Nancy Warren - Too Hot to Handle

“Oh, baby, I do. I’m getting the gang together tonight at Emo’s. Nat and Bruce are coming, Ella if she can get a babysitter, a few others. You in?”

The thought of a night out with friends was tempting. She’d been working way too hard lately. But she knew she wouldn’t go. Not tonight. “I’m so sorry. I’ve got to work.”

“You work too much.”

“I know.” For a second she was tempted to tell him about the emeralds resting in her safe, but Carl wasn’t known for discretion and all she needed was for him to be overheard while he was telling her friends about her big day—as she knew he would. Maybe when she got million-dollar pieces sitting in her safe every day she’d become blasé, but for tonight she was worried that some burglar might overhear Carl and it was dead easy to find her studio. Even though her safe was supposed to be uncrackable, she really didn’t want it tested.

“I’ve got a rush commission. You know how it is.”

Carl chuckled. “Not feeling sorry for you. You’ll charge them through the nose to turn around a design fast.”

“Gotta love New York,” she said again. Frugality might be fashionable, but not to her clientele.

“If you decide to get a life, we’ll see you at Emo’s later.”

“You got it.”

She almost changed her mind when she opened her fridge and found nothing in there but half of an old pizza and a corked bottle of wine she didn’t even remember opening.

She tossed both and called down to a Thai place for delivery, then she kicked back, cranked the music up, pulled out her sketchbook and started playing with ideas for the emerald and diamond set.

At midnight, she turned out the light, but Lexy couldn’t sleep. A restlessness possessed her. She knew it was excitement. She loved her muse, she really did, but the damn woman was a workaholic slave driver. Ideas were chasing each other through Lexy’s mind faster and more confusing than a stock car race.

After a couple of hours of tossing and turning, unable to turn off her brain, she flipped on the light, looked at the sketch pad on the floor and knew that she needed to see those emeralds again. Her latest idea was bold, almost crazy, but she thought the gems were so unusually brilliant that they could dominate a bolder setting than the one they’d rested in for half a millennium.

THE ENTRANCE TO Alexandra Drake Designs was an eye-catching blue. Bight, shiny, as close to neon as paint can get, but the dramatic look suited her storefront and was oddly in keeping with the neighborhood, a place of avant garde shoe designers, exclusive little nooks selling nothing but handmade Italian bags, lingerie boutiques.

The woman was crazy not to have a decent security system, but then Charlie doubted she’d ever had to store anything as valuable as the emeralds that he assumed were currently residing in her safe.

It was almost too easy.

Broome Street was as quiet as it ever got. He could hear his soft footfalls on the pavement. In his black slacks, turtleneck and shoes he could pass for a man taking a walk after a night at the theater perhaps, or a meal at a good restaurant. The March night air was cool, crisp, and when the wind picked up, that man could as easily melt into the shadows of a doorway. And unlock the far-too-simple mechanism on the lock of Alexandra Drake Designs. This was the kind of lock he’d started his career with as a teenager. It took him less than a minute to take care of the main lock. The dead bolts took little more than a minute.

As the door of Alexandra Drake Designs opened and he slipped inside, he wished she at least had an electronic security system, something to give him a bit of excitement.

Charlie ought to be grateful he could be in and out in only a few minutes, with the Isabella Emeralds, but he had his pride. He might be a retired thief, but he was still the best. A little challenge would be good; otherwise a man could become complacent, lose his edge.

Silent and dark as a shadow he made his swift way past the dark shapes of her display cases to the back, to the door that separated the storefront from the small workshop. He was frankly insulted to find the door wasn’t even locked. How was a thief to remain on top of his game when his marks were so damn sloppy?

He felt his way around her table, where he’d watched her work earlier, grinning at the memory of her body rocking out while her hands created magic. He’d been shocked at the punch of lust that damn near flattened him when she turned and he received the full impact of her eyes. Eyes that ought to be in a porcelain doll instead staring at him from that strong-looking body.

He’d be back.

He’d give the woman time to get through the shock of the break-in. A couple of weeks, then he’d casually stroll in here, with Penelope conveniently history. He planned to ask the jewelry lady out.

In silence, he knelt before the safe.

At least the safe put up a fight.

For the first time since he’d stood outside in the night contemplating the pathetic excuse for a lock, he felt his peculiar set of skills being called on.

The safe was an older, German model and he respected it. As safes went it was stubborn, thick walled, heavy, fireproof, blastproof, tamperproof.

But not Charlie proof.

They never were.

He flexed his fingers a few times to limber them, crouched, slipping into the zone, the blissed-out state that told him he was doing what he was born to do, and went to work.

ONE OF THE MANY ADVANTAGES of a live/work loft was that Lexy didn’t have to commute very far to her job. She didn’t even have to dress. Shoving on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, she pulled on a pair of purple and pink slipper socks and made her way downstairs.

Excitement was bubbling and she knew her imagination was working on overdrive keeping her from sleep. She’d learned to live with the quirk. Her creativity kept her designs fresh and edgy, sometimes surprising even herself. So she lost the odd night’s sleep. She’d live.

She loved her studio at night. There was a hush that was almost palpable. Even though the traffic noise never ceased, and sirens pierced the night silence regularly, there were no customers, no movement, no commerce.

She could set herself to design knowing no one would bother her.

The door to her living space connected to the back room of the shop. As she neared the door she stopped, certain she’d heard something.

What?

A tiny scrape of sound, possibly nothing at all, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was behind that door.

Probably it was nothing. The creak of an old building, some animal she’d rather not think about nosing around in the alley, but not only had she been raised by a cop, she’d watched too many horror films to open any door behind which ominous sounds could be heard.

Instead she retraced her steps silently, grabbing the gun from her bureau drawer and taking her cell phone from its charger.

Deep breath, and down she went again. Silently.

At the door, she paused and listened. Was that a scrape? A click?

She eased open the door and flipped on the light.

And her eyes widened in surprise.

Charles Pendegraff III was standing nonchalantly in front of her safe. Her wide-open safe. The same one that was supposed to be unbreachable. And in his gloved hands, he was holding Mrs. Grayson’s emeralds.

For a second neither of them spoke or moved. Then he motioned to the gun in her hand and said, “At least you have some idea of security. Is it loaded?”

Not that she’d ever surprised a burglar before, but she’d have expected a little more drama. Maybe false protestations of innocence or an attempt to run. At least you’d think the man would replace the emeralds in the safe, but he did none of those things. Simply leaned against the safe like it was an open refrigerator and he was in search of olives for his martini.