Confidence Tricks (25 page)

“Because the owners don’t know they’re fake, and we don’t want them to find out. My turn.”

Her head spun. “Wait a minute—that’s barely even an answer. What do you mean they don’t know they’re fake? Are you telling me Todd thought he was giving me a real necklace that whole time?” The news hardly made him a prince, but it meant
something
.

Asprey kicked back a handful of cereal before aiming the empty box at the nearby wastebasket, hitting the plastic bag with a neat swish. “The owners don’t know, as in they think they’re in possession of the genuine article—a belief they continue to hold long after we relieve them of their goods. And yes. Todd had no idea it was fake. That’s three questions for me.”

“You’re cheating!” She jumped off the bed. “Those were follow-up questions.”

“It’s not my fault you aren’t any good at this game. Hand me those coffee packets, will you?”

Poppy tossed them over and made a face, but he didn’t eat them in crystal form. Instead, he unfolded himself from the bed and stretched, showing her the finely chiseled cheeks of his ass as he padded into the bathroom to—hopefully—collect his clothes. There was only so much morning nudity a woman could take with only a box of Lucky Charms to keep her mouth busy.

Asprey leaned his head out the doorway. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Seriously?” He was doing his questions all wrong again.

“Yes, seriously,” he shouted over the sound of running water. “I’d guess teal, but that seems a touch too obvious.”

There wasn’t anything to do but play along. “It’s pink.”

His head popped out again. “You’re lying.”

“I like pink,” she insisted. He was going to ask stupid questions and then not believe her when she answered them? “It’s pretty, and it makes me think of cotton candy.”

When he emerged, it was with his jeans slung low on his hips and his hair slightly dampened, his smile so bright it was unseemly for this hour of the morning. Two ceramic mugs containing what looked like muddied water inside were unseemly too, but lukewarm tap-water coffee was better than nothing. He handed her the mug with a picture of Garfield and an I Hate Mondays logo.

“Pink, huh?” Without spilling a drop of his coffee, he tossed himself onto the bed, his legs extended in front of him and crossed at the ankle, a god on rumpled sheets. She wished he’d put a shirt on. It was distracting. “You’re full of delightful surprises. How about this one—if you could travel anywhere in the world, money is no object, where would you go?”

“Well, I can’t go anywhere in the world because I’m on parole and probably will be for the next few years. You know—for that crime you refuse to ask me about.”

He waved his hand. “Let’s pretend you’re going with someone who has political connections and can get some of those pesky red tapes waived.”

Her heart thudded heavily, and she forced herself to focus on her mug. That wasn’t a promise. It was hypothetical. Things like that didn’t happen in real life.

“I never really thought about it,” she said, buying time while her pulse slowed. Worldwide travel had never been in her playbook before—she dreamed of getting out of Seattle, sure, maybe moving south, a grifter on the run. But if money wasn’t an object? “Somewhere I don’t speak the language. Lots of open sky. Electrical storms would be a bonus.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to speak the language?” he asked. “And yes, I’m aware that counts as question three.”

She studied the cracks in the ceiling tiles. “I don’t know. It seems like a really good way to be alone without being lonely, if that makes any sense. And I get so tired of talking about things all the time. It doesn’t accomplish anything.”

“Is that a hint?”

She smiled. “No. Just an observation. Now it’s my turn. How does stealing forgeries tie in to your family business?”

He released a long sigh. “That’s a huge question.”

“It’s your stupid game.”

Asprey must have realized he was trapped, because he set aside his cup and swung his legs off the bed, his body hunched, arms on his knees. He tilted his head to look at her. “The quick and easy answer is that every single thing we’ve taken—and it’s a lot—is insured by Charles Appraisals and Insurance.”

Poppy swallowed her mouthful of coffee. A lump in her throat made it oddly difficult. “As in, you guys have to pay out the insurance claim? For things you stole? Things that aren’t even real?”

Asprey nodded.

“That doesn’t make even the smallest bit of sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “Neither does turning yourself in to the police for a robbery in which they didn’t have a scrap of evidence that pointed to you as the culprit. Did you turn yourself in because you were guilty of the crime, or because you were protecting someone?”

Both those things. All those things. Once again, it was so hard to see her way through the fog of right and wrong. “Yes.”

“Just yes?”

“Just yes.”

“Okay, Poppy.” He got up and wrapped his arms around her, dropping a soft kiss on her hairline. It was undemanding and sweet and the move of someone who was also growing dangerously attached. “Are we done playing for now?”

She nodded.
We’re done playing for good.

Chapter Seventeen

“Is this some kind of joke?” Poppy took a step back, her hands up. “Why would I want to take her home with me? I can barely keep plants alive.”

“This is your new best friend,” Asprey offered. He unclipped the leash and set the wriggling animal on the ground. “But it’s not a her. His name is Gunner.”

The scrawny, tufted dog skittered across the cement floor of the hangar, its nails making a louder clacking than Tiffany’s endless work at her computer. It was some sort of hairy, ferocious Chihuahua mix, the only dog at the pound small enough to work for their purposes. One look at the tiny thing in its cage, teeth bared and leg poised to launch a urine attack on the first person who dared try to get in, and Asprey had known he was the right dog for Poppy.

“I thought you said you were going to borrow one, not buy one.” Poppy tilted her chin up at him and scowled. “I’m not really a long-term commitment sort of a girl. People or pets.”

“We can always take him back to the pound when we’re done.”
Real subtle, Poppy.
That woman had serious intimacy issues—and Asprey would know. It was an accusation leveled at his head more times than he cared to admit.

Poppy’s mouth fell open, her lower lip a testament to her indignation. “You will
not
. You can’t let him out of puppy jail just to shove him back in when he’s done his job. That’s mean—we aren’t running a chain gang here.”

As if to punctuate her statement, Poppy squatted to the dog’s level and extended a hand in greeting. Asprey couldn’t help but smile. After her reaction to the opossum, he’d been half hopeful that the sight of another undersized creature would send her catapulting into his arms. Only half hopeful, though. Those brief minutes when she’d wrapped herself around him, begging him to save her, were probably something of an anomaly.

Still, it had been a nice change, being the kind of guy a woman could count on, to have someone believe him dependable and capable and all those other adjectives that had eluded him for years. Not to mention finding out firsthand that there was something in this world that broke down Poppy’s ninja façade and allowed a glimpse of her soft, mushy insides. Asprey had a feeling that experience didn’t happen very often.

Though he was going to do his damnedest to get a repeat performance.

“I hate dogs,” Graff muttered, interrupting the moment with a heavy tread and huge sneeze. He handed Poppy a paper bag of supplies with one hand, holding a tissue to his nose with the other. “Food, water bowl, leash and a ridiculously small toothbrush the lady at the store says is important for oral hygiene. You don’t have any cats, do you?”

“No, why?” Poppy looked up from her spot on the floor, where Gunner made wary circles around her. “Are you allergic to those too?”

“Yes, he is,” Asprey said. “But he doesn’t like to talk about it. He thinks the sniffles are beneath him.”

“Apparently, that thing”—Graff let out another sneeze, loud and rumbling—“will attack anything of the feline nature.”

“Got it. No cats for my new partner in crime.” Poppy got as far as getting her hand under the dog’s nose before giving up and getting to her feet. She took the garment bag Asprey held out. “What’s this?”

“Your clothes. No offense, but you need to be an uptown professional woman. This should do the trick a whole lot better than…” He paused. How did one glibly describe a bright red halter sundress with yellow polka dots, once again paired with the cowboy boots that wouldn’t die? Charming? Strangely irresistible? Hot as all hell? “That.”

Poppy ignored him as she peeked in the bag and appraised its contents with cool efficiency. “I’m going to need nylons and pearls too. Also a shoulder bag—big, leather, no knockoffs, please. And sunglasses. Preferably Gucci.”

“What are we, a fucking department store? Make it work with what you have.” Graff blew his nose into the tissue and stormed off, casting one last, contemptible look at the dog before he went.

“What crawled up his nasal cavity and died?” Poppy asked.

“Graff hates anything warm and fuzzy. It’s in his nature. Also—between us? He’s nervous.” That was a huge understatement, but it was as close as Asprey was going to get to an explanation. Graff didn’t like giving up power over anything—especially things as big as the VanHuett job—and he had trust issues growing over the top of it like mold. “Graff likes to share his emotions by making other people feel small. It’s his way of showing he cares.”

“How noble of him.” Poppy rolled her eyes. “But you can tell Graff to relax. I’ve got skills he’s never even heard of.”

Asprey knew she was talking about the con, but still, his body reacted. She might be willing to pretend the other night in Aberdeen was a one-time lapse of judgment, and Asprey was willing to play along for now, but that didn’t mean the rest of him forgot. His dick had a long memory like that.

“Now, me?” he added. “I show I care by placing complete confidence in my criminal partners.” He squatted and put a hand out, intending to give Gunner a pat. The dog bared two vampire-sized fangs and lunged. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this dog graduated from the Poppy School of Social Interaction.”

“Very funny.” Poppy leaned down and scratched behind the dog’s ear. Finally sensing her kindred spirit, Gunner promptly fell to the ground, legs up, his tongue slavishly lolling up at her. “Maybe he can smell your ego and takes it personally.”

“Egos have a smell?”

“Yep. Smells like Ed Hardy cologne most of the time. Yours has more of a Calvin Klein feel to it.”

He laughed, happy to be falling into playful banter. Familiar, neutral territory was better than retreat. “I’d offer to keep Gunner myself, but our personalities are too similar. He thinks I’m the competition.”

“Similar how?” She quirked a brow and watched as the dog began to circle the leg of a carved medieval chest—fake, of course—looking for a place to mark. “You both destroy fine art?”

Asprey looked up, his gaze running the length of her leg. And while he appreciated the view, he didn’t stop until he reached her smile, which began to falter with the sudden shift in intimacy. “I’d say I’m more of a preservationist at heart. But we do both like
you
.”

She busied herself with pulling the respectable baby blue tweed skirt set from the garment bag. It was upscale and untouchable and not at all what Asprey was coming to associate with Poppy.

“I’m happy to keep the dog,” she said. “He might not be very big or very menacing, but he
is
pretty to look at.”

Asprey couldn’t resist. “And he can probably save you from opossum attacks.”

Her laugh escaped in a tumbled breath as she moved toward a screen in the corner of the hangar. It was a silk Chinese affair hand painted with giant red cranes—one of their first jobs, an easy one since it literally fell off a truck when a roadway obstruction they’d set up stopped it en route to the owner’s house.

He could see flashes of Poppy’s skin as she stripped and did something quick and twisty with her hair. There was enough to whet the appetite as she wriggled and squirmed far more than seemed necessary, the shadowy outline of her ass as she bent almost enough to make him go crashing through the screen to feel it in his hands once more.

“Your new mommy is a tease,” he mumbled to the dog.

When she reappeared, Asprey almost started clapping. Gone was Natalie’s suggestive swagger; nowhere to be found was Poppy’s decisive, athletic step. Lucy Higgenbottom—Tiffany picked the name—with her vintage suit and sleek French twist, adopted the tight, mincing gait of a woman who would rather kiss her dog than a hot-blooded man.

“How do you do that?” he asked wonderingly. “How do you change so easily from one person to another?”

“What?” she asked, looking at her suit as if seeing it for the first time. “They’re just clothes—nice ones, I’ll admit—but they’re only trappings. I feel like the First Lady.”

“It’s more than that,” he said. “The second you change your outfit, it’s like you actually become the person inside them. You’re not just wearing that suit—you’re part of it. No one would mistake you for Natalie right now, even if you added a blonde wig to the mix.”