The Dare Collection January 2020. Lauren Hawkeye

thief in this first installment of Jackie Ashenden’s Billion $ Bastards trilogy!

      My parties are legendary—as is my security. So when Thea Smith almost successfully steals a priceless necklace from my penthouse, I can’t help being impressed by her skill. But I didn’t make my billions letting others take whatever they want and walk away. Instead of calling the police, I’ll unravel the mystery and shatter her tight control—using all the seductive skills I possess.

      Vulnerable and strangely innocent, Thea is unlike any thief I’ve ever met. Now that I’ve made her delightfully responsive body mine, I want to show her she deserves better than the life she’s chosen. The more time I spend with her supple limbs wrapped around me, the further she sees past the playboy facade. I know I’m a bastard, but she sees the pain and loneliness in my soul. And I must push her away before she steals my guarded heart...

       Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

       Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

      For Veronica. Hope you enjoy this one, too!

       CHAPTER ONE

      Thea

      I ALWAYS KNEW that breaking into the skyscraper apartment of Damian Blackwood, one of richest men in Hong Kong, would be a risky move. But he had something I wanted, so I had no choice.

      His security was insane, though, and the only time I’d been able to get into his apartment unnoticed was during one of his infamous parties, when he himself would be distracted and there would be too many guests wandering around for security staff to discover that there was at least one person in attendance who shouldn’t be there.

      Privately, I was pleased with myself that I’d even managed it, since the parties were notoriously difficult to get into, even impossible, for those not in the know. Blackwood liked to keep his parties very, very private and very, very exclusive.

      I was not exclusive. I was an unremarkable woman of indeterminate parentage, ordinary in every way. I was someone you wouldn’t look at twice, which was what made me so good at what I did. You couldn’t be a good thief if you were memorable. Or, at least, you didn’t last long if you were.

      Still, a lack of invitation hadn’t stopped me from going where I wanted before, and it didn’t stop me now. I’d managed to get hold of an ID and uniform for the catering company dealing with the event, and had distracted security from looking too closely at their staff lists by undoing an extra button on said uniform and bending to grab the pen I’d ‘accidentally’ dropped.

      It had worked like a charm. Mr Chen had always told me to use whatever I could to my advantage when it came to jobs, so I did. Being a woman was sometimes a pain, but it came in handy every so often.

      Especially because men were idiots.

      Now I stood on the huge rooftop terrace of Blackwood’s Central District apartment, trying to balance a tray of glasses and bottles of Cristal in my sweaty palms.

      Music drifted in the air, a hard, driving beat, while beautiful and very famous people dressed in high-end couture talked, danced, drank and laughed. Through the heaving crowd partying on the terrace, wait staff like myself moved, dressed in black, distributing eye-wateringly expensive drinks and tiny, exquisite canapés that would satisfy exactly no one’s appetite.

      Over by the deep blue of the infinity pool came a splash as some idiot pushed another idiot in, followed by screams of laugher and shrieks. A third idiot—some famous actress in a white cocktail frock, probably worth more than my tiny Mongkok apartment—jumped in too. Then, after a lot of splashing, she held a ball of white fabric overhead to much cheering.

      Clearly we’d reached the naked part of the evening.

      I’d spent quite a bit of time researching Blackwood’s parties beforehand and apparently anything went. Nakedness. Public sex. Blatant social climbing. Line dancing. It was all out there for anyone to see and join in.

      Rich people... They were a whole thing.

      Mr Chen, my mentor, had once told me to expect anything when dealing with the very wealthy; that the old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely was true and that it applied to wealth as well; that you couldn’t trust them as far as you could throw them. Which wasn’t very far.

      Not that I needed those lessons he’d drilled into me. There were only two people I trusted in the entire world and one was dead. The other was myself.

      I might not be the world’s most beautiful woman, but there was one thing about which I was confident: my ability to slip into a place unnoticed and steal whatever I found there. Though ‘steal’ was kind of a strong word to use for what I did.

      Mr Chen called it ‘reacquisition’ and it was his ‘reacquisition’ business that he’d passed on to me after he’d died.

      Basically, it involved ‘reacquiring’ stolen or missing items from people who shouldn’t have them and returning them to their rightful owners. It wasn’t technically stealing, as the items had been stolen to start with. You might say that was a job for the police rather than us. But some people didn’t like to involve the law for one reason or another; they preferred a third party. Hence the nice little ‘find and return’ business Mr Chen had worked hard to build up and in which he had trained me.

      His last wish before he’d died was for me to keep that business running, his legacy to the world, and as he was the one who’d pulled me off the streets, given me a home and a job, I felt I owed him.

      So that was why I was here. On a job. A request had come through via the third party who acted as our intermediary for a necklace called the Red Queen. It had been stolen some twenty years ago and now had miraculously turned up in Damian Blackwood’s possession. Its previous owners wanted it back and they didn’t much care how that happened. Hence hiring me.

      Ignoring the shenanigans beside the pool, I glanced once more at the man from whom I was to ‘reacquire’ the piece in order to make sure of his location.

      The typical Hong Kong humidity was making me sweaty, my uniform prickling, but I’d learned to ignore all physical discomforts when on a job, and I didn’t let it get to me. Instead, I adjusted my hold on the tray and took a moment to study Blackwood himself.

      He was sitting in the corner of the terrace, where a number of couches had been arranged, in the centre of a group of stunningly beautiful, incredibly attentive women, all hanging on his every word.

      I wrinkled my nose and tried to be my usual cynical self as I surveyed him. But it was difficult to be my usual cynical self. Because, despite my own good judgement—not to mention my common sense—and no matter that it was a really bad move professionally, I’d somehow developed a bit of a...crush on him.

      Embarrassing, yes, and I didn’t like to acknowledge it to myself. And maybe it wasn’t any wonder, given what a very fine specimen of manhood he was—certainly there was a reason why all those women couldn’t take their eyes off him. But still. I should know better than to get all starry-eyed over a good-looking man. Or indeed any man.

      Mr Chen had been clear that involvement with anyone in our line of work was out of the question and that had never bothered me. Being an unwanted kid, I was used to being alone, and I’d never met anyone worth wanting to get to know better anyway. And as for sex, well... There was a reason humanity had invented vibrators.

      Still, knowing all of that didn’t stop me from being transfixed by the reality of Damian Blackwood himself.

      I’d done my usual research, immersing myself in the history of Black and White Enterprises, and Blackwood’s background in particular, studying news articles,