“Jeff.” Jeff grinned, mentally calculating how many minutes of flirting he would have to put in here before he could take Lianna home with him. Hopefully no more than fifteen. One more drink. He had a big day ahead of him tomorrow.
Jeff Stevens had been a con artist for as long as he could remember. He’d learned the basic skills of his trade as a boy at his Uncle Willie’s carnival, and they’d taken him all over the world, to places more dazzlingly glamorous and terrifyingly dangerous than the young Jeff had known existed. With his sharp, inventive mind, easy charm and devastating good looks, Jeff had quickly risen to the very top of his “profession.” He had stolen priceless paintings from world-famous art galleries, relieved heiresses of their diamonds and billionaire gangsters of their property portfolios. He’d pulled off jobs on the Orient Express, the QEII and Concorde, before that airliner’s tragic demise. Working with Tracy Whitney, in the heyday of his career, Jeff had pulled off some of the most audacious and brilliant heists ever accomplished in a string of cities across Europe, always targeting the greedy and corrupt, and always managing to stay one step ahead of the hapless police as they tried and failed to link him or Tracy to any crime.
Those were happy days. The best days of his life, in many ways.
And yet, Jeff reflected, he was happy now too. After losing Tracy for ten long years—after they married, Tracy suspected Jeff of having an affair, wrongly as it turned out, and disappeared off the face of the earth—they were now back in contact. Tracy had saved Jeff’s life a few years back, when a deranged former FBI agent named Daniel Cooper had tried to kill him. It was in the aftermath of that ordeal that Jeff learned he had a son, Nicholas. Unbeknownst to Jeff, Tracy had been pregnant when she took off and had raised the boy alone in Colorado, with the help of her ranch manager, a decent, sweet man named Blake Carter.
Jeff had seen at once that Blake was effectively already a father to Nick, and a damn good one. He’d loved the boy enough not to try to change that. Tracy had introduced Jeff as an old friend, and in the intervening years Jeff had become a sort of unofficial godfather to his own son.
Perhaps it was a strange arrangement. But it worked. Jeff adored Nick, but his life was way too crazy to provide a stable environment for a child, or teenager as Nick was now. This way they could be friends, and hang out and send each other stupid videos on Vine that Nick’s mother wouldn’t approve of. Jeff did want to visit the boy more. But he hoped, with time, Tracy would come around on that point.
As for Tracy, the love between the two of them was still there, still as strong as ever. But she too had made a new life for herself, a peaceful, calm, contented life. For Jeff, the adrenaline rush of pulling off the perfect con remained irresistible. It was as much a part of him as his legs or his arms or his brain. Even so, he would have given it up for Tracy, as he did once before when they married. But as Tracy had said, “If you gave it up, Jeff, you wouldn’t be you. And it’s you I love.”
So Jeff had returned to London and his old life. But this time it was different. Better.
Now he knew that Tracy was alive. And not just alive but safe and happy. Even more wonderful, he had a son, a fabulous son. Nick became the purpose of everything now. Every job Jeff took, every penny he made, was for his boy.
He gave up drinking, only gambled occasionally and started turning down any jobs he perceived as too high risk. It wasn’t just him anymore. Jeff could no longer afford to be so reckless.
On the other hand, he thought, resting a hand on Lianna’s buttermilk thigh and feeling himself growing harder by the second, a man must have some pleasures in life.
Jeff would never marry again. He would never love again, not after Tracy. But asking Jeff Stevens to forsake women would be like asking a whale to live without water, or commanding a sunflower to grow in the dark.
Leaning forward, he was about to ask for the bill and bundle the lovely Lianna into a cab when a tall, thin, older man stepped angrily between them.
“Who the hell are you?” the man asked, glaring at Jeff. “And what are you doing pawing my fiancée?”
Jeff raised an eyebrow at Lianna, who flashed him back an apologetic half smile.
“Jeff Stevens.” He offered Angry Man his hand but was met by another withering glower. “She never mentioned she was . . . that you were, er . . . congratulations. When’s the big day, Mr. . . . ?”
“Klinnsman.”
Jeff swallowed hard. Dean Klinnsman was probably the biggest property developer in London after the Candy brothers, and he allegedly ran a sizable organized crime operation. He had a small army of Poles, building contractors by day, whom he used after hours as enforcers paying the kind of visit to Klinnsman’s enemies and business rivals that Jeff Stevens definitely did not want to receive.
“A pleasure to meet you Mr. Klinnsman. I’ll be on my way.”
“You do that.”
Dropping a wad of fifties on the bar, Jeff practically ran for the door.
“What was his name?” Dean Klinnsman growled at his young fiancée, once Jeff had gone.
“Madely,” the girl answered without blinking. “Max Madely. He’s here on vacation. Isn’t that right, James?”
She looked at the barman, who went white with fear.
“I believe so, Madam.”
“He lives in Miami,” the girl went on. “I think he makes, like, coffee machines. Or something.”
“Hmmm,” Dean Klinnsman grunted. “I don’t want you talking to him again. Ever.”
“Oh, Deano!” Lianna coiled herself around the famous developer like an oversexed snake. “You’re so jealous. He was only being friendly. Anyway, you needn’t worry. He flies back to the States tomorrow.”
JEFF’S CAB RIDE HOME took longer than it should have, thanks to the driver’s taking some stupid detour around the park. As they crawled past the grand, stucco-fronted houses of Belgravia, Jeff found himself tuning in to the talk show debate on the driver’s radio.
Two men, both politicians, were arguing heatedly about Group 99 and the ongoing but so far fruitless search for both Captain Daley’s killer and the American hostage, Hunter Drexel.