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Her face heated. “I don’t look anything like that.”
“You certainly do. Beautiful. Lush.”
“I don’t.”
“This painting is not the view of the subject. It’s the vision of her admirer,” he said, his dark eyes locked on to hers. “For that reason, I would say that I’m in a much better position to evaluate it than you.”
“You’re not my lover,” she said, the word sweet and thick like honey on her tongue.
“No,” he said, his tone taking on a wistful quality. “I’m not.”
“How are we going to get this back to our room?”
“Very quickly,” he said.
He took the portrait out, covered it with the burlap again and quickly closed the original painting.
She moved forward and pressed her necklace deeply into the notch again to lock it just as before.
“If he truly had no idea this painting was here, he will have no reason to believe it isn’t mine,” Alex said. “Of course, carrying a rather large canvas through the house may arouse suspicion. I doubt I could convince him I was simply taking the painting out for a walk.”
“Then we had better hurry,” Gabriella said. “Everyone else is still occupied in the ballroom.”
“And thank God for Prime Minister Colletti’s devotion to having a good time.”
They walked to the double doors that led back to the corridor. Alex opened the first one slightly, peering out into the hall to see if anyone was there. “It looks clear,” he said.
She nodded, and they both slipped through the outside, closing the gallery door tightly shut behind.
It was ridiculous. Alex was wearing a suit that was rather disheveled, they were both masked and now Alex was also carrying a piece of art.
If anyone saw them, they would likely imagine they had simply had too much to drink.
They walked down the hall quickly, then they rounded to the left and froze. Up against the wall was another couple engaged in the very thing Alex had wanted the rest of the party to believe they were engaged in. The man had the woman pressed tightly against the wall, her hands held over her head while he kissed her again, his other hand roaming over her curves.
A flash of heat wound itself around Gabriella, her entire body ready to go up in flames at the sight of it.
What would it be like to have Alex unleash his passion on her like that? To have him press her up against the wall. To have him touch her like that.
The scene before them highlighted just how circumspect he had been.
For some reason, she was disappointed.
“Quietly,” Alex whispered as the two of them continued behind the amorous couple. The woman’s eyes were closed, the man’s back to them, and they were able to walk along behind them without detection. They hurried through the halls, the rest of which they found empty. Not stopping until they reached their rooms.
“Excellent,” Alex said, closing the door tightly behind them. “I will pack this away, and if anyone looks through my suitcase I will say that I acquired it elsewhere during our travels. There is no reason for them to think otherwise.”
Gabriella shook her head, laughing—a husky sound. “I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be involved in an art heist.”
“Does it not belong to your family, Gabriella?”
“I feel it does,” she said.
“Then it’s hardly a heist.”
“Still. I’ve done quite a lot today that I never imagined I would.”
Dancing with him. Kissing him. Being called beautiful. Now it was ending. This was the end of it all. She didn’t care about stealing the painting. She cared about the mission being over.
