East Bound by Nana Malone (big ebook reader txt) 📕

his gaze at me. "Why do you insist on making everything difficult?"

I sighed. "Denning, I'm not trying to make everything difficult. I just want to do my job and do it well. I'm telling you, that's the only reason I'm back. You might not believe me. Hell, you might believe me and just not care. I'm planning to stay out of your way if you can stay out of mine. We're adults. We should be able to make this happen."

He scowled at me. “No one wants you here."

The stab at the center of my chest nearly toppled me, but I stayed on my feet. I didn't waiver, just leveled my gaze at him. “They will have to deal with me. I have no intention of leaving.”

He straightened his shoulders. "Are you threatening me?"

"No, Denning, I'm not. And the moment you walked in here, I pressed record on my phone so you can't later say that I did."

His jaw tightened. "You're such a pain in the arse."

"Possibly. Oh, by the way, Hazel seems lovely. She was so nice. Insisted that it might be good for me to work here. Even if you don't necessarily agree."

"Why the fuck would she say that?"

"I don't know. She's not my girlfriend. But she seems to want to be my friend."

"You stay away from Hazel." He jabbed a finger in the air toward me.

"Sure. I'm not inclined to be her friend anyway. I feel like she makes poor judgment calls.” I was deliberate to not say anything specific, in case I needed to use the recording later.

"Don’t you have a lead to chase? I'd rather not see your face."

"Of course, guv. Off I go."

He marched out ahead of me. Before I left, I paused in front of the photo one more time. And suddenly, I remembered where I had seen it. In Lord Jameson's house. That was the very same painting in his ballroom. Holy shit. This was the connection I'd been looking for. And I needed to tell East straightaway.

East

That night my gaze was trained on Nyla’s arse as she bent over my desk, but it wasn’t for the reasons I wanted.

Oh no. She was vibrating with excitement about some work thing. "What's this?" I asked.

Since she'd been working late, I'd sat in the office with Ben, talking about one of our Caribbean properties. "Look at it."

Ben leaned over too. "Ah, it's a beautiful painting. It's a Wilson Collins, right?"

She nodded excitedly. She looked like she was about to burst at the seams from her excitement.

"Okay, babe, you have to tell us what's going on. Because I don't think either one of us gets it."

"Okay, It's a Wilson Collins. But that's not the important fact. Nor is it important that it was appraised at a value of ten million dollars before it was stolen."

Ben whistled low. "Well, okay, a ten-million-dollar painting, great. I'm with you so far."

She gave him an exasperated sigh. "Look at it. Don't you recognize it?"

Ben and I glanced down at the painting. It did seem somewhat familiar, but I didn’t know why I should know it. It wasn't one of ours from the family collection. It wasn't even the du Mont style. Wilson was too frenetic a painter. His paint was too close to the surface and didn't really fit into our style, so I'd never really tried to pick one up. Still though, it was gorgeous. "Help us out here."

She sighed. "Oh my God, where do you think the last place I saw this painting was?"

Ben shrugged. "Nyla, just tell us."

She pouted. "You're ruining my excitement."

He nodded. "I get that. But just tell us. It would make your life a lot easier."

"I saw this at the Jameson estate."

I sat up straighter just as Ben leaned forward, and we knocked heads. "Ow."

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair.

We both rubbed our foreheads and she stood staring at us. "Oh my God, and the fate of the free world is in your hands."

Ben shook his head. "It was his fault."

I merely rolled my eyes at him. "Are you sure this is in the Jameson ballroom?"

"Without a doubt. I remember it from the charity fundraiser.”

"Okay, so if it's in Lord Jameson's ballroom, why do you have a file on it?"

"Because when Ryder called and told us about the warehouse where all those stolen paintings were stored, guess what was recovered from it?"

Now I understood. "You're telling me this Wilson Collins was in the recovered art?"

"Yep. And I'm pretty sure, when they authenticate it, either everything in there will prove to be a forgery, or everything in there will prove to be a real thing, which means that Jameson's got a forgery, proudly displaying it. But maybe he thinks it's the real thing. I need those authentication results back."

"Fucking aye."

Ben scrubbed a hand over his face. "But it doesn't make sense for Jameson to be involved in that."

"Unless he knows it's a forgery. Maybe the Jamesons are hard up for money, and they're selling off their assets."

"Or," Ben theorized, "they reported it missing or stolen and got the insurance money. Which is a tidy sum, for sure."

"Okay, so, how do we find out?"

She started pacing. I knew this pace. She was excited. She was willing and ready to charge in. I'd seen this Nyla. This Nyla also worried me, because if this was true, and she'd seen that painting at Jameson's, then she was in danger and I had to protect her.

She's not yours to protect. 

I knew she wouldn't appreciate it. And it wasn't that I didn't believe she was strong. Hell, it was one of the sexiest things about her. But I still wanted to keep her safe. I loved her. I knew what this feeling was. I’d spent weeks trying to avoid them. "Okay, I hear you. But remember, one step at a time. Did you call Amelia?"

She winced. "No, I'll call her now. I mostly got excited, so I came here to tell you