Page 19 of Entwined With You

While Brax and I had hacked the system so that we could manipulate the lock on the room and the display case, the case itself had a final lock that was off-the-grid. An accomplished thief, Tim’s job was to get through that final lock.

Darrin scowls. “Last go-round didn’t exactly have a stellar conclusion.”

“That wasn’t Tim’s fault,” Brax points out. “My girl is solid.”

I expect Darrin to argue. The truth is, I’ve never known exactly what went wrong. Just that the mission fell apart. And somewhere, in the middle of all that, I died.

To my surprise, Darrin only nods. “Fine. We meet her. All of us. We give her the thumbs-up, then we’re green-lit on this thing. She pushes any buttons, though, and we’re going to be having a conversation.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Brax says. “Doesn’t it baby?” He squeezes my shoulder, then pulls me close and brushes a kiss over my hair, his lips grazing my ears. I’m more pulled-together than I was a moment ago, but there’s no escaping the sensual tremor that races up my spine.

“A plan,” I say stupidly. “Yeah. I’ll text you the meeting time and place tomorrow,” I tell Darrin. I’ve come prepared, and now I haul the purse I’d tossed beside me on the bench seat into my lap. I take out two burner phones and pass them to Darrin, one after the other. “Yours. Jorge’s.” I hand another to Brax, who is looking at me with such an odd expression, I have to turn away.

“The lady came prepared,” Darrin says, and I’m ridiculously grateful he’s given me an excuse to talk more to him.

“Always.” I smile. “And this,” I add, holding up a business card for a local coffee shop, on which I’ve already scribbled all of the cell numbers, four labeled with D, J, B, and S.

I look at Brax and tap the final number. “Her name?”

“Carly,” he says, and I scrawl a C on each of the cards in front of her burner number. I do it in pencil. “In case we don’t agree,” I add, then share a smile with Darrin, as if we’ve just bonded like long-lost friends.

I hand Darrin and Brax their cards, then pass a second one to Darrin. “You’ll get Jorge his phone?”

Darrin nods. “What about Carly? She’s not in until we all say she’s in.”

“Then we meet tomorrow night,” Brax says.

“Good,” Darrin says. “We need to, anyway. The sisters will only be on display opening night. After that, they’re being replaced by counterfeits.”

Brax leans back, taking his arm off my shoulder and leaving me feeling oddly abandoned. “Where’d you get that intel?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s solid.”

“It matters,” Brax says. “Opening night’s in two weeks. Closing night is three weeks after that. You’re taking away twenty-one days of possible planning and rehearsing. We lose twenty-one days, I want to know why.”

“Fine,” Darrin says. “I don’t know. Intel came from Jorge. Ask him yourself tomorrow. All I know is it’s solid.”

Brax doesn’t look happy. “I will. Believe me.”

“Then I guess we both have an agenda tomorrow. Jorge’s solid. I hope your girl is, too.”

“She is,” Brax says, and the genuine affection I hear in his voice curdles in my gut.

It’s not jealousy. How could it be?

I don’t want this man. Not anymore. Not after what he did to me. This attraction is nothing more than the aching remnant of a long history. A happy history that he’d ripped to shreds.

And for that, he deserves to suffer. And if he and this Carly person are an item, well, then that doesn’t sound like suffering to me. So naturally, I’ll be forced to hate her.

“Tomorrow, then,” Brax says, sliding out of the booth and holding his hand out to help me. I almost ignore it. I don’t need his help.

But everyone will expect us to be a couple. And at the end of the day, all I really want is to know why he betrayed me … then make him pay through the nose.

And when you get right down to it, what better way to do that than to bring him close, build him up, and then bask in the metaphorical sunshine while I knock him the fuck back down?

Chapter Six

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle this?“ Brax says to me once were back in the car. “Sabrina knew the drill. We had a rhythm together. She knew how to pull off a con, and she knew her way around a security system.”