Nancy Warren: Too Hot to Handle

USA TODAY bestselling author NANCY WARRENlives in the Pacific Northwest where her hobbies include walking her border collie in the rain and searching out unusual jewellery. She’s the author of more than thirty novels and novellas and has won numerous awards. Visit her at www.nancywarren.net.

This is for my readers.

Thank you for your kind messages

and for reading the books I love to write.

With love, Nancy

Dear Reader,

What is it about a thief hero that we love so much? Is it that he will take what he wants without asking—and that just might be the heroine? Is it that he’s a man who lives life on his own terms and makes his own rules? Of course, the thief hero is not some thug who hits little old ladies and steals their purses. No. Our kind of thief would risk his life to protect that little old lady and make sure she got her purse back. He’s elegant, smooth, only takes things from not very nice people who can afford to lose the stuff. He’s a pro. He’s Cary Grant in It Takes a Thief, he’s Robert Wagner in To Catch a Thief, he’s Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair.

He is, in a word, dreamy. Tough, smart, a born rule-breaker, and yet the right woman can tame him. Mmmm. Too Hot to Handle is my first attempt at writing a thief hero. I’ve always wanted to and never had the story. Until now.

I hope you enjoy Lexy and Charlie as much as I did. As always, you can come visit me at www.nancywarren.net.

Happy reading,

Nancy Warren

Too Hot to Handle

Nancy Warren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author About the Author USA TODAY bestselling author NANCY WARREN lives in the Pacific Northwest where her hobbies include walking her border collie in the rain and searching out unusual jewellery. She’s the author of more than thirty novels and novellas and has won numerous awards. Visit her at www.nancywarren.net. This is for my readers. Thank you for your kind messages and for reading the books I love to write. With love, Nancy

Title Page Too Hot to Handle Nancy Warren www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Ninteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Copyright

LEXY DRAKE LOVED CONTRASTS. Delicate with bold, hot colors with cold, new mixed with old.

Hard rock music played as she peered through the binocular magnifier and looped a string of molten gold with infinite care around a ruby.

She loved every one of the creations that were slowly making her rich—this one a pair of wedding rings for a young couple who’d come to her with his grandmother’s rings and a brooch that had been in her family so long no one knew its provenance.

Lexy would transform the old and forgotten into the new and now. It was the best kind of recycling, combining art, family history and love.

She worked alone, which was how she liked it. But never in silence. Her work might be delicate but her music provided much-needed contrast. Hard-driving rock and roll hammered the air around her. She’d have preferred to let the music reverberate off the walls, but since her tiny studio was tucked behind her SoHo store, she kept the volume low.

With the metal soft, she had a little time to bend it to her will, but only a little. With a final twist, she had the look she wanted; a bold swirl of gold twining around a ruby.

A sudden prickling at the back of her neck told her she was no longer alone.

She turned sharply in time to surprise a man standing in the doorway. The way his gaze suddenly rose, she suspected she’d been shaking her booty in time to the music and her latest customer had stopped to watch her swaying hips.

He didn’t look at all embarrassed to have been caught staring at her gyrations. If anything he appeared—interested—that would have to be the word.

“There’s a salesclerk out front if you need help.” It was rare for a customer to bumble back here to her private work space, but it happened.

“She’s busy. So I followed the music.”

“Oh.” She picked up the remote and punched down the volume on her iPod. “I should hire more staff now we’re getting so busy, but I haven’t got around to it. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s fascinating to watch a master craftsman at work.” He spoke in that perma-bored drawl with the crisp inflections she’d come to associate with the rich. She was pretty sure he’d been studying her ass—not her master craftsman hands—but he was a potential customer so she didn’t call him on it.

Probably a lucrative customer, too. His handmade suit and shiny leather loafers screamed Daddy owns a bank, while his tie had one of those crests from a fancy Ivy League school. She could never keep them straight, wasn’t interested enough to bother.

“I’m Charles Pendegraff III,” he told her in that snooty tone, holding out his hand to shake hers.

“And I’m Alexandra Drake. Lexy.” An imp inside her who would probably make sure she ended up broke, added, “The one and only.”

His gaze sharpened on hers and she was struck by the gleam of powerful intelligence behind the laziness. The impression was gone in a second. He said, “I see you’re working on a ring. I’m thinking of having one commissioned, myself. Do you mind if I take a look?”

“Sure.” He had money to burn and she had self-defense skills that would flatten him in a New York minute if he tried anything. He strolled toward her and she figured he might be rich, but he wasn’t idle. When he moved, his slacks molded around powerful thighs and as the blazer shifted she got the impression of a broad, muscular chest.

She loved contrasts and he seemed to have enough to be interesting. The lazy speaking voice was at odds with the sharp green eyes; the soft manicured hands didn’t match the hard planes of his face.

And when he moved closer she felt the punch of his forceful sexuality.

Wowza.

“How did you hear about my studio?” she asked him. She nearly always started with a little market research and in this case a chance to distract her from the instant and powerful attraction she was experiencing.

“One of the fellows I play polo with, Jeremy Thurston, had you design an amulet for his mother. I bumped into her when she was wearing it at one of those tedious fundraisers. She was dull. The bracelet was stunning.”

“Thanks.” She remembered the piece, of course. She remembered them all.

“So, I’d heard of you, but I hadn’t imagined you’d be so young. And somehow one never imagines a jeweler as sexy, now why is that?”

“Oh, well …” She could not think of a thing to say. Lexy was rarely thrown off her stride, and getting hit on wasn’t a completely foreign experience, so to be tongue-tied in front of this stranger was infuriating. But then she rarely felt the punch of attraction quite this strongly. And never from a guy with a number after his name.

No wonder she was speechless.

“Let me show you what I’m doing here,” she said, deciding to ignore the sexy comment and reaching a hand toward the design she’d penned. “I’m combining elements—antique gold, a splash of platinum, those tiny rubies and the diamond solitaire, it’s sort of my signature, you see—”