Page 90 of The One-Night Heist

“Don’t worry about Rowen, Luxford.” He tossed a nut into the air and caught it in his mouth. “He’s got that fiery Anne Shirley temper, ya know?”

Oh I do.

I love it…

“Never thought I’d meet a billionaire who wasn’t a complete asshole,” he added, rising to stand and throwing the empty bag of nuts over his shoulder before approaching. “But I’d say you’re one of us.”

“A Robin Hood type?” I joked, even as my heart was breaking.

“Nah… just crooked enough to be interesting.” He clapped me on the shoulder, nearly knocking me over. “Try to stay out of prison, yeah?”

I laughed humorlessly, glad Rowen would be in good hands. “I’ll do my best.”

“Cool.” He walked toward the bedroom. “And keep Franz outta jail while you’re at it. I can’t have some wolf stealing that pretty face out from under me.”

With that, he kicked open the bedroom door before slamming it shut behind him, and I forced myself to turn my back on where I wanted to go, knowing what I needed to do first.

Twenty-Nine

Rowen

I slowly sipped what had to be my third—maybe fourth—Campari spritz of the day, because it was better than doing shots.

Or just grabbing an entire bottle of liquor.

Or laying down on any given street and letting a swarm of Piaggios run me over.

I’d hoped drinking would help me stop caring about discovering I was nothing but a pet project to Giano. Instead, it had done something far worse. For the past several hours—too many to count at this point—I’d grown disgustingly sentimental over a man I apparently knew nothing about.

You know him, Rowen.

Shut up, Rowen.

“I forgot how fucking weird you look with black hair, carrots.” Mick muttered before taking a swig of his Peroni. “Like that villain from Despicable Me…”

“Gru was bald, you moron!” I snapped, loud enough to cause a few of our fellow day-drinkers to tear their bleary gazes away from the football match on the flatscreen to give me some side-eye.

Judge all you want, assholes.

You’re all locked in here with me.

Unbothered as always by my outbursts, Mick shrugged and took another sip. “Same vibes, though. Same attitude problem.”

Instead of adding homicide to my extensive rap sheet, I fixed my gaze on the oversized mirror behind the bar, hand-painted with the name of the English-style pub we were randomly drinking at.

Ye Olde Existential Crisis.

Mick had dragged me here after we dyed my hair—in case I needed to go on the run after all—claiming my “attitude problem” was messing with the creative aura of his apartment. I was glad to be out of there anyway, partly because he had no central air, but also because he and Franz had apparently finished off whatever booze he’d had in the house. I also suspected nasty sex was had on the premises, and the last thing I needed was to be thinking about Daddy Pinstripes getting bent over an easel or whatever.

Of course, what I couldn’t stop thinking about was the decidedly not nasty sex recently enjoyed on my end—most shockingly, by me. It was shameful, really—a disgrace—that I of all people would not only allow someone to make love to me, but insta-come from being told to trust them? Me, trusting a fucking billionaire hiding his own agenda. Me?!

Clearly, I’d lost my goddamn mind.

Luckily, that temporary insanity was officially over, along with whatever situationship we’d pretended to have over the last couple weeks. Now, it was back to business, as it should have stayed in the first place. All I had to do was hold up my part of the bargain—returning Giano’s art—then decide what the hell I was going to do with the exorbitant amount of money promised to me.

On top of the black card he never took back…

I hadn’t realized I was still holding onto Giano’s infamous trust fund card until I was in the car to Mick’s, but by then I’d received a mile-long Signal message from Mr. Moneybags himself, outlining the specific expenses “approved” by his mother, so me using it wouldn’t raise any red flags. The list was heavy-handed as hell—and brought up emotions I did not want to deal with—with the only clear purpose seeming to keep up appearances as frivolously as possible. Along with not wanting to accept the charitable handout, I also had no intention of being just another dead-eyed consumer, cranking the capitalist cog until the end of days.