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TWENTY-TWO
MICKEY
She felt like Sophia Loren in a chic 1960s movie, holding hands with her fiancé in one of the oldest, most beautiful cities in the world.
But who she had in mind wasn’t an actress on screen, but one who walked out of motion pictures into a real-life fantasy, better than anything Hollywood could create. Grace Kelly married her prince in real life. And right now, she was “engaged” to one … even if the ring was fake.
She held his hand on their way down the path, walking with confidence, knowing they were still in sight of the architect. She would have to continue playing the role. She didn’t mind playing it longer than she had to.
Once they rounded the corner, though, the mask of her assumed personality cracked. She jumped up and down, pumped with adrenaline, smiling and whooping as if she had just gotten off a roller coaster.
“Strap, that was so much fun. I can’t believe we pulled it off, my darling fiancé.”
“I definitely chose the right woman, didn’t I?” Strap said and grabbed her hand.
“Kiss the ring. I can’t believe we got the blueprints. It just was so smooth.”
“I can. You were absolutely brilliant in there. It’s like you’re an old pro … he just gave you the specs. This gigantic house and it’s like he gave you the combo to the safe.”
“I was just following your lead, fiancé of mine,” she said.
She didn’t want to stop saying it. Maybe then it would be true. Maybe the elation and ease from playing the role of his future wife was part of the reason it felt so effortless to persuade the architect to turn over what amounted to the keys to the castle.
But she wasn’t entering a castle with a prince. She was sneaking across the moat with a thief. A conman. Someone who had only known crime and probably didn’t have any intention of doing anything else. Someone who learned from a man who had left a gaping hole in the center of her life.
He would never be the kind of man she needed. She had promised herself that she would never end up with someone like her dad, who could just create a family and forget them. And now, she was falling in love with his protégé.
Even through all of this, she realized she was still holding his hand. And she still didn’t want to let go. Her hand felt safe in his, like he would hold her up whenever she lost her balance.
“We’ve got the blueprints, so now we get moving to get the baseballs ASAP. We need to get this show on the road. We’re running out of time,” Strap said.
“We are? What do you mean by that? I think we’re having a pretty good time. We don’t want to get sloppy and make mistakes. Especially not over some baseballs. This isn’t a Picasso.”
“Oh, I just meant it’ll be nice to get on with my life, to get back to reality, to push ahead to the next step,” he said, flashing her a smile.
The smile did not reassure her. She lowered her head so he couldn’t see the tears she was trying to blink back. She took her hand back. If he was going away, he wasn’t going to steal her heart too.
How could his priority be a few dirty old baseballs by people who had almost been forgotten in history? And ill-gotten profits. Hisreal lifewas walking right beside him. He had escorted hisreal lifeto the passenger’s side door and closed it on her once she was securely inside. Hisreal lifewas the woman wearing his fake engagement ring, not the useless treasures hidden in a mob boss’s lair.
She looked out the window as if taken in by the scenery, but she didn’t see any of it. Just gloom.
Strap had worked his way into her heart so quickly, so effortlessly … almost too easily. But he was the first and only man she could ever imagine a life with. They had fun together in a way she had never enjoyed time with anyone else. They could have more fun waiting in line at an amusement park talking with each other than going on the rides.
Was her heart just another job to him, another part of his collection? No, it couldn’t have been. He was serious about the mate part. He wouldn’t make that up. Or would he? All she knew about him was that he was a thief, could shift into two types of predators, and made his livelihood by taking advantage of people.
Even when they were in the middle of pantomiming a life together, all he could talk about was getting onto the next thing, finishing the job.
But the way he looked at me. He became a thief out of necessity, not out of a desire to hurt people. It was all he knew.
If he had the opportunity to go straight, I’m sure he would take it. Maybe I could help him.
There was so much to love about Strap. There was a reason her father instantly took to him. His huge blue eyes, his childlike sense of adventure. There was something about him that, despite being so strong, made you want to take care of him, to make sure he was okay.
He was the most loyal person she had ever met. He had never wavered from his statement that she was his mate. He knew it instantly, and he had protected her completely since.Anything that happened to me happened to him, she thought.Just like he said with Mick.
She looked down at the huge engagement ring and let her mind wander into the dream of it. How he would confess his undying love to her when they got back to Barcelona, to relive where they first fell in love. He would have even rented the same Airbnb in Valencia. Retraced the steps of that day. Maybe he would propose for real in the same place where he gave her the fake ring.
They’d get married in a small ceremony, just them, maybe in the south of France. They’d honeymoon in North Africa. A tour through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, where he might have family. She imagined finding them and, for the first time, him feeling like he could see traces of himself in someone else.
