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She grinned. “Do you think it will always be so volatile between us?”
“I don’t know, but I know I like hearing you sound like there is going to be an us going forward. As long as we agree we’ll be together we can have the loudest shouting matches in London. I just need to know when you turn your back and walk away it’ll be to walk into our bedroom. Can you give me that assurance? The last time someone I loved turned their back on me and walked away, it was my father, and I never heard from him again.”
She closed the small distance between them, but as he felt he’d been holding her in place, it was a welcome reprieve. She removed her hands from him, wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. “I’m not going. We’ll figure out something even if it means I royally piss you off. But I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
If Claire had changed moments before, he now found something within him settling in a place he’d forgotten he ever had. “You looked like something suddenly came to mind.”
“Oh, right,” she laughed. “You’ll never guess who I ran into, literally, when I was trying to get into the manor tonight.”
“Was that before or after you sent those dogs out to have an orgy?”
She laughed. “After.”
“Who did you run into?”
“Evangeline.”
“Why would she be here? I mean I know she and Gemma were involved in the evaluation, but I assumed it would stay at Lloyds or at the very least in the Robbins’ offices in London.”
“But it didn’t. The necklace is in the main house.”
“Why would she bring it here?” he asked.
“For one thing, this is her family’s estate. For another she’s involved in this lawsuit trying to keep the Clarion Necklace in the hands of the Hardisons. With the way the security has been enhanced, and the ease with which Mia found out, I wonder if she wasn’t using it for bait.”
“She doesn’t know you’re the thief.”
“Exactly. I don’t think she was after me, Claire, but after whoever has been the master thief all these years. She didn’t just try to stop me. She had a knife. When I headbutted her, she fished it out and slashed at me—not once but twice.”
“Shit, Claire, I didn’t even see the blood until just this minute. Why didn’t you say something? Are you hurt?” he asked in the most adorably upset and concerned manner.
“The blood isn’t mine, babe. It’s Evangeline’s. I broke her nose.”
Fletch began to chuckle. “That wasn’t nice. She paid a lot of money for that thing.”
“I know. Or rather I knew she had work done because that was not the nose that she used to turn up at me. How could you have fallen for her?”
“I didn’t fall. She was convenient. I realize now what a mistake that would have been.”
“How about now? Am I just convenient?”
Fletch laughed even harder. “You are, by far, the most inconvenient woman I’ve ever known, and I don’t give a damn. You’re the only woman I’ve ever been in love with and the only one I’ve ever said it to. But why would Evangeline try to kill you?”
“I don’t know precisely. But in general, I think the only thing Evangeline would kill for is money—lots and lots of it. She is a thoroughly disagreeable person.”
“She’s a bitch.”
“That’s an insult to bitches everywhere.”
“Do you think she might have been involved in the family business of brokering deals for the Nazi treasure?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense to me…”
There was a banging on the bedroom door. “Have you two decided to kill each other or kiss and make up?” called Baxter.
“Kiss and make up,” Fletch and Claire said in unison.
“All-righty then. I’ll tell the others. If we see cops headed this way…”
