, sending them in the general direction of his closet, then unbuttoned the dark burgundy dress shirt he’d never changed out of. Shedding it and his trousers, he headed for the bathroom, leaving his boxers and socks in the doorway.

“I forgot to tell you something, Yank,” he said, pulling open the shower door.

She faced him, soap running down her bare, wet skin in delicious rivulets. His body responded immediately, and he walked into the large shower and closed the door behind him.

“I can see that,” she returned, her gaze dropping to his cock.

“We have a houseguest.”

Her eyes lifted again. “Stoney can’t stay here.”

“No. John Stillwell.”

“The guy I creamed this morning?”

“Yes. I’ve been a little…distracted, so I brought him in to help me with a few things.”

“So he’s here. Now.”

“He’s in the guest room.”

“You just did that so I can’t move in there again.”

“Yes, I’m devious that way. I’m paying a man nearly half a million dollars a year to keep you from leaving our bed.”

“Okay, so now I know. Go away. I’m still thinking.” She turned away, running her face and shoulders under the steaming water.

“Think about this, too,” he murmured, slipping his arms around her front and caressing her nipples. They hardened under his fingers.

“Rick, you—”

“And this,” he continued, leaning down to nibble at her ear and the nape of her neck.