Someone To Steal Read Online Free PDF Page B

determined.
     
    Oo00oO
     
    His doorbell rang before he had the coffee made in the morning. Grumbling to himself, he opened the door to her. She was clad offensively in a virulent citron green. Her workout wear lacked a certain sophistication. So did the contents of her tote bag, which moved.
    “I hope you don’t mind. I brought Tico,” she said, releasing a hissing, spitting ball of evil into his immaculate and very expensive home.
    “Is that a cat?”
    “That’s what the shelter said he was. I wonder sometimes if he isn’t part demon.” She watched him careen around the room, testing his claws on the dense pile of the velvet sofa, wincing slightly at the violent scratching sound. “I couldn’t leave him locked up all alone. Frankly, if I leave him in the apartment for more than a couple of hours, he shreds stuff.” She shrugged. “Anyway, here I am. You don’t have to bother hunting me down.”
    “Coffee. Then we run.”
    “Okay,” she said, sitting down. The angry feline pounced into her lap, stropping his claws on the hideous green nylon leggings as she petted him.
    Cain returned with cups of scorching hot coffee. She sipped with a grateful noise and set the mug on a table. Cain picked it up automatically and transferred it to a less valuable surface.
    “Sorry,” she muttered, clearly offended at his fussiness.
    “We don’t set drinks on Louis Quatorze,” he said instructively.
    She looked around the apartment in daylight and strolled over to the rosewood chest, lifting the lid carefully. The earrings were gone.
    “You didn’t imagine I’d leave them where you could find them?”
    She nodded with something like agreement and trailed her fingers over a long necklace of amethyst beads.
    “You could try it on, but not with that lime green you’re wearing. It would risk searing my retinas.”
    Riley rolled her eyes and replaced the lid on the chest. He bit his lip to stifle a smile, and quashed a thought that she was adorable.
    “Are you ready to run yet? Or do men your age need more time to wake up?” she taunted, leaning over the back of the sofa lazily.
    “Men my age?” he asked, one eyebrow cocked at her. “We’ll see if you can keep up with me, missy.”
    She trailed after him out the door and down the hall. “We’ll need to hurry. I don’t want Tico to get restless around your antiques. You do have a litter box, don’t you?” she asked slyly.
    “No, I do not. Get back in there and rig something up. I will not have feline excrement polluting my Turkish carpets.” He pointed back at the door, and she snorted.
     
    Riley retrieved the litter tray from her tote, snickering at the thought of the Sapphire Thief having an apoplexy at the idea of cat poop.
    They made a six-mile loop. She kept thinking he’d get tired and head back. They even passed the point where she stopped counting breaths and started panting and cussing under her breath. When they returned to the apartment, she demanded a bathroom. Not because she needed to use one, but so she could collapse out of Cain’s smug line of vision.
    She shut the powder room door and collapsed onto the cool floor, laying her burning cheek against the tile with relief. She eventually stood and splashed her red, blotchy face with cold water, drank straight from the faucet, and slicked her hair down so the ponytail looked less haggard than before.
    When she emerged, art dealer and notorious thief Cain Booth was scratching Tico under the chin, murmuring to him in French. The traitorous cat purred and raised his head further so Cain could scratch a more satisfactory area of his throat. Riley felt mutinous and ever so slightly jealous.
    After a few minutes, Tico relinquished Cain under protest, and the latter went to set a training task for Riley. She stretched out on the sofa and shut her eyes, every muscle in her body aching from that interminable run. She hoped the training exercises didn’t include push-ups. She could do tumbling runs all