Blue Steal Read online

  And of course, if he planned on conducting a search now, he’d have to get Selina bound and gagged without attracting attention. He didn’t fancy his chances.

  He’d fucked up.

  The realisation hit him like a blow to the head. But there it was, pure and simple.

  He should have waited outside until she’d finished, then sprung her red-handed. Instead, he’d chased her in here before she’d had a chance to start looking. He didn’t often make strategic mistakes, but Selina had thrown him off his game.

  He had to try to salvage something useful. But how?

  He could haul her arse up to the hapless night audit, get the police involved, but it wouldn’t serve his cause. On the one hand, she was competition. On the other hand, she was the best—the only—lead he had. He needed her. Given that he’d already stuffed up, his next-best course of action was to let her go, keep a close eye on her and be ready to relieve her of anything relevant after she’d made her next move.

  Had she already reached that conclusion? Is that why she looked so damn unruffled?

  But if he turned her loose, he should at least attempt to turn the situation to his advantage, get as much out of her as possible. There was too much he didn’t know about this case, too much that wasn’t gelling right with him, and Selina seemed to hold the missing puzzle pieces.

  How to get her to spill?

  The silence between them, long already, stretched further. There was no other sound, no other movement. Nothing to indicate that it wasn’t just him and Selina, somewhere at the end of the universe.

  He didn’t think he’d ever felt quite like this. It was intense, surreal and intimate. In the dead of the night, in this bizarre falling-down hotel, working a case he just couldn’t get a hold on, he had stolen a moment with a beautiful, mysterious woman.

  What was he going to do with her?

  He leaned forward, pulled one of her hands into his. The quick sharp breath, the sudden tension in her body let him know she hadn’t seen that one coming. Good. Smiling, he examined his bounty. Soft warm skin, slim elegant fingers. Nice hands. Nice everything.

  He ran his thumbs over her palm and felt her involuntary response.

  Of course, she could always wrench her hand back, but she wasn’t doing that. Probably didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  ‘How’d you know I was in here?’ she asked eventually, voice a little shaky.

  He shrugged. ‘It’s what I do.’

  It hadn’t taken him long. When he’d first heard the music, he hadn’t thought that much of it, beyond hoping the night audit would sort it out sooner rather than later. And then he’d looked at the clock and realised it was about the same time that he’d bumped into Selina carrying an armful of towels the previous night. And he’d started thinking about how he still hadn’t worked out what she’d been up to. And about how she’d been so desperate to put him off the scent, she’d given him a peep show he’d never forget. And then he’d circled back to his first thought—that the night audit would be up here to sort it out soon. He’d known exactly where he’d find her.

  He lifted her hand, placed a kiss to the centre of her palm. She exhaled hard, and he shot her an assessing glance.

  Looking up, he saw the smug and the unruffled had disappeared. She was trying for unaffected, but she wasn’t, not by a long shot. Her head was tilted back a little, there was a pink flush to her cheeks and her eyes were almost black.

  ‘Too much for a first date?’ he asked.

  He was hoping to rattle her. But as he looked at her, something in her expression, something unexpected, a little sad and a little uncertain, cut him. Losing his taste for the game, he let her hand go. ‘I’m going to let you walk, but you’re going to have to give me something.’ An honest trade.

  Selina tilted her head to the side. ‘Like what?’

  ‘This is a first date, right? So we’ll do our own little get-to-know-you session. I’ll ask some questions. Answer enough of them and you’re free to go.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  He shrugged. ‘We sit here all night.’ He wasn’t in any rush to leave.

  Her mouth quirked ruefully. ‘I’ll only lie, you know.’

  His lips twitched in amusement at the warning. It didn’t worry him whether she told the truth or not. He could tell the difference. More than that, what most people didn’t realise was that lies contained just as much information as the truth. More, sometimes. And that’s what he needed—information. A little more to go on, so he could start building a picture.

  Lewis was the obvious place to start. Powerful but incomprehensible, the brief encounter he’d witnessed earlier in the day was intrinsically linked to the case. He knew that much.

  Selina wasn’t going to answer a direct question, so he’d have to work around her.

  Choose a different starting point, another avenue into understanding who she was and what she was doing here. His subconscious would figure out the right starting point …

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he heard himself ask. And winced.

  That was what he’d come up with? He had rock-solid trust in his subconscious, but even he was struggling to see how that one had anything to do with the necklace.

  Selina must have agreed because she rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

  He’d have to back himself now. ‘You want to get out of here or not? Answer the question.’

  He could see her internal struggle. Half of her wanted to tell him to go to hell, the other half was surprised and grateful he wasn’t pushing about her presence in this room. In the end, she must have thought the intrusion of privacy was better than questions about the necklace, because she answered. ‘No boyfriend.’

  His lips curled up. Well, that was a pleasant surprise. ‘So who’d you phone last night?’

  Selina looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said you had to phone someone. Up on the first floor. Who was it?’

  She looked confused but answered anyway. ‘Nonna. My grandmother.’

  Her grandmother? Driven by instinct, he pushed further. ‘Earlier, when we were checking in, when I “stole your room”, someone called you. Who was it?’

  ‘Nonna.’ She shrugged.

  He took a moment to consider her response, but nothing about her indicated that she was lying. ‘She needs to hear your voice an awful lot.’

  Her mouth twisted. ‘More like the other way around.’

  He shifted a little, unsure of what he’d learned and where to take it from here.

  The thing was, Selina was the only real lead he had so far. She was in this, deep. If he understood her, he might stand a chance of understanding what had happened here. ‘Not that I’m complaining but how could it be that you don’t have a boyfriend?’

  She shrugged. ‘Things don’t always work out.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  She let out an exasperated breath, but half-smiled, evidently bemused. ‘Why are you asking me all this?’

  Because he wanted to know. ‘It’s our first date, remember. We’re making small talk, getting to know each other.’

  ‘This isn’t a date. You’ve got me trapped in here!’

  ‘So answer the question and you’re on your way to freedom.’

  She looked at him, sighed again, then shrugged, obviously not seeing the harm. ‘My last relationship was with a man called Richard. He wasn’t just a boyfriend, he was my fiancé.’ She paused, looked down at her hands, now twined together in her lap.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He loved me. I didn’t love him. It was …’ A little shake of the head. ‘Difficult. So I broke up with him.’

  ‘Why’d you say yes in the first place?’

  ‘Well duh. The money, of course.’ She’d looked up at him again, a hard, defiant edge appearing in her eyes. ‘The guy was worth millions. Billions, almost.’

  ‘You’re telling me you’re a gold digger?’

  ‘So
what if I am?’

  He took a moment to assess. Underneath the surface brashness, Selina wasn’t near as gung-ho and unapologetic as she pretended to be. No one got that defensive about something that didn’t matter.

  Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? After all, it fit in pretty well with her being here to steal the necklace.

  ‘I’m already on the lookout for my next target,’ she added, daring him to say anything. ‘Someone with the same vital statistics as Richard without the inconvenience of unrequited love.’

  Was that the connection with Lewis Holloway? Was he her ‘next target’? Lewis was a prominent Melbourne businessman, easily among the top hundred wealthiest people in Australia. He thought back to the way Lewis had been looking at Selina this afternoon—greedy and intense—and mentally shuddered. The thought that they might end up together was atrocious.

  But if she were serious about marrying for that kind of money, why bother with a risky search for a piece of jewellery which, while valuable, was nowhere near the billion dollar mark? It didn’t add up.

  ‘The thing about gold diggers,’ he said, ‘is that they don’t sabotage their shot with Daddy Warbucks because they’re worried about the other party’s feelings.’

  Her mouth twisted. ‘Really? You know a lot about gold diggers, do you?’

  ‘You could say they’re my fatal weakness.’ He was going for flippant, but too much self-derision showed through for the statement to be taken as anything other than a confession.

  Selina’s head tilted to the side, searching for more.

  He wasn’t going to tell her about Dani. The girl he’d thought was the love of his life, before he’d found out she’d been sleeping with other men for financial gain. Stealing insider information from bureaus and briefcases while the traders and brokers she’d targeted were stretched out in post-coital comas. Hooking in spirit, if not in name.

  He didn’t know how often she’d done it, or when it had started, but he’d finally cottoned on after they’d been ‘lucky’ one too many times.

  Worse, almost, than the cheating was Dani’s attitude. She genuinely hadn’t understood why Jack would have a problem. After all, the sex hadn’t meant anything to her and she was doing it for the two of them. So they could make their fortunes together.

  It had gutted him, turned his life upside down. It had made him question everything.

  It had made him question himself.

  And now, here he was, drawn like the proverbial moth to another woman cut from the same cloth. What was it with him and the bad girls?

  ‘You don’t have any right to look so disapproving,’ she bit out.

  Was that how he looked? Every time he thought of Dani all he felt was disgust; disgust at her, disgust at himself. It wasn’t directed at Selina, but the fact was, if Selina was serious about marrying for money … He’d thought she was better than that. Selina was better than that.

  But she was right. He didn’t have any right to disapprove.

  ‘Live and let live, bella,’ he said expansively. ‘I just hope all the diamonds and Mercs are worth it.’

  ‘Oh, they will be,’ she retorted. ‘What more could a girl want than bucket-loads of diamonds and a garage full of fancy cars?’

  ‘Love,’ he said.

  She let out a small, bitter laugh. ‘Love doesn’t do women any favours. It totally screws them over.’

  Jesus. What on earth had happened to her?

  His thoughts must have been showing again, because her face darkened further. ‘Don’t you dare look at me like that!’ she hissed. ‘You don’t know anything about me or my life. You think because I’m a woman, I should be willing to sacrifice everything for some totally unrealistic romantic ideal? Give everything then wind up with nothing? Women follow their stupid hearts and they end up thrown out in the gutter like garbage.’

  ‘I can’t imagine any man being foolish enough to discard you.’

  She looked at him sharply at that, trying to work out his angle. He didn’t have one.

  She let out a breath and leaned back a little. ‘Yeah, well, it runs in the genes.’

  Another reference to nonna?

  ‘What about you, Jack? Why aren’t you out there looking for love?’

  ‘Who says I’m not?’

  It’d been three years since Dani. He’d tried dating, women very different from both the society princesses he’d insisted on prior to Dani and scheming, manipulative Dani herself, but he didn’t have a clue what he was looking for. The only thing he knew was that, up until now, he hadn’t found it.

  ‘You’re looking for love? Oh please,’ Selina responded, voice dripping with derision. ‘How many “bellas” are you chasing at the moment, Romeo?’

  None, actually, apart from her. ‘There’d be no point chasing you, would there?’ he replied. ‘You’ve got your plan. You’re going to marry some old geezer with a whole mountain of dough. So long as he doesn’t love you.’ He leaned forward, and inhaled toffee-apple. Not a heavy, musky perfume, like he’d expect if he’d only seen her from a distance, but tart apple and sweet caramel. Edible. ‘Is it going to be enough, sugar? Or do you think, sooner or later, you’ll be looking for a guy to screw on the side?’

  She leaned forward to match him. ‘Are you volunteering, Jack?’

  The question hung there between them, then she slumped back again, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t let looks deceive you. I’m not that into it.’

  His breath caught. His gaze dropped to her lips.

  What else was he supposed to want to do, except to close the small distance between them, bring her mouth to his, and show her just how into it she could be?

  She looked at him sullenly. ‘Not that this hasn’t been fun, but have I answered enough of your bullshit questions yet?’

  He shook himself. Fuck. What the hell was happening?

  How long had they been in here?

  Too long. And despite his earlier threat about sitting here all night, he wasn’t any keener than Selina to attract attention. He was supposed to be travelling under the radar, recovering the necklace discreetly.

  He couldn’t even remember what his plan for this little Q&A session had been, but whatever it’d been, it had backfired. Had they really been bickering about modern relationships and the nature of love? He’d forgotten all about the case. Consumed instead with the thought of kissing Selina’s plum-pink lips.

  What a cock-up.

  Or was it? Because underneath all the lust and confusion was something else. The feeling he got just before he cracked a case. What he needed to do now was stand back far enough to see how it all hung together.

  He stood, held out his hands. ‘Time to go.’

  She looked between his face and hands uncertainly, like she couldn’t really believe that he was actually going to let her go. Then she slipped her hands in his, allowed him to pull her to her feet. The movement drew her close to him and he caught toffee-apple again.

  ‘Ready?’ he whispered down at her.

  She shrugged.

  He flicked off the light, opened the door and allowed her to pass through. Then he engaged the catch, shut the door and wiggled the handle to check it was securely locked.

  He repeated the procedure with the second door.

  Should be secure enough—if Selina had been able to break in without keys, she would have done so in the first place. As for himself … He had the skills, but at this stage, he still leaned towards letting Selina do the dirty work.

  They crept up the corridor, then up the servants’ staircase.

  Why they bothered creeping, he didn’t know. They could have banged around like a herd of baby elephants and no one would have batted an eyelid. Security in this place was a fucking joke.

  ‘So what now?’ Selina asked when they reached her floor.

  ‘You go your way, I go mine,’ he said.

  She immediately wrapped her arms across herself. Classic defensive posture. ‘May the best man—person�
��win? Isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘All’s fair in love and war might be more appropriate.’

  She smiled wryly, and headed up the corridor towards her room. ‘Good night, Jack.’

  Sweet dreams, bella.

  ***

  Selina reached her room and collapsed on her bed, face well and truly planted in her pillow.

  Jack bloody Tierney.

  What had she been thinking, exposing a great, big chunk of her heart like that? To a man who was trying to thwart her attempt to dig her way out of the hole that was her life, no less.

  Sneaky, cunning Jack. He’d made it sound so easy—answer a couple of questions and she’d be free to walk. She’d thought they’d relate to the necklace. She thought she’d be able to handle it, that she was too smart to give anything important away. She hadn’t expected his questions, hadn’t expected how they’d get to her. He’d managed to get her to divulge things she never shared. Things that shouldn’t matter, because what did they have to do with the Petrovsky sapphires?

  Had she really told him she was a gold digger?

  Had she really told him she wasn’t into sex?

  Guilty on both counts.

  She rolled over, taking the pillow with her and pulled it down over her face. She wasn’t sure if she was angry at herself or embarrassed. Both probably.

  Not that either of those claims were much of an exaggeration. Certainly, between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two, she’d thought marrying a rich guy would be the answer to all her problems. She hadn’t even completed her final year of high school, her career options were limited, and trying to keep her little family afloat on an EA’s salary—it would have been hard even without all the medical expenses. So she’d developed her current look and she’d dated extensively, with the express purpose of finding the right man; someone who, apart from having deep pockets, was kind and decent, ready to settle down, and able to make space for nonna and Anna and all their complications. In return … Well, in return, she would have held up her end of the bargain. She would have been a good wife—attractive, pleasing in bed, an asset in social situations. Maybe she and her husband wouldn’t have been madly, passionately in love, but they could have been friends.