Page 320 of The Romance Adventure

The Romance Gambit

Jolie

CHAPTER 1

It started innocently enough with me following a lead from Casablanca to Tangier. I lost him in the port city, so I traveled back to HQ in Malaga, Spain. Turns out he was a wily one and very, very attractive.

Rule number one: never fall for an asset. It’s more common than you’d think. But they never warned against falling for a target.

That’s a problem, but not one I can think about right now as I slip on a pair of black patent leather high heels to go with the black satin gown that has a slit up the side. I finish the look with a dangly pair of diamond earrings. With a quick glimpse in the mirror, I’m confident that I’ll fit in perfectly with the guest list.

Running in high heels is a skill I’ve perfected. Making a getaway in a confining dress has likely caused designers to curse me. I learned that lesson early on, hence the slit.

More than anything, I have to blend in with the rest of the wealthy and well-to-do guests at Sir Kent Von Dräger’s fete. Yes, people in this part of the world have fetes.

This one is of the humble brag variety. Von Dräger has a collection of rare and priceless pieces of art and antiquities. On display this evening, I expect to see a Monet, a Cézanne, and a Van Gogh.

He’s called the Art Wolf, among other things.

When I enter the palatial estate with mood lighting dimmed to make everything glitter, I’m surprised to see a Faberge Egg bedazzled with rubies. It appears to be one of the six missing Imperial Eggs, gifted from the Tsar to his wife in the 1800s.

That’ll do for my red herring.

The treasure I seek is something else that’s missing but far dearer to me.

The item in question was said to be intercepted by a pirate crew during a raid on a ship called Maré Carmesim. That’s a no-no in the rules of war, but pirates have their own code, and lately, so do I.

I stride into the room, shoulders back, chin lifted. The picture of confidence. I want eyes on me, but not too many. I belong here, and yet I don’t. I’m not ready to introduce myself to the host. Not yet.

I’m not a fisherman or a ballerina, but I’ve gone incognito as both. As for my true identity, I can’t give it up or I risk losing everything, including true love and my family’s legacy.

It’s one of those rock-and-hard-place situations.

Should anyone ask, I’m the daughter of a wealthy Spanish investor with an affinity for antiquities. He prefers to keep his identity private, so I serve as his proxy, assessing potential business partners.

Part of that is true, but I won’t say which.

Taking a spin around the room, I appear casual, smiling coyly, but not because I want to flirt. I’m not wearing my wedding ring, I’d never break my vows, even though our relationship started with a lie.

Having studied the security system in this building with its multitude of failsafe measures, along with the team in charge of making sure no one touches the goods, I mingle and blend in, waiting for the exact right moment.

When the swarthy host, dressed in a black suit and with a neatly trimmed mustache, enters the room, it’s like everyone lets out a breath of awe. He’s formidable and has reinvented himself multiple times—for instance, the facial hair is new—but not everyone here knows of his cunning or his crimes. No, most of them revere him as a lover of art and philanthropy or some other nonsense. They enjoy being in proximity to wealth and hope that a little bit of gold dust rubs off on them.

My breath does something else entirely. It suddenly belongs to a little girl who asked questions but never got answers. Turns out it was for a good reason.

Kent Von Dräger, with a list of aliases that took me a long time to sift through, is the kind of person who should come with a warning label, a do-not-try-this-at-home caution, and a keep-out-of-reach-of-children notice.

Someday, I’ll introduce myself, offering something he cannot refuse. But today is not that day.

Instead, I have a job to do. My mission here is twofold:

1. Gather whatever intel I can on Von Dräger’s involvement with arms dealers.

2. Get that little scrap of paper he practically guards with his life.

I have my work cut out for me.

Being sure that everything is in place, I bite my lip and do my best to make myself as invisible as possible while waiting for the right moment. The red herring heist will be sloppy. Certainly not my best work, but it’ll provide the distraction that I need.