Too Wicked to Keep. Julie Leto

his eyes glittering with his tease—one likely meant to divert her line of questioning.

      “No,” she said. “It’s just that part of your appeal as a thief is that up until a couple of months ago, you’d never seen the inside of a jail cell for more than a few hours. And you definitely never hurt anyone.”

      “You’ve checked up on me?”

      “Of course,” she replied.

      “Smart girl,” he admitted. “You probably won’t believe this, but I was set up for that mess in California.”

      “By whom?”

      He leaned back into the seat and eyed her again, this time warily. Had he not expected her to take him at his word?

      “Might have been you, now that I think about it. You couldn’t see me jailed for what I did to you, so maybe you arranged for me to be railroaded for something else.”

      She shook her head. “There’s a huge flaw in that logic.”

      “Really?”

      “Oh, yes. If I was going to frame you for a crime, I’d do it in Illinois, not California. We don’t have the death penalty, so you’d have to suffer longer.”

      He snickered at her joke and she was surprised she’d made it. She was supposed to be angry at him, or at least wary of him. But in the span of twenty minutes, she’d already started meeting his teases with her own.

      “Do you think the person who set you up is still out to get you?” she asked, returning the conversation to her most serious concern.

      “Nah,” he said. “But it’s sweet that you’re worried about me.”

      This time, her laugh was a burst of genuine humor. “I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about someone getting in the way of you retrieving my painting. The collector has already sent out invitations to art lovers all around Chicago, promising to reveal an unknown work by Bastien Pierre-Louis next week. The buzz in local circles is getting louder every day. This operation needs to be quick and simple. No complications.”

      Daniel laughed, retrieved two glasses from the limousine’s bar and then commandeered the champagne she’d taken from the casino and poured. “Then you’re out of luck, sweetheart. If you don’t want complications, you picked the wrong man.”

      4

      FROM A SEAT IN the back of Abigail’s private jet, Danny watched her move up the aisle and marveled at how much she’d changed—and how much she had stayed the same. She was still beautiful and slim, still graceful and minimal in her movements, still sweet and charming as she spoke in hushed tones to her pilot and copilot, who nodded and smiled with deferential respect when she was facing them, but checked out her ass when she left the cockpit.

      Shifting in his seat, Danny made eye contact. Their hungry grins vanished. The captain tipped his hat and then quickly shut the door.

      Danny had no right to feel territorial. He had no business thinking about how smooth Abby’s skin had been underneath his touch for that brief moment, or how her aversion to contact now reminded him of how skittish she’d been five years ago, how hard he’d had to work to get past her considerable defenses. Even after he’d tempted her into his bed, she would have rather bitten through her lip than make too much noise. Her idea of down-and-dirty sex was doing it standing up.

      He had a hard time reconciling that shy, repressed young woman with the vixen now sashaying up the aisle as if she meant to torture him with what he could not have.

      And on this, she was succeeding.

      She slid into the leather seat across from his, her skirt riding up an extra inch or two that the dress simply didn’t have to give.

      “Want anything before we take off?” she asked.

      Oh, he wanted a lot of things—none of which he was going to get anytime soon.

      Still, he made a show of glancing around the cabin. “No flight attendants?”

      “Just the pilot and copilot.” She clicked her seat belt and waited for Danny to do the same. “We have a lot to talk about. I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

      He stretched out his legs so that they were inches from hers. “Sure that’s the only reason you wanted to be alone? To talk?”

      She ignored his question. “Who hired you to steal the painting five years ago?”

      “Why?”

      “Anatomy of a crime,” she explained. “By the time we arrive in Chicago, I want to know everything you do about what happened to my painting.”

      “I thought you knew who had it.”

      “I do. Or at least, I think I do,” she clarified. “His name is Harris Liebe.”

      Danny shrugged. He’d never heard the name before—and this was odd. The fraternity of art collectors who purchased off the black market wasn’t that extensive.

      “Never heard of him.”

      “Neither have a lot of people. But his little announcement has piqued the interest of the legitimate art world. Bastien Pierre-Louis’s work has been experiencing a resurgence in the last decade. Every year leading up to what would have been the man’s one-hundredth birthday increases the value of his pieces, particularly the unsigned ones he gave away during his lifetime.”

      “Like your grandmother’s.”

      “Precisely like hers. She was the daughter of a wealthy New York businessman with supposed ties to the mob. My great-grandfather, her father-in-law, had similar connections in Chicago, though his son was legitimate. The whole twisted tale makes the painting worth more than even I could afford.”

      “And that’s why your family never insured it?”

      “I wanted to. Because I curate for so many private collectors, I have contacts with people who would have been very discreet. But my father wanted no connection to it and asked me not to do anything that would officially connect the painting to our family. And after you took it,” she said, the words shooting out of her mouth like bullets from a twenty-two, “my father asked me not to call the police. He hated that painting. I think he was glad someone took it.”

      Now, this was a piece of information Danny would file away for later. He’d never met Abby’s parents, but assumed they’d hate him on sight. If he were a father, he certainly would. But maybe there was a chance, even if it was a long shot, that he’d find a way into the real estate titan’s good graces. Everything about this situation was doomed for failure, but he’d survived most of his life because of his inability to take no for an answer.

      “How does your father feel now that the painting is going to be publicly displayed?”

      She looked askance. “He doesn’t exactly know.”

      “How’d you pull that off?”

      “I arranged for my mother to have a sudden need to spend alone time with him in their Italian villa. They’ll be gone for two more weeks.”

      Danny leaned back in his seat. “Impressive.”

      “I’ve learned to cover all my bases, which is why I need to know everything you know about the collector who paid you to seduce me.”

      Danny shook his head. He’d deflect blame for a lot of his misdeeds, but not that one. “That part was entirely my idea. I mean, look at you. Can you blame a guy?”

      Her sneer wasn’t nearly as biting as she intended. “Tell me what you know about the first collector.”

      He gave up trying to postpone this part of the conversation. He wasn’t used to discussing his business practices with anyone, much less someone he’d used them against.

      “The story isn’t that exciting. A