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Fletch blocked her from entering their bedroom. He was going to make a rule about not waking them up unless it was imminent life and death, and no one entered their space without an express invitation from him. Carter really should have done something with Mia to put her in a better mood. He’d have to have a talk with him about that.
“Tell her to go away,” he said to Claire.
“You told me to hush.”
Fletch laughed. He did that a lot around Claire. She was good for him. She thought he saw things in terms of black and white—dark and light. She was wrong. He only saw darkness. He supposed that wasn’t technically true. He’d only seen the darkness before he met her. She had brought him the light; she was his light—a shining beacon illuminating the endless possibilities for joy.
“So, now you decide you want to do what you’re told?”
“He knows more than he’s saying,” said Mia.
“You’re wrong about him,” said Carter.
“No, I’m not. You and he and all of the rest of them are just part of the system. You’re all a part of what we’ve been fighting against.”
“No, they’re not.”
He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. He loved how she defended him without a lot of bullshit. Just three little words that meant the world to him.
“Carter, take Mia back downstairs. If we need to gather the team, do that and have someone start breakfast. Claire and I will be down in a minute.”
Mia started to say something, but Carter manned up and did what was needed: turning her away and giving her backside a little swat. This might work out better than he’d planned. He could leave Carter in charge of Mia and her technology, and he could focus on Claire and making her happy. Closing the door, he turned within the circle of her arms.
“I don’t suppose I can persuade you that we need to fuck before we go back downstairs, can I?” she said, looking sexier than anyone had a right to.
“I wish. When we can get a little breathing space, how about you and I go somewhere with warm, sandy beaches and kick out the cobwebs with a nice gallop along the shoreline.”
“I always feel so sorry for those horses. They never look like they’ve been fed all that well. How about we go to your place in Devon and gallop glorious horses along a rugged coastline before we fuck all day?”
“But then we can’t order room service.”
“Room service is way overrated. I’ll cook.”
“I prefer you naked.”
“So, I won’t fry bacon,” she said mischievously.
She really was a brat, and there was no more room for doubt, he wasn’t just crazy about her, he was madly in love with her.
“I think I can arrange for that to happen, but first, I need to get you out of this mess you, Mia, and your grandfather created.” She pulled away, and he let her go as he held up his hand to stop her from defending her grandfather. “This may surprise you, but I think your grandfather and I would have gotten along splendidly.”
Claire laughed ruefully. “I don’t think you could be more wrong. You and Poppi are nothing alike.”
“Maybe, but we would have had one very big thing in common.” She raised her eyebrows in silent question. “We both loved his granddaughter, and that one thing would have made the rest pale in comparison.”
He kissed her to keep from hearing her protest. Claire was going to take a lot of patience. The only person she’d ever been anything to was her grandfather and he had been dead for a long time. It was going to take reassuring her again and again that she was everything to him before she believed it.
“I think I have a way to fix it so you can walk away and not have to worry about someone trying to kill you. I have contacts with Lloyd’s, the Yard, and a lot of other places. I’ve never given away anything that would allow them to connect you or Mia to any of this. Hell, I’ve never even connected the dots for them, so they don’t see the pattern. No one knows your or Mia’s name.”
“Then how do you explain my sudden appearance in your life.”
“The horses. You’re a top equestrienne, and I breed top sport horses. You are an art restoration expert and appraiser. A great deal of my business involves recovering losses in the art world. Anybody thinking about it will see it was inevitable we’d run into each other. And when they see our chemistry, they won’t doubt that we’re anything but two people in love…”
“I never said I loved you,” she said, interrupting him.
“No, but you do.”
There it was, the other big elephant in the room. Both were truths: she was a master jewel thief, and they were in love with each other.
