A Brilliant Deception (36 page)

I
turned my head to see Ethan standing a few paces away, holding a coffee cup in each hand.

It was a miracle just to see him. There had been a moment when I didn’t think I ever would. He didn’t need to offer me anything more than a coffee. My heart expanded at the sight of him.

“Ethan—”

He strolled toward me and handed me one of the coffees. He was wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and Ray-Ban sunglasses that suited him so perfectly, he looked like he’d been born wearing them. A characteristic crooked smile played on his face. It was the best thing I’d seen all week.

I was suddenly flooded with emotion. “Thank you,” I blurted out. “For the coffee . . . and for Templeton. Everything,” I said breathlessly, stumbling over my words, sounding like an idiot. My face flushed and I took a deep breath. “I mean, how can I ever thank you enough?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure we can come up with something.”

I turned to him with a mock look of shock on my face. “Mr. Jones, I’m not sure I like the suggestion in your voice.”

He grinned. “I’m pretty sure you do.”

He put his coffee down on the railing. I took a sip of mine and placed it on the railing beside his. He turned to face me, more serious now. “How are you feeling, Montgomery? I mean—are you okay?” He looked me over carefully, his brow creasing with worry.

I nodded. “I’m okay. No permanent damage.”

He tried to smile through a pained expression. “That’s good.”

Then something occurred to me and I raised an eyebrow. “How did you know I was here, anyway?”

“Your mother,” he said, with a guilty expression.

Ah
. So that had been the purpose of her call. She must have sent him to check up on me. We stood in silence a little while, watching the sun melt down below the horizon. I thought of the last sunset we had shared—the one on the beach in Bali. My face flushed at the memory.

We’d had fun on that beach. But the truth was, I wanted more than that. I needed Ethan in my future. I wanted . . .
everything
with him. But my head filled with the echo of his last words on the phone when I’d asked him to rescue Templeton.
I can’t do this anymore
, he’d said.
There won’t be any more
us.

“I guess we won’t be working together anymore,” I said. “It was a good last job.” I tried hard to keep my voice upbeat.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“I’m not?” Hope bubbled up inside me.

“Didn’t Felix tell you? He offered me a position with the League, also.”

My eyebrows lifted. It was good news. A twinge of disappointment told me it wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped he was going to say. But it was still good news. “That’s wonderful, Ethan. Are you going to take it?” Of course, if we were working together, maybe there would be a chance to rekindle things again, someday . . .

“I need a little time to think about it,” he said, shrugging. “But I gotta say, doing the mission in Singapore—the black op to help Templeton—it made me realize that my skills could really make a difference. I could make the world a better place. I’ve never thought about that before.”

I knew exactly what he meant. I lifted my coffee and took another sip; it was still hot. No matter what happened, I would always remember drinking this coffee with Ethan on this bridge.

“I heard you gave your money to your NGO, Global Life,” I said, smiling. At least some genuine good would come out of this whole mess.

He nodded. “I did. I guess I’ve already started on my do-gooding.”

“They’re lucky to have you,” I said.

“You know, if I accept Felix’s offer, we’ll be working closely together again,” he said. He watched me carefully, gauging my response to this. Was he worried our history would mess with our ability to work together? Would he want to keep things professional?

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. I tried to read the expression on his face, but it was impossible. “You know I’ve always been content with the idea of being a bachelor forever,” he began.

I looked away. This had the sound of a breakup speech. But he’d already told me it was over—did he really think I needed to hear it again? I took a deep breath and struggled to gather my emotions. I stared at the sunset, barely hearing his words, trying to keep my breathing even and stop the tears from coming.

“. . . the fact is, you have changed my life in ways I can hardly put into words. I never imagined meeting anyone like you. I thought I wanted to be the lone wolf. Nobody to pin me down. But you changed all that. Freedom means nothing if it means I can’t be with you.”

Wait—what was he saying? I turned then, to see Ethan down on one knee.

“Catherine Montgomery, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And . . . I’m hoping, with every fiber in me, that you want the same thing.”

He held a ring in his hand. “It’s not the Lionheart,” he said, “and it’s not the Hope Diamond, but I’m hoping you like it all the same.”

I stared at the ring. It was the exact one I’d described when we had been on the Orient Express: a red diamond surrounded by a halo of tiny white diamonds.

“How did you . . . ?”

He winked. “I have skills, Montgomery.”

“Not stolen?”

He shook his head firmly. “Nope.”

As Ethan held the ring out to me, his hand trembled—something I had never seen in all our escapades together. At that moment a kaleidoscope of images flashed through my head, my future life with Ethan. There were adventures, travel, laughter, the excitement of doing missions together. It was all wonderful and thrilling. But the most wonderful of those images was the last one: the two of us cuddled by a fire on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Me reading a good book, Ethan watching the football game on TV and rubbing my feet as they rested in his lap. I could almost smell the coffee brewing in the kitchen.

It was perfect.

“Yes, Ethan.
Yes
. I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

My eyes burned and I was helpless to stop the tears that flooded them. I smiled through it. Ethan exhaled with relief and his eyes turned glassy. I stared at the ring as he placed it on my finger. It was impossible not to think of the Lionheart, looking at the ring now. Equally impossible was not thinking of the ring I used to wear. Penny’s ring.

Then he stood and in one fluid movement lifted me up, right off my feet. He laughed and let out a loud whoop, and—heedless of the tourists all around us—murmured sweet words as his mouth found mine. We kissed for a long, long time.

I knew the adventures we’d been through together, as crazy as they’d been, were nothing compared to what would come.

“What is it with us and bridges?” Ethan murmured. I smiled. We stood there, arms around each other, and gazed back toward the city as the sky filled with fire. I glanced down at the ring; it was spectacular. Truly a jewel thief’s ring . . . worn by a woman who was finished being a jewel thief.

For the first time in a long time, there was no struggle inside me. Just peace. I would still go on scaling buildings and sneaking around and doing things most people—wisely, I might add—were unwilling to do. But now I would be doing those things for all the right reasons.

I’d always known that everyone broke the rules eventually . . . and some of us even made a career out of it.

But what I’d learned was this: there was good and bad inside everyone. Which side would win? Well, that was in our own hands.

Even if those hands happened to be exceptionally talented at pickpocketing.

F
irst, heartfelt thanks go to my agent, Sandy Lu. Without her vision and tenacity, these books would never have been.

Thank you to my editor, Peter Senftleben, for bringing my books to life (and also for taking me out for my first publishing lunch in Manhattan). And thank you to the whole amazing team at Kensington and Lyrical.

An enormous hug of gratitude goes to Karma Brown for being a rock-star critique partner. Thank you to my writing support group on Facebook, the International Thriller Writers, the wonderful SIWC community, and my sister-wives at YMC.

I will be forever indebted to
Writer’s Digest
for awarding me second place for one of my first stories in their annual competition many years ago. Second place, of course, being the perfect place for a budding writer: high enough to be validating, not so high to make me think I knew it all.

Thank you to my parents for so many things. Life, mostly.

Kudos to my sisters for their never-ending support of their big sis and for letting me boss them around as we were growing up . . . and not holding it against me later.

Hugs and kisses to my boys—for many things, but mostly for their patience. Although I suspect a lot of that patience had to do with knowing there was another book launch party coming. My boys—always looking for an excuse to party. They’re not teenagers yet. I’m in trouble.

Thank you to my husband, Ken, for so much: for listening and brainstorming and not batting an eye when I burst from my writing room to announce random questions (“Would you expect to be served filet mignon on the Orient Express?”). Also for indulging me when I want to do things like go inside the Beverly Hills Hotel when we have no business being there. (“Yes, honey,
inside
. It’s for research.”) But most of all, for having the superpower of coming up with kick-ass book titles.

Thank you to the people of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire for feuding and providing this writer with a germ of an idea.

And thank you, Robin Hood . . . whoever you really were.

Kim Foster is the author of the Agency of Burglary & Theft Series, a series of novels about a professional female jewel thief. Prior to writing thrillers about thieves and spies, Kim obtained her degree in medicine, and she has been a practicing family doctor for sixteen years. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t make much sense to her friends and family, either.) Online, you can find her blogging about her left-brain, right-brain mash-up on
www.kimfoster.com
. Kim lives with her husband and their two young boys in Victoria, British Columbia, where she’s hard at work on her next book. And drinking a ridiculous amount of coffee.

To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

 

 

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Copyright © 2015 by Kim Foster

 

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ISBN: 978-1-6018-3066-1

 

ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-485-0
ISBN-10: 1-60183-485-3