AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I have someone.”
Saskia knew Lachlan’s guy. Eli. She wasn’t friends with him, but she knew who he was. He wasn’t the best, but he was passable, and he was probably the only option available that Lachlan trusted to handle things discreetly. She’d put just enough small errors in this one so that the new forgery could pass for the real piece, and Eli would feel smart for having seen the subtle differences.
“So then you’re just having second thoughts about spending all that money?” Saskia said, trying to steer Lachlan back on track.
He laughed. “It’s nothing to me.”
It was everything to Saskia. And he knew it. After the fire, she’d gotten a few clients and reproduced some of the classic works. It wasn’t as if her original work had been selling anyway. The reproductions had been enough to keep her going, but all of that had run dry. Lachlan was her big score. His obsession with Quill’s work could rescue her financially. And maybe, with real financial freedom, she could find the heart to create again.
Lachlan had appeared from out of the mist at just the right time like a fairy godmother. This payoff would ensure she could stop pandering endlessly to bored rich people where both she and her work existed as a mere novelty to tamp down their boredom for half an hour.
She tried not to entertain the idea of being supported while doing original work. The not-quite-starving artist living in modest but comfortable surroundings paid for by a mysterious benefactor fantasy had its appeal. But if this went well, she could pay for her own comfortable surroundings and paint her own work for once and not care whether it could feed her.
“How will we do this?” he asked, moving to sit uncomfortably close again.
Saskia uncrossed and recrossed her legs away from his line of sight, giving herself another few inches of breathing room. “I think you meant to ask howIwill do this. You’re just meant to sit and look pretty.”
She smiled when he blanched.Some of your own gross medicine too much to take there, champ?
She didn’t wait for an invitation to continue. “You will hang the reproduction and talk it up a bit more with your friends. You’ll let it hang for a good six months before I take the real one. I’ll need living expenses during that time, of course.”
“Why so long?”
“In the event that anything goes wrong—but it doesn’t go completely wrong—you don’t want to have just gotten the reproduction, do you?” Nothing would look more suspicious to law enforcement than that. Lachlan only lived a couple of hours from the estate that housed the painting he wanted stolen. That proximity made everything trickier.
“So, something could go wrong? Maybe I should find someone else for this job.”
“Something can always go wrong.”
He wouldn’t find someone else for the job. He’d only let his guard down enough to consider this scam with Saskia because he wanted to sleep with her. Little Lachlan was doing most of his thinking for him.
“So, is there a reason for six months? Why not three or twelve or twenty-four? Why don’t I just give you living expenses for a few years? Suspicion would be damn-near nonexistent by that point, wouldn’t you say?”
If not for the irritated edge in his voice, it might have been teasing. He didn’t like stretching this out so long. Neither did she. Ideally, she’d get in and out and be done with him that much sooner. There were too many opportunities between this moment and the moment she could escape him forever for him to try something sleazy. And the way his gaze panned over her only emphasized that point. The timeline on his self-control was finite.
Why didn’t I wear jeans and a sloppy T-shirt?
Saskia pulled the skirt down again and recrossed her legs—this time at her ankles. It wasn’t a skirt for sitting. Maybe she should have remained on her feet. Sitting only made it appear as if she was willing for this visit to drag on. She should have dropped the painting off, spoken quickly about her plan, and left. She should have appeared busy instead of like she had all day to do this.
Flustered, Saskia said, “There will be a big twenty-first birthday party for Eric Raine at the Raine Estate in six months. I’ve managed to swing an invite.”
Lachlan raised a brow. “And how exactly did youswingsuch an invite? I’m intrigued.”
She blushed. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I bumped into the guest of honor accidentally on purpose and...”
“You wore the outfit you’re wearing now?” he completed.
“N-no. B-but, you get the idea. I didn’t... we didn’t...” God, why was she explaining herself to him? She could fuck who she wanted.
“Continue, Miss Roth.”
He always seemed to address her more formally when he wanted to emphasize their age difference—how much older and more sophisticated he was than her. He was just forty-five. And thirty wasn’t exactly a child. But when he spoke to her this way he made her feel as if he was her professor and had just caught her cheating on an exam.
She pulled the skirt down again, almost ready to give up on it. “You said the painting hangs in the guest room on the third floor. I’ll slip away from the party when everyone has had a few drinks and make the switch then.”
“And what if someone recognizes you? What about the gala we just attended?”
That shit had been his idea. He must have expected some sort of smash-and-grab, something which would be a lot more difficult for her to fake. It was true some of Lachlan’s and the Raine family’s associates could very well overlap, but the crowd at Eric’s party would be younger and not so much into the art world as the people Lachlan knew. It was doubtful anyone who had ever seen them together would be at this party.
