Kate Hoffmann - Ian

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, after a long silence. “You have to believe me. I’m just trying to protect someone I love.”

“Then you love him?”

“Of course I do,” she said.

Ian’s jaw grew tense and he bit back a curse. So that was how it was. She was still in love with David Barnett and probably sleeping with him now, too. It couldn’t be any clearer than that. “Maybe this is for the best,” he said. The words came out of his mouth, but Ian didn’t believe them for a second. “You take care of your business and I’ll handle mine and we’ll go on as if we never met.”

“But we did meet,” she said.

He nodded. “As long as you keep yourself out of trouble, I’ll leave you alone. If you cause any problems, Marisol, you’re not going to give me a choice.”

“I understand,” she said.

Ian levered to his feet then circled the bed and picked up her dress from the floor. He held it out to her. “You’d better get dressed. I’ll take you home.”

Marisol took the dress from him and slipped it over her head, then fumbled with the buttons. When she was finished, she crawled out of bed and searched the floor for her shoes. “I have my car. I’ll go.”

When she was ready, Marisol stood in front of him and touched his face with her hand. “I know what I’m doing,” she murmured. “You have to trust me on this.” She pushed up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I would never hurt you.”

With that, she turned and walked out. Ian stood alone, wondering at how the room had suddenly turned cold. He felt as if everything he’d ever wanted had been snatched from him and there was nothing he could do about it. Marisol wasn’t his, she never had been. He’d just been too caught up in the fantasy to realize that.

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?”

Marisol sat on the edge of her worktable, her legs dangling. She had thought about that question since the moment she’d unwrapped the painting and realized what her father had done. And she would have come to a decision a lot sooner if Ian hadn’t been occupying her thoughts day and night.

It wasn’t any wonder she preferred to think about him. The sexy man who made her writhe with pleasure, or a potential problem that could get her thrown in jail? The choice wasn’t difficult. In truth, she’d been using Ian to distract herself from her problems, to avoid the inevitable choice that she’d have to make.

Marisol looked up at Sascha and forced a smile. Her friend had arrived early that morning. They’d spent most of the day going over the pieces Sascha wanted for her own gallery, and the work Marisol would show at her opening. They discussed the prices they’d attach to each painting and sculpture.

All day long, Marisol had waited for the right moment to broach the subject of her plan, praying that Sascha would agree to help her. The waning afternoon had finally pushed her into action, Marisol knowing that Sascha would have to leave soon in order to get back to the city before dark. “I came up with an idea. But I’m going to need your help.”

“My help?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to do anything illegal.”

Sascha shifted nervously. “I think helping you replace that painting would probably make me an accessory to some sort of crime. I adore accessories, but I don’t want to be one, darling.”

“We’re not going to get caught.” Though Marisol’s words sounded convincing, her confidence didn’t extend much further.

“All right, what’s the plan?”

She jumped off the table and took Sascha’s hand, dragging her to the far wall of the gallery. “See this,” she said, pointing to the painting she’d been working on all night. “This is a gift. I’m going to present it to the Templetons. It just happens to be exactly the same size as their Colter.”

Sascha peered at the painting, her smile slowly growing. “Oh, I saw this in a movie! The real painting is underneath and then you’ll spray it with-”

“No!” Marisol said. “Nothing that complicated. I’ll crate this with the Colter and get them both into the Templetons’ house. Then I’ll make a fuss about unveiling my gift in the library, where the Colter is hung. And then, you’ll create a diversion and I’ll switch the two.”

“A diversion?”

Marisol ran over to her worktable and returned with the handheld hot air gun she used to dry paint. “You’ll excuse yourself and go to the powder room under the stairs. Then you’ll plug this in, fill the sink with water and toss it into the sink. Or, I suppose you could use the toilet. Either way, the power should go off which will give me enough time to switch the paintings.”

“Most of those security systems have a battery backup,” Sascha warned.

“I know. But if the alarm sounds, the Templetons will think it’s from the power surge. Even if they suspect something is going on, they have far more valuable pieces in other parts of the house. The Renoir in the foyer is worth five times as much as the Colter. And rumor has it they have a Picasso drawing upstairs in the master suite.”

Sascha picked up the dryer. “How am I supposed to get this into the house?”

Marisol rolled her eyes. “Come on. You don’t have a designer bag that could carry that?”

“I suppose I could carry my Balenciaga. Although, I haven’t found anything good to wear with it yet. We’ll have to go shopping.”

“I don’t care if you stuff the thing under your shirt,” Marisol said. “It’s your responsibility to get it into the house and make sure the electricity is off for at least five minutes. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“But there are so many things that could go wrong,” Sascha said. “And what if they do?”

“Then I’ll tell the Templetons the truth and throw myself on their mercy. But I have to at least give this a try first. My motives are honorable. I’m attempting to right a wrong, so this isn’t really a crime, is it?”

“Well, when you put it that way, I guess it isn’t. Although I’m not sure your little friend, Officer Studly, would agree.”

Marisol winced. “I want you to call the Templetons and tell them I have a gift for them. You set up the get-together and I’ll make sure the plan works.”

“Speaking of Officer Studly, where does he fit into this plan?”

“He doesn’t,” Marisol said. “He doesn’t know anything about it.”

That wasn’t entirely true, she mused. Ian knew something was going on, he just wasn’t sure what. Since he was leaving it up to her to tell him, then he’d just have to wait until it was all over and her father was safe.

“Are you still sleeping with him?”

Marisol considered her answer for a long moment. She’d slept with him last night but had no intentions of sleeping with him tonight, so technically she wasn’t still sleeping with him. Ian had made himself perfectly clear. Until she told him the truth about herself, he wasn’t interested in associating with her.

Still, Marisol had to wonder if he’d invite her back into his bed if she made the offer. Would he be able to turn her away? Or was his desire for her more powerful than his professional ethics?

Every night they spent together seemed to bring them closer and closer. Last night, after she’d crawled into her own bed, she’d lain awake for hours, trying to figure out a way to tell him the truth, a way to ask for his help, if only so they might be together again.

She knew him sexually, knew every inch of his body, knew exactly how he’d respond to her touch. Yet she could only guess at how he’d react to her revelation. She knew the man who made love to her with such reckless abandon, but she didn’t know the man who put on a uniform and spent his days enforcing the law.